To keep your PC running like a well-oiled machine, you must, well… not oil it… but dust it!

考虑到坐落在壳体内部的角落和缝隙，清洁PC似乎是一项耗时而艰巨的任务。但是，在阅读了此简单指南之后，您将确切知道如何在不汗流的情况下保持PC原始的内部和外部！我们还将提供一些灰尘的提示preventionfurther down.

The cleaning intervals are all ballpark estimations, and of course you should clean out your PC earlier if the interior of your case turns into a dust bunny sanctuary.

让我们开始吧！

---

设备

As always when you’re delving inside of your PC, the safest move is to have some anti-static protection so you don’t fry all those 1’s and 0’s imprisoned on your hard drive. An easy solution is抗静电腕带(a fabric bracelet with a metal clip at the end of a long wire that discharges any static you’ve built up). Clip it to something capable of grounding you, like the metal edge of a desk or even your PC case, and you’re ready to get to work!

The only others tools you’ll need are一罐压缩空气and whatever螺丝刀(s) allows you to partially disassemble your computer. If you don’t want to use the air, or find it doesn’t quite do as thorough a job as you want,a microfiber clothcan be employed for hands-on dust-off work.

---

外壳

First impressions are important, and the first thing you see on a computer are the external components. Before we get into the nitty gritty, we’ll quickly cover the bits and pieces that need to be cleaned or dusted on the outside of your PC case first.

Screens and Filters

We’ll look first at one of the most effective and simplest anti-dust measures:防尘屏。While not every case features a dust filter, they can be installed after the fact, and the vast majority of modern cases do (And should!) have them. These porous filters are about as straightforward as you’d expect; they sit directly in front of the intake fans to capture as much dust as possible before it reaches the guts of your PC. Finer screens theoretically capture more dust, but require more frequent cleaning before they clog themselves up and start causing problems (like increased component temperatures, and added wear to fan motors).

If your case features a dust filter at all on the intake fans, then it’s good enough to be worth using. If your computer doesn’t feature any dust filtration, you can buy universal screens off Amazon that magnetically attach to the various grills of your case, filtering dust before it gets inside.

理想情况下，这些屏幕需要经常清洁，大约每个月（取决于计算机花费的时间以及您的环境的清洁程度），但是频繁维护的权衡是，它们大大减少了您的清洁量’ll have to do in the future.

要清洁灰尘过滤器，请首先小心地取下屏幕，然后使用超细纤维布轻轻去除所有大块的灰尘。要清除较小的灰尘沉积物，要么用压缩空气将屏幕吹扫，要么在室温下运行，然后用毛巾将其轻轻擦干。如果这样做，请确保将其完全干燥，然后再将其放回PC中！检查过滤器，以确保网格中没有孔或眼泪可以使灰尘通过，然后在您的情况下重新安装。

进气口和排气扇

Without a dust screen on your intake fans, all your case fans will get crustier than the outer edge of a pizza rather quickly. In this case, it’s best to clean the fans as they build up dust.

因此,在缺乏一个过滤器或屏幕,这是more-difficult-to-clean fans themselves that you’ll need to clean every month or so. With filters that are regularly cleaned, you can usually let the fans go 3-6 months between cleanings unless you live in a particularly dusty place. But either way, you should immediately clean them if you notice they’ve built up a pronounced layer of dust that you can see just by looking at the blades. Dust on fan blades can reduce the amount of air they push, put more stress on the motor, and it’s just plain ugly!

You can generally clean fan blades while they’re still installed in your case, but if you want to do a more thorough job or it has been many months since they were cleaned, it makes the process easier if you remove them first. To remove the fans, simply unscrew the four corners of the fan frame and pop it out for easy cleaning. Make sure you hold the blades still while cleaning (especially when using compressed air), otherwise you may not get all of the dust off!

• • • • If you opt toleave the fans installed, remove the front panel and use a microfiber cloth to gently wipe them clean on both the front and back faces of the blades. If you use compressed air, hold a microfiber cloth behind the fan before blowing clean! Otherwise, the air will blow all that dust right back into your case, in places much harder to clean than a simple fan blade.
      • If youremove the fansfrom your case, it will make the task of cleaning them much quicker. Once the front panel and fans are removed, you can use either a microfiber cloth or compressed air to clean the fan blades over a garbage can or similar receptacle to catch the falling dust. When they’re all clean and fresh, they’re ready to be reinstalled.

Power Supply Filter Screen

电源具有自己的风扇，以帮助冷却内部的组件，从而为您的PC提供足够的电源。通常，案例将包括外壳底部端口上的额外的防尘滤波器，使空气从下方进入PSU。只需每3-6个月左右卸下屏幕即可用压缩空气吹干或用超细纤维布擦拭干净，然后将其重新插入您的壳体中。简单的！

---

Inside the Case

Alright, it’s finally time to take off the side panel of the case and clean the innards of the machine so it’s dust-free!

CPU Cooler

Your processor, no matter how young and spry, cannot keep your PC runningBaldur’s Gate每秒2000帧，没有有效的冷却溶液，可适当维护。幸运的是，将灰尘从冷却器中取出并保持CPU冷却器的尖端形状并不多。您可能需要考虑每4-5年更换一次热糊，但是否则，这里的清洁程序很简单，并且可以以与清洁案例风扇相同的频率完成。

无论您的PC具有液体冷却环还是传统的空气冷却器，清洁过程都保持不变：

• • • • Liquid Radiator- 从外壳内部拧下散热器和风扇。The CPU pump (The little block that sits right on top of the CPU) can remain attached to the processor if you don’t need to replace the thermal paste, and if the water piping/tubing is long enough for the radiator to be easily cleaned without removal of the pump. Once free from the case, blow the fins of the radiator out with a can of compressed air, preferably over a bag or garbage can unless you really enjoy the comforting softness of dust all over your desk and floor.

• • • • Air Radiator- 与将散热器脱离CPU的液体冷却器不同，空气冷却器直接连接到motheboard。因此，您的选择是将其吹出位置（瞄准尽可能多的案件的最近排气口，并处理此后其他地方的灰尘，或者其他地方完全删除了冷却器，尽管that means you’ll also need some thermal paste to reattach it after dusting. If you go down that second route, unscrew the cooler and remove the fan from the radiator. Most air coolers don’t even use screws to secure the fans; just unhook the metal wires from the fan’s screw holes and it should come right off. Then, use your can of compressed air to blast the dust out of each tiny crevice inside the aluminum fins. Once you’ve blown the dust out of the fins and it looks brand new again, you can reinstall everything and you’re good to go!

Graphics Card

打扫a graphics card is something that’s easy to forget, but important to remember. Most graphics cards have fans attached to the bottom of the card, making them easy to miss when doing a brief cleaning. Fortunately, that downward orientation of the fans also means they tend to accumulate dust much slower. As a result, most graphics cards only need to be thoroughly cleaned every second time you clean your system’s fans, meaning at least once a year.

显卡也广泛的粉丝shapes and sizes, including liquid coolers, so always be sure to clean your card in the way that suits it best.

For cards with typical air fans or a blower for cooling, first remove the graphics card from your PC. Hold the fans still with one hand and use a can of compressed air to blow out the fins behind the fan blades, and/or wipe them clean with a microfiber cloth. Once the fins and blades are clear of dust, place the card back in your rig.

For graphics cards with liquid cooling, you can follow the same principles from cleaning a liquid-based CPU Cooler radiator in the previous step, since their anatomy is almost identical for our purposes here.

其他一切

灰尘can build up in just about every corner of your case. At least once a year, try to make some time to hit those hard-to-clean places in your PC. If it’s been a while since the last good cleaning, even just a blast of compressed air can loosen dust from a messy corner of your PC and increase airflow. Below are a list of a few of the places I often don’t remember to clean (Or just plain avoid!) on most routine cleaning operations in my very own PC.

• • • • Behind the cable panel
      • Areas where many cables meet, like fan controller cubbies or near the power supply
      • Throughout the drive bays and between drives
      • Inside your “PSU basement” below the shroud (if your case has one)
      • Any large components on the motherboard with small crevices
      • 在公羊棒之间
      • 主板后面
      • Any other open-air gaps inside of your case

---

How Do I Prevent Dust from Collecting in my PC?

不幸的是，事实是存在尘埃。它存在everywhere。有宠物或在干燥气候下的人可能比其他人获得更多的东西，但确实没有逃脱。减少灰尘堆积的最有效方法是定期清洁过滤器，这种环境可尽可能减少灰尘，并在外壳内部进行理想的积极气压。

This could mean keeping the computer off the floor, keeping pets out of your computer room, and/or investing in an air purifier or some other means of reducing ambient dust. There is no silver bullet to fighting dust, beyond a little elbow grease and a google calendar entry telling you to get up and clean that machine out every once in a while.

If you want it to run for as long as possible, this is your first step! Future-proofing begins not with$2000 GPUs, but with proper maintenance and care.

什么是正气压？

在这种背景下,正压是指每天g a higher volume of intake air than exhaust air, in order to prevent dust from settling in your PC by constantly forcing small amounts of air out of every crack in your case. The easiest way to configure your PC for positive air pressure is to simply have more intake fans than exhaust fans. The idea is that fans actively pulling in more air than they’re pushing out causes every opening of the case to act as an exhaust, preventing some dust from entering through unfiltered zones. Conversely, negative pressure (fans pushing out more air than they’re pulling in) causes every opening of the case to act as an unfiltered intake.

Or that’s the theory, at least. If you look into the concept online, you’ll find support for the idea and denigration of it; some swear by it, while others find it pointless. As for what I have to say about it: if you can easily set up your PC to have one more intake than exhaust fan, then it doesn’t hurt to set it up anyways. At worst, it has no negative affect on your build, assuming you follow good air flow principles. And at best, it may cause less dust to settle in your PC—exactly what we want!

---

Conclusion

灰尘ing, however tedious it may seem, needs to be done to keep your computer running happy and healthy. When you peek through your smoked glass side panel and notice “Hey, it’s not that dusty in there!”, it can be tempting to stretch your cleaning intervals to the limit, but pop that cover off and shine a flashlight inside and you’ll notice that there’s probably a lot more dust in there than you really believed.

It’s important to keep your computer dust-free to ensure a long life for your parts, which ultimately saves you money in the long run! And in the most dire of situations, it could even theoretically be possible for a very old and dusty PC to become a fire hazard. So cleaning protects your parts in multiple ways!

Have any questions or comments? Think I missed something? Let us know in the comments section below! Thanks for reading!