Dust can damage your computer, but it’s not always easy to tell if it’s the cause of your computer problems. In some cases, dust may be the only thing causing your computer to malfunction. If you think that dust is the problem, you should take steps to clean your computer and remove any dust that may be on it.
Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-drive grouping of Q&A web sites.
The Question
SuperUser reader Holy Sheet poses a question about dust and computer hardware:
Can neglecting to spring clean your PC damage it? Let’s investigate.
The Answers
SuperUser contribute Daniel R. Hicks offers some assurance and insight on the matter:
Fellow contributor EdH offers some field experience to corroborate the previous assessment:
What could happen, in some circumstances, is condensation inside the box, mixing with dust and creating a conductive sludge. This would generally only occur if you bring the box in from an extremely cold environment (below 0C, roughly) into a humid indoor environment. The protection from this is to wrap the box tightly in plastic before bringing it indoors, and leave it wrapped for a couple of hours, while it has time to warm up.
While you’re at very little risk of a dust blanket shorting out your hardware, heat is the eternal enemy of computers and a good cleaning will help keep things cool (and extend the life of your computer in the process).
Now, optical drives. That’s a different story.
For more information on how to clean your computer and peripherals safely and effectively, check out the following resources:
How To Thoroughly Clean Your Dirty Desktop Computer Why You Should Never Vacuum Your PC Ask The Readers: What’s Your Tech Spring Cleaning Routine? How to Thoroughly Clean Your Keyboard (Without Breaking Anything)
Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.
