How Often Should you Clean your PC?

Many people do not realize that you actually need to clean your PC. However, if you want your computer to continue to run as efficiently as possible, and you want to minimise the chances of PC repair services being required, you really do need to clean your computer on a regular basis.

How often should you clean your PC?

There is no definitive answer to this question, but ideally, you should be looking at cleaning your PC 2-to 4 timers per year, which would mean cleaning it between once every three and six months.

Of course, if your computer is located in a particularly dusty room, or it is low to the floor, where it is more likely to gather dust, or if you have pets like cats and dogs that deposit a lot of hair around the place, you may need to clean it slightly more often.

How do I know if my PC needs to be cleaned?

You may need to clean your PC if the following are true:

  • It is noticeably dirty or dusty
  • The fan is making much more noise than usual
  • Your PC is much hotter than usual
  • Your system is running slower than usual

That being said, even if none of these things is true, you will still need to clean your PC regularly to ensure that dust and dirt never get a chance to build up and cause your PC problems, and it would probably be a good idea to clean your PC once every 3 months rather than waiting for six, if you possibly can.

How do I clean my PC?

Okay, so now you know that you need to clean your PC regularly, you might be wondering how exactly you should do that, so let’s take a closer look at cleaning your PC below.

What you’ll need

  • Computer tools
  • Cotton cloth and cotton buds
  • Compressed air

What you need to do

Start by turning off your computer at the mains to ensure you stay safe throughout.

You will then need to very carefully use your computer hardware tools to open up your computer case.

Remove the hard drive and RAM.

Use compressed air to clean, the hard drive, RAM and any other components you may have removed.

Use cotton swabs to carefully remove dirt and dust from fan blades and other tricky to access parts of the computer. You can also use a damp cloth to clean into tricky corners.

Use a damp cloth to carefully clean around your keyboard’s keys. You can also use compressed air to remove debris from under the keys.

Reassemble your computer.

Call in a professional

If that all seems too complicated for you, and you are worried about potentially breaking your computer or not being able to put it all back together again after cleaning, then you don’t need to clean your PC yourself.

Most good PC repair services will also offer cleaning services, so simply book your computer in and let the expert computer technicians take care of the rest so you don’t have to.