Your laptop might be serving you all day long without even a single malfunction. And a good quality laptop has the ability to do that, certainly. But if you don’t be aware of certain maintenance chores of your laptop, it will wear out in terms of performance, no matter how pricey or good it is. And one of those basic maintenance acts is cleaning the laptop fan.
You see, the fan of the laptop is the backbone of the exhaust system of your laptop. So, it’s obvious that there will be quite some dust buildup and debris stock. And throughout this post, we’ll be taking you through steps on how to clean laptop fan like a pro.
How to Clean Laptop Fan? Tips
We must keep cleaning our laptop fans if we want to get excellent performance. Also, it stops laptop overheating and keeps cooling. So you should know how to clean a laptop fan properly.
Clean Laptop Fan without compressed air
At first, let’s go through the less costly and easier way of cleaning your laptop fan. It would require no air compressor, as the title says. Here go the steps-
Step 1: Take off the bottom panel
It’s compulsory to take off the bottom cover (panel) of your laptop to open up the laptop enclosure. Mostly, there will be screws that you have to unscrew. In case they are of regular size, a small phillips-head screwdriver would do the job fine. IN case the screws are ultra-small, you might be in need of a pair of tweezers.
Once you are done with opening up the cover, the cooling fan should be in front of you.
Step 2: Make sure a secure fit
At this stage, you have to ensure a secure holding on the position of the fan. This can be done by holding it with your fingers. Make sure that the blades do not rotate when you will be approaching the next steps of this guide.
Step 3: Take a cloth to do the primary cleaning
There will be dust particles that are not able to be cleaned with blown air. So, take a soft fiber cloth and rub the surface of the fan. This will take away the dust and dirt from the central area of the fan.
Over a few terms, the cloth will get dirty. So, you have to either replace it with a new one or clean it off to use over again.
Step 4: Take care of the tents
There are air vents around the fan blade. At this point, you have to take off the dirt from that vent area. This can be done with the same fiber cloth. Apart from cleaning off the dust accumulated in the vent area, you can take care of the other open parts of the fan as well.
Step 5: Blow off the fan
This is the final step of the core cleaning process, where you will be wiping off all the dust that had not been removed until step 4. Here, you can blow air with your mouth to dislodge the dust that might have fallen into the fan.
As the airflow won’t be much from your mouth, you have to blow it several times to make sure that the fan is clean enough.
Step 6: Put the bottom cover back
Done with the process? Now, it’s time to put the cover back on the laptop bottom and screw it up tightly. Remember to keep the screws in a safe place while you’re going through the whole process.
Clean Laptop Fan with compressed air:
In case you are not confident enough to take yourself through all those screwing and unscrewing process, this method might be the right suit for you. You will be requiring a can of compressed air that can be sourced from an air compressor. In case you don’t have one, an electric air blower will be a decent alternative.
Let’s check out the steps-
Step 1: Make sure that the fan is ready to be cleaned
Before starting the process, you’ve to ensure that the laptop is powered off and no electric signal is passing through the motherboard of the laptop. If possible, remove the laptop battery as well.
Step 2: Start cleaning with compressed air
With a can of compressed air, you should have a nozzle that concaves the path of release. Put that nozzle right onto the fan vent, and make sure it is as close as possible to the fan blades.
Now, start blowing the dust with compressed air. As there will be a decent amount of air pressure in the compressed air, you have to keep an eye on the pressure level that’s coming off the nozzle Excessive pressure can rather damage the fan blades.
While going through the whole process, make sure that the rotation of the fan blades is stopped using an obstacle made of plastic or so. This will rescue you from a hard time of cleaning a fan’s dirt while it’s spinning.
Step 3: Take off the dust
While you are going through the complete step 2, the dust that had been removed will be scattered around the fan area. Before putting back the laptop into order, you need to clean that dust around.
You can use a fiber cloth or a small vacuum cleaner for that purpose.
Frequently Asked Questions(FAQ)
Question: Should I use a vacuum cleaner to clean the laptop fan?
Answer: No, using a vacuum cleaner is strictly prohibited in this case.
Question: Should I add any kind of detergent solution to the fiber cloth?
Answer: Nope. that’s also something threatening to the electrical components of the fan.
Question: What to do with a worn-out fan blade?
Answer: The best possible way out is to replace the fan blade with a new one.
Bottom Line
So, that’s a couple of methods that we recommend about how to clean laptop fan. Hopefully, you will be able to adopt one of these two without any prior hassle. But keep an eye not to damage other parts to get other parts of the laptop dirty while you are cleaning. And beware of using any sort of liquid cleaner on your laptop.