Most laptops use fans to cool components that would otherwise overheat. Typically a laptop will take one or ii fans cooling the main processor and graphics chip. Many designs use a heatpipe system to depict heat away from these components, with a unmarried fan cooling a heatsink which is attached to the heat-pipes. The heatsink will accept lots of fins to dissipate the heat, and dust can too build up between these fins, reducing cooling efficiency enormously.

With everything packed tightly to brand the laptop every bit slim every bit possible, there's very little room for airflow. And that ways that even small amounts of dirt and dust can hamper the cooling system's effectiveness.

How to clean a laptop

If your laptop'southward fan is running more than noisily or more oft than usual or won't turn off at all, the first place to wait is in Windows' Job Manager (Ctrl-Shift-Esc). On the Processes tab you'll see how much of your laptop's resources each app is using, just yous may accept to click on 'More details' to run across these stats.

Wait for any app using a high percent of the CPU time, as this is commonly the main culprit when a fan is running at top speed.

If there'due south nothing out of the ordinary, you can attempt to clean the fan and heatsinks. Unfortunately, this is non an easy job in many modern laptops which aren't designed to exist opened upwardly by users, and fans can be located deep inside.

Other laptops have removable 'service' panels underneath that require only a screwdriver to remove, but getting to the fan is the all-time way to properly clean it.

How to make clean a laptop fan using compressed air

If you're not confident using a screwdriver to dismantle your laptop, take hold of a can of compressed air or effort a camera lens air duster if you're worried almost using compressed air. Vacuum cleaners are not recommended: they're quite ineffective at removing grit from laptops and they can besides crusade a build-up of static electricity which you don't want around a laptop.

Obviously make sure the laptop is powered off before yous outset, and remove the bombardment if possible. Insert the nozzle of the air duster into the vents (or equally close as you can get information technology) and beginning blowing the dust out. Attempt and stop the fan blades turning using a long plastic object - you'll take a hard time removing dirt from a spinning fan.

Laptop fan clogged with dust

How to clean a fan by opening upwards your laptop

For those that are happy to wield a screwdriver, turn off your laptop, flip it over, and remove the bombardment, if possible.

If there is one, remove the plastic or metal panel in the base of operations and hopefully it will reveal the fan. Your success hither will depend entirely on your laptop model. If you don't encounter the fan at all, you'll accept to go one stride further and remove other parts. There are many YouTube videos that show how to take laptops autonomously: just search for your make and model.

If you can access the fan, use a pocket-size brush to remove whatever dirt and dust. If you use compressed air, don't get besides shut with the nozzle and be sure to end the blades moving. Yous'd do well to unscrew and remove the fan at this point and check for whatsoever other dirt underneath it which could be clogging up the heatsink or air vents.

Later on yous've removed the fluff and dust, replace parts in the club you removed them.

Can I supersede the fan in my laptop?

Many laptop fans take plastic bearings which don't terminal forever. If your fan is emitting a loud whine (which it didn't when you offset got the laptop) it's probably time to replace it. Here, ebay is your friend merely it helps if you lot take a popular make of laptop: we plant a lot of Dell, HP, Acer and Asus fans but you'll need to search for your exact laptop model.

Before you order annihilation, check you lot can access the fan and lucifer up the dimensions or check with the seller to be certain y'all're getting the correct function.

Sometimes, these jobs are best left to the experts and so contact your laptop manufacturer or a local repair shop for a quote.

Laptop cooling pads

A cheaper and easier selection is to purchase a cooling pad which is substantially external fans for your laptop. Yous'll pay more than for pad from a well-known brand, and less for a no-proper noun pad from Amazon or ebay.

For example, the 1 below has three fans and 2 USB ports and costs £12.99 / $24.99 from Amazon:

How to keep your laptop cool

It'south non as convenient to have to use your laptop on superlative of a pad such as this, merely the cooling result should take the load off the internal fans and potentially make everything cooler and quieter.