Following up on our How To Dust Your Electronics piece, now we’re going to deal with your insides.

No one likes a dusty house, and no matter how much you may dust the outside of your computer tower, there is still dust getting inside of the actual CPU (central processing unit), and you really need to get it out.

On the back (sometimes, but rarely, the side) of every computer there is a cooling fan to keep air circulating through the interior of the system. While you may not be able to see the dust on the outside of the computer, believe us, there have been dust particles sucked into the body of the system. While you may not think this is a problem since you can’t see it, but as it coats the components of the system, this will cause them to overheat, and heat in a computer is never a good thing.

What can you do? Well, there is no way to prevent the dust getting inside the body of the computer, but what you can do every so often (say every few months) is open up the computer and give it a good cleaning. Each system varies in how you open the chassis, but over the past few years they have made this far, far easier then it used to be. Do be careful to always discharge static electricity off of you before touching the inside of your computer by touching something metal before reaching in to the systems.

Once inside the computer your going to want to use a soft brush to get the majority of the dust to fall to the bottom of the system, and then use a Swiffer or some other kind of cloth to pick it up off the bottom.  Now, this part can be a bit controversial, but I have never had a problem, I use canned air to blow out the deep nooks and crannies, but I never do it as first thing as that just put too much dust in to the air.  Just be careful, and try to use it sparingly.

Essentially treat the insides of your computer like your most delicate china, but do know you will have to do this to keep your computer from overheating and running as smoothly as possible.