DescriptionLaptop overheating due to dust-clogged internal heatsinks in 2.5 year old laptop.jpg
English: Example of how laptop performance slowly declines due to airborne dust slowly collecting on internal heatsinks, reducing performance and increasing noise from high speed fan operation. Eventually the heatsink covers completely, stopping all cooling airflow no matter how fast the fan spins, and the laptop begins to overheat from even just minor load.
As shown in the top-left image, the external appearance of air intake vents provides no indication whatsoever of the internal clogging, and simply blowing air backwards through the exposed heatsink vents is not enough to remove this buildup. Instead the laptop must be disassembled and the dust and lint removed with a ESD-safe vacuum cleaner.
This photo montage was created from a 2.5 year old Dell XPS M170 laptop.
Date
Source
Own work
Author
DMahalko, Dale Mahalko, Gilman, WI, USA -- Email: dmahalko@gmail.com
Licensing
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following licenses:
to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.htmlGFDLGNU Free Documentation Licensetruetrue
You may select the license of your choice.
Captions
Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents
{{Information |Description=Example of how laptop performance slowly declines due to airborne dust slowly collecting on internal heatsinks, reducing performance and increasing noise from high speed fan operation. Eventually the heatsink covers completely s