How and Why You Should Clean Your Computer

Clean my computer? You mean wipe down the screen and scrub off any Cheetos stains on the keys right?

All jokes aside, this is a serious public service announcement…

Clean Your Computer!

I am always saddened when I see a computer with keys that are sticking when you type, and a thin film of grease and dust covering every inch of the screen.

Why?

Cleaning your computer is more than just not making others gag when they have to type something using your keyboard, it’s about respect for the electronics. For a lot of us, our computer is an extension of our person. We spend most of our day using it, and yet a lot of us are too afraid to open it up to give it a good clean.

I use a Macbook Pro for work, and I’m behind this computer for a majority of my day. I remember the first time I opened it up and saw what the internals of a Macbook like it. It gave me a whole new respect for the machine. It’s beautiful. Seriously if you haven’t seen the inside of a Macbook I highly suggest it. I suppose I consider this the equivalent of a car geek seeing a beautiful engine under the hood.

Need another reason?

Performance

Have you ever noticed how the longer you have your computer, the slower it seems to get? There are many reasons for this and one of them is an accumulation of dust on the inside.

Cleaning this dust out will help your computer manage heat better. The cooler your computer can stay, the better it will run. If you have ever opened up an extremely old computer and seen the dust that can accumulate, you will know what I’m talking about. Trust me. It’s not pretty. Cleaning the dust out of your computer every month or so can give it a serious boost in helping keep it’s performance in peak shape.

How?

Before you start cleaning your computer, shut it down!

The Easy Stuff

The easiest thing to clean on your computer is the screen and keyboard. Grab a microfiber cloth (My Favorite on Amazon), and slight wet it. Use that cloth to wipe both your screen and the keyboard. Try your best to keep water out of any of the holes.

It is important to note that you should only put water on the cloth, and never directly on your computer!!!

You don’t need any fancy screen cleaner, simply water and a good cloth will make your screen look as good as new.

Digging Deeper

Ok, that was easy. Now on to the more important stuff.

At the very minimum I would recommend opening up the back panel of your computer, and using a compressed air can to remove any of the dust from the fans and heatsink.

I would recommend getting a good toolset as well as a good pack of compressed air. You can find what I use on Amazon here: Screwdrivers and Compressed Air.

If you are nervous about opening up your computer, I highly recommend watching some iFixit videos on Youtube to get familiar with some of the basic skills. It really is simple, for my Macbook it is 10 screws, 2 minutes of blowing the dust, and I’m done.

And there it is, that’s all it takes to give your computer a routine cleaning. If you have any other fixes or repairs that you think you could tackle now would be a good time to work on those. Again, I recommend the iFixit tutorials for anything Mac related.

Should I clean the software?

For Mac’s you don’t need any kind of software cleaning program. Although, it can beneficial to give it a good organizing. Throughout my work week, my desktop can be seen slowly accumulating different files that I drag there simply for convenance. Cleaning and reorganizing my computer on the weekends helps me to reorganize my work space, as well as give myself a fresh start every week.

You could very easily bring your computer to the Genius Bar or somewhere to have a professional clean it, and I encourage you to do this if you truly don’t want to do it yourself. Having said that, I challenge you to do it yourself.

Further Reading:

• Myth of the Dirty Mac
• Apple Official Cleaning Recommendations

Recommended Tools:

• Screwdrivers
• Compressed Air
• MicroFiber Cloths

Originally published at blog.seankilgarriff.com on November 19, 2016.

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