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Computers reduce temperature by using a number of fans that cause air to circulate through the case. Unfortunately, dust and other small particles generally ride that circulating air and end up inside of your pc. Over time, this will put extra strain on your fans. They will ultimately fail if this dust is not handled. Once your fans die, you will have to get new ones or your components will overheat. Overheating parts will break down very rapidly. Many people don't figure out that their fans are gone until a piece of hardware dies.

However, there are no more than a small number of safe tricks to clear dust from your computer. The mechanisms that get rid of dust can also damage system parts. Even the safest methods should be used sparingly. There must be a balance between these two concerns.

The simplest tool for removing dust is a can of compressed air. When you buy canned air, you want to make sure that the specific formula is designed for use on computer parts. Since canned air is pretty cheap, price shouldn't be an hurdle in this pursuit.

If you have a desktop PC, you will have to open the case in order to clean the dust from your pc. When you start spraying the canned air inside your case, you could observe a white foam forming on the surface. This is liquid butane being forced out by the compressed air (typically because you are holding the can at an angle) and it evaporates in very little time. While this does no damage to your computer, you might want to try to keep the can perfectly straight as you are spraying so that it lasts longer. You might have to stop the fans from rotating while you're cleaning by placing a soft object alongside the fan blade. This is a controversial step, many users dust off their fans without doing this. As long as you choose something that will not damage the fan to prop the blades in place, it should be fine, but the decision is yours. You should make sure to blow the dust off of each fan in your machine. There may be multiple case fans. You also might have another fan on the heat sink of your CPU. If you have a high quality graphics card, it might have a fan as well. Your power supply fan is a very important one to remove, a dirty power supply fan can literally catch on fire.

You also want to get rid of dust sitting on any other components inside your pc. Once you have completed this task, you might note an improvement in the operating temperature of your computer. If so, you have likely waited too long to dust your machine.

If you are dealing with a laptop, this will be a little more complex. You can dust off the outside very easily. Still, the inside will become dusty too. You can access the fan intake and exhaust with the small straw included with most canned air buys. For most users, this will do the trick. You may have to take your laptop apart from time to time to dust off the rest of the interior. This is an advanced step. If you don't know how to dismantle your laptop safely, you should probably not experiment with this.

You don't need to obsessively remove dust from your computer. Doing this too often may damage your fans or other parts. However, you should try to do it every few months. This will add years to the life of your hardware components.