Especially if you're a smoker, have pets, and/or are simply lazy like me. Remove that CPU fan, get rid of that dust layer, clean those fins, your hardware will thank you. My 2700x went from 89°C+ to 72°C while running Furmark CPU Burner. A cool(ish) CPU is a happy CPU. Do it. Do it now.
Do it now, do it good, clean that rig just like you should. (Thanks for the tip, next weekend is "planned maintenance" )
When I was flashing my motherboard with new bios the other day I noticed the rear fan's blades were starting to become caked with dust build up, it's an old fan too so I had put new lubricant inside it to keep it going... turns out I put too much and some of the oil substance is very slowly flicking out from the inside of the fan across the blades and onto the inside frame of the fan... so... dust seems to like sticking to it lol.
With such a big difference it must have been years since you last cleaned. I blow mine out with a oil-less air compressor every 6 months, and use a brush to loosen surface dust.
Oh no, half a year maybe at most. Recent ex-smoker, shedding cat, old Chieftec case with zero intake filters, and I'm a lazy POS, so it all came together. The CPU cooler had this layer of dust and hair between fan and heatsink that blocked all airflow, making it basically passive. I promise to clean it more regularly from now on!
My friend sent me this before buying Intel 12400. He was complaining about stuttering. I do not know what happened to this computer.
Well, I doubt that when smoking, generally dusty environments, kept around pets, or general air pollution are the reasons for your dusty hardware, that this does more than the general circumstances But yeah... imagine running a 600W 4090 with fins as dusty as those... and some dust buildup around the cable... particularly around the plug...
So I am not a maniac, cleaning my gear every month. Gosh, I am so relieved now. On a serious note, I loathed cleaning computers from people who smoked and owned pets. I did that for several years, enough to make my skin itch just thinking about it.
Three years. No kidding. But was in really good shape as I don't game as much and have the PC case on a riser that keeps it off the floor. And a Seasonic power supply that runs the cooling fan as needed and not 100% all the time. I was amazed at how clean it was inside after three years.
