Dust and Heat

philosofool

Senior member
Nov 3, 2008
283
19
81
So, I'm probably about to tell you something you already know. But maybe some people don't, so here goes.

About three years ago I got an inexpensive after market CPU heatsink and fan to replace the swarm of mosquitoes that intel included with my core i5 750. I was specifically interested in a quiet cooler with acceptable performance, since I'm not an OC'er. I was extremely pleased by both the silence and performance on the new cooler (a SilenX model something or other.)

However, recently I had noticed my CPU temps getting pretty out of control. I was running in the high 70s and low 80s in Prime95 heat tests and even reaching those numbers while gaming. Today, I had a problem with my video and, fearing the best, immediately checked to see if the card had failed (failed card = excuse to replace 3 year-old card!), but allas, the cord had just pulled loose. Anyway, I noticed with the case open what I would call a ton of dust on the CPU heat sink. It occurred to me that there was enough dust to inhibit airflow over my heatsink, so I vacuumed it off.

Result: my CPU is now at 69-71 in Prime95.
 

Charlie98

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2011
6,292
62
91
Dust is evil... Not only will it clog up the exchanger fins on a cooler, but gum up fan blades, making them less efficient.

My house is extremely dusty and I finally had to swap into a case with built in filters to help combat dust buildup. It's helped immensely, but I still get in there about every 6 months and hose it out with compressed air.
 

Tweakin

Platinum Member
Feb 7, 2000
2,532
0
71
Dust is evil... Not only will it clog up the exchanger fins on a cooler, but gum up fan blades, making them less efficient.

My house is extremely dusty and I finally had to swap into a case with built in filters to help combat dust buildup. It's helped immensely, but I still get in there about every 6 months and hose it out with compressed air.

I'm totally under water and I blow out the rads every 3 months, if not more.
 

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
16,053
1,681
126
I'm totally under water and I blow out the rads every 3 months, if not more.

You had touted your enthusiastic conversion to H2O "religion," and I will eventually follow in your footsteps as a neophyte or acolyte. But between complaints from people about noisy AiO fans, and your observation here, dust is a PITA whether it clogs heatpipe-fins or a radiator.

I'm gonna buy one of those electric "Metro-[something]" airblowers soon, even for their $80-something price-tag. Filters: have to be cleaned periodically. Fins: have to be cleaned periodically. Radiators: have to be cleaned periodically.

And -- a decent paintbrush for cleaning heatsink fins is going to cost maybe a dollar or two.

But it's so, so easy to procrastinate the minor disassembly required for cleaning. Then, a year down the pike -- you see your temperatures spike.

Another reason mainstreamers are going mobile. Mainstreamers don't clean the dust from their OEM computers. They just recycle them to buy a new one!