How to clean the dust out of your PC tower

Jun 17, 2023

Dust buildup is bad for your system, so you should regularly clean your PC tower to keep it free of dirt and grime

If you've ever peeked inside your PC's chassis, you may have noticed piles of dust gathered around the internals. Besides tarnishing your cabinet's looks, dust and grime can significantly reduce the thermal efficiency of your system. Unfortunately, manually cleaning your PC is the only way to get rid of dust; even the best PC cases will eventually accumulate enough dust to start impacting your system's performance.

While the process of cleaning your PC tower may sound rather tedious, this step-by-step procedure will help you selectively clean the components that are prone to collecting a lot of dust during everyday usage.

Most PC cases use thumbscrews to keep the front and back panels in place, but you’ll need a Phillips screwdriver if you plan to unmount the components during the cleanup procedure.

As for the cleaning tools, you’ll need a can of compressed air to get rid of all the dust and debris on your components. Additionally, you’ll need some isopropyl alcohol wipes to properly clean the non-fragile PC parts. You can technically use rubbing alcohol, but I would advise against it as rubbing alcohol contains more traces of water, which can harm your PC's internals. As such, you should typically use isopropyl alcohol with over 90% alcohol concentration when you clean your PC.

There are certain steps you should take to ensure that you don't harm yourself or your PC during the cleanup procedure.

Cleaning your PC is a lot easier than you think because dust tends to gather around the fans and on the surface of the components instead of settling inside the parts. The most dust-attracting components of your PC are the dust filters, cabinet fans, GPU fans, and the CPU cooler, so you should focus on these parts during the cleanup procedure.

Although your PC is now dust-free, you’ll notice that it’s left in a disassembled state. Once you’re done putting your rig back together, be sure to regularly clean the dust filters every other week and the cabinet fans every three months to prevent dust from gathering inside your PC tower. Cleaning them every once in a while will also help improve your system temperatures.

If you want to improve your PC's thermal efficiency even further, consider looking into the cases with the best airflow. You may be inclined to believe that more airflow is synonymous with increased dust accumulation, but many of these cabinets have dust filters around the intake fans to ensure they don't get clogged with dirt.

Ayush Pande is a hardware, gaming, and crypto writer based in India. When he's not writing articles, you can find him tinkering with PCs or benchmarking new components.