Be extra careful when cleaning out the fans in your laptop with compressed air...
38 comments · 98% upvoted · source · other discussions
comments
marktastic [OP]
theblobAZ
LOL.
Too much PSI I suppose. That's a bummer!
blorporius
Did the blades catch on to something, or just revved up too high and disintegrated by themselves?
marktastic [OP]
Not entirely sure. It happened in less than a second. Probably a combination of both.
kasual7
Yep something I read before I dusted my ps4 pro: hold the blades tight while blasting.
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nidgetorg_be
You are not a fan ? Better for you in this case ;-)
BelleHades
compubomb
NO, not compressed air. With a air compressor. Air compressors put out more pressure than typical compressed air cans. Most people who clean out their laptops use air cans, and they normally only put out a small amount of pressure overall. A air compressor can put out an insane amount of pressure very quickly. That makes total sense that would happen unless you have a special adapter to bring down the pressure.
Samsquanchiz
Yep, huge difference. "Canned air" can be used extremely liberally when dealing with electronics because of their lack of psi and moisture.
JC_Le_Juice
What happened here?
marktastic [OP]
I shot a blast of air from my compressed air tank and fan spun super fast and all of the blades/fins broker off. Took less than a second. Pressure was likely too high.
The other fan I held down so it wouldn't spin while I blasted it from further away.
I admit I'm a doofus.
Indianb0y017
Well. You live and learn. Your mistakes will help others from making said mistakes my guy. I salute you.
[deleted]
Aha always hold the blades when you do that, but i guess you know that know :P
See the good news, you have to buy new fans now, maybe they'll cool better your laptop ;) Woups actually it wouldn't have changed anything right, there was just too much pressure
PristineEdge
Compressed air tank? If you're using an air compressor on computer fans, then it's pretty obvious something is going to break.
MogRules
This is what happens when your not careful and blast the fans to hard :(
The newer style fan blades in these laptops are SUPER thin and can be broken fairly easily.
It's always advisable to hold the fans still if you can when you blow out the fans with compressed air so that this can't happen.
TheyTheirsThem
Ditto for removing case screws with an impact wrench. /s
marktastic [OP]
I'm starting to see some infomercial potential here...
Are you tired of using tiny tools for delicate equipment?
AggressivePersimmon
You can also burn out the bearings. This goes for all fans; PS, CPU, graphics card. Hold the fan still then blast away.
nidgetorg_be
Well, it's super clean now. Added bonus: it won't grasp dusts anymore.
StandAloneComplexed
Air hit the fan, he.
mu7x
Yes what happened?
Gabozer0
I usually get a pin or pencil between the blades so when using the compressed air the blades don’t spin too fast. I do this for desktop pc or other devices
Vulpinemission
Use canned air case closed
se4tt13
After the 1.14.1 BIOS update for Precisions, the fans now run constantly at high speed so thanks for posting that since our users are going to have more problems with dirty fans and heatsinks due to this Dell-created problem.
crespo_modesto
looks fine to me /s
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[removed]
Anti-The-Worst-Bot
You really are the worst bot.
As user CarrieMH687 once said:
Why do you waste your time doing this
I'm a human being too, And this action was performed manually. /s
crespo_modesto
I see, I see, I try to be somewhat sane
crespo_modesto
You may have just passed the turing test
New fan on the way. Throttling down everything in the meantime!