<p>My wife has a six-year-old computer and it has been very loud for the past year or two. I have considered replacing her system but she likes it except for the noise. </p>
<p>So I finally got around to taking it apart to clean it out. I opened it up and there was some dust but I could not see anything to cause the extreme fan noise so I proceeded to clean what I could see. </p>
<p>I happened to notice a later of dust under the CPU fan and was curious about it but I had to get a special tool to take the fan off. I got it off and found a later of dust almost completely covering the CPU heat sink.The fan apparently blows air into the heat sink so the heat sink can get clogged which means the CPU does not get cooled which triggers the heat sensor which results in the fan spinning faster.</p>
<p>So I cleaned that off, put everything back together and asked my wife to watch her movie. The computer ran quietly. I was thinking of replacing this machine but will probably just keep using it now. </p>
<p>This makes a good case for cleaning out your computers from time to time.</p>
<p>Ha! Cleaning out the dust bunnies and replacing a dead $5 CPU fan was what enabled me to revive two latitudes that a friend’s company dumped on me “as parts” because of “heating issues”. </p>
<p>Not only that, but performing such maintenance on other PCs/notebooks is probably one key factor in why with the exception of two notebooks*, every notebook I’ve owned is still running today…including my second notebook I picked up in the late '90s. </p>
<p>As for desktops, my main issue is that they last so long even under heavy usage that I’ve had to give a whole bunch away over the last decade to avoid running out of space. Especially considering how they’ve all came to me free as gifts, dumped on me by clients/friends, or found abandoned on the street. </p>
<ul>
<li>First notebook which turned out to be a lemon with poor QC and a used corporate notebook which someone used so heavily the hard drive gave out. Fortunately with the latter, hard drives are easily replaceable and cheap and if one backs up…not much more than a minor annoyance.</li>
</ul>