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Had a client bring in a laptop that was so full of dust it sounded like a jet engine.
This was last Tuesday. The guy said it kept shutting off when he tried to play a game. I opened it up and the heat sink was completely blocked, like a solid gray blanket. I've seen bad ones, but this was the worst in maybe three years. I used my Datavac electric duster to clear it out, but some of the gunk was caked on and needed a soft brush. After a clean and new thermal paste, the temps dropped by 30 degrees Celsius. The guy was shocked it was that simple. He thought he needed a whole new system. Anyone else run into a dust bunny that could qualify as a pet recently?
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taylor_wells4mo ago
Pulled a chunk out of a buddy's gaming rig last year that was basically a solid felt pad covering the whole bottom of the case. He had been complaining about random crashes for six months and just figured his GPU was dying. Thirty degree drop sounds about right for that level of neglect, it's wild how much people tolerate before asking for help.
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drew9346mo ago
Honestly, that dust blanket sounds familiar. I once pulled a chunk out that looked like a tiny gray sweater for a mouse. My own PC gets pretty bad, I mean I have to clean it every six months or it starts sounding like it's trying to take flight. Maybe it's just me but I'm basically running a free dust collection service in my apartment.
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hannahj496mo ago
Reminds me how we ignore small fixes until they become big problems. We'll put up with a loud fan or a slow computer for months, just living with the annoyance. It happens with everything, like a dripping faucet you mean to fix or a car noise you just turn the radio up to cover. We get used to the background stress until it finally breaks, and then the solution is often simple and cheap, which is the most frustrating part.
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white.keith6mo ago
Thirty degrees is a huge drop, but was it really that clogged? Sometimes a simple reboot or a driver update can make a big difference in reported temps. I've opened up machines that looked fine but still ran hot from other issues. Maybe the dust was just part of the problem.
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