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Safe to use a feather duster on heatsink?

Mrvile

Mrvile

Lifer
I think those plastic feather dusters (the ones with the colorful strands of plastic, not real feathers) use static to pick up dust. Would this be safe to use on my XP-90? I mean I won't have the comp on or anything, but since I don't have immediate access to compressed air or a powerful enough vaccuum could this work temporarily? Thanks.
 
As long as you detach the heatsink from your system first, and ground yourself (and the heatsink) before re-seating it, I don't see why not...
 
Yeah well if I detached it I would probably just go ahead and rinse it in water. So I guess I shouldn't do it while it's on the CPU?
 
Chances are extremely high that you can walk in and pick up some cans too. Places like Staples, Office Depot, Office Max, Best Buy ALL carry cans of air. With locations all over the country, you should have at least one of those stores near (or near enough) to you. That is, unless you're in the middle of nowhere.
 
You could also use a strong vacuum cleaner. That would actually REMOVE dust, rather than just blowing it around. Just make sure the business end of the vacuum is plastic, and that you don't touch sensitive components with your hands while the vacuum cleaner is on.
 
Yeah I know that canned air or a vaccuum is the best way to do it, but like I said, I don't have access to them right now. First of all I don't know about canned air since it would just blow dust around, and the good vaccuum we have is at a rental property 40 minutes away. Maybe if I used some canned air and the weak vaccuum (which isn't able to pick up the dust from the hsf by itself) to get rid of some of the dust.
 
Originally posted by: Mrvile
PS - how often do you guys dust?
Click to expand...
I blow the dust out of mine about every month, completely dissassemble the system for dusting every 6 months.
 
this is my heatsink fan.

I did not realise that one of the metal slot covers had come out of my case... and after about 6 months (during house renovations and a bunch of cats) the heatsink was soooo clogged with dust and stuff that it was cause functionality problems.

I took the heatsink off the cpu... removed the fan... and used a feather duster to loosen the stuff then used a vacuum to get get rid of it all... Got some arctic silver 5 and to be honest, it has never run better.

🙂
 
I just use a small paint brush to clean heatsinks and fans - I just keep one hand on the chassis and touch the bristles to the chassis frequentily to bleed any static. And antistatic brushes can be had at some computer parts places

.bh.
 
Ok zepp that's what I was looking for thanks. My hsf isn't that dusty, but I'm starting to see the dust build up so I figure it's time to clean up. Hasn't really affected my temps yet, maybe only like 1 degree difference but I just wanna clean it now out before I need to do anything major.
 
best way, get a can of compressed air.... blow out dust with 1 hand using compressed air can and in the other hand hold the vacuum so all the dust goes into the vacuum...
 
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