I just cleaned my cpu fan out. It looked clean,,, But I noticed my cpu was running warm. So I pulled the case out and removed the fan from the heatsink,,, OMG It was plugged!!! It was a ***** to clean (caked on man! No dust off here!)... q-tips and alcohol,,, then dust off. My cpu is back down to normal temp, 5 degrees difference!
Switching systems about every 3 weeks (now back to the A64 again) .. So I never get a dirty/dusty HSF, even if I'd want to. ^^
Methinks you need an air filter in your place . I used to enjoy cleaning Pentium classics with the stock Intel heatsinks though...just unclip the fan and hold the processor + heatsink under some running water...heh...
What air filter... My case is opened... My case was so dirty, the PSU cables are covered with dust, even IDE cable! Everything is literally covered with dust!
wow if u look close enuff u can see a layer of dust covering the copper. thats sum serious build up... now that i think of it my front intake looks pretty close to that!!!
Fan filters are the best thing i ever got for my computer, i just let it build up then suck it off with the vacuum lol
Several years ago, when I was using my K6-2 PC, I didn't know why my PC started giving exceptions and errors when doing nearly anything and kept on restarting like mad. So I stuck my ear on the CPU and listen. It was particularly silent. Where's the fan anyway? I opened up my case. I see the CPU fan is moving very slowly. Aha, that's the culprit. I blew it. No use. Dust as thick as an inch. All messed up into the heatsink-fan chamber. I took out the fan, get a dry paintbrush (or tissues), and brush it off. The dust is as thick as even 2-inch!! I continued until I finally managed to brush out a mangled heap of black-and-grey dust!! My goodness, then the whole comp started to work as usual. Whew... [Have I told you this story before anyway?? ]
pretty clean. i have 2 intake fans and 3 output fans with no filtres. more air going out than coming in = most of the dust blown outside of the case
Yeah, My fan looked like Chai's picture. The thing is it's a pretty new fan. You all should remember when I put it on I posted pictures of that. And I have blasted it with dust off more than a few times. But I never thought to remove the fan. WOW, All the dust was just caked up right where the fan body "protected" the copper fins from my dust-off air blast's. What a mess! But now that it's clean my VIA Hardware Monitor shows about 5 degrees cooler under full cpu load (105F). And my hsf rpm's have increased about 225 rpm. BTW, Here are some pictures of my hsf... When new. http://forums.rojakpot.com/showthread.php?t=10330
Even my notebook cooler is so dusty... heatsink? Don't even want to think about it. once, my radiaotor built up a 5mm thick dust!
I was looking at those pictures in that link I posted and... Gawww!!! I put my HSF back on in the WRONG direction!!! Well I just changed it back. And now it's cooling even better. While I was in there again I took a couple of 'after cleaning' pictures.