How to Clean your Laptop?

Cleaning up your computer is a very important task. I’m not referring to the deletion of useless files from the hard disk. Instead I’m talking about dust and dirt – in the most literal sense of the term – to be removed with your own hands.

Sadly, sooner or later everyone has to do it and, judging by the white dust which covers your laptop screen, I think your time has arrived too!

How? Is it the case that you completely agree with me, but you don’t have the faintest idea how to clean your laptop? OK, but you have absolutely no cause for alarm … In fact, I can provide all the explanations and tips you need!

Arm yourself with a cloth, sponge, water and little else and get to work. What did you say? Are you afraid of doing some damage because it’s the first time that you find yourself having to do such a thing?

Stop giving excuses. Right now, I’ll tell you how to do it without taking any risks or wasting too much time. I assure you that in the end it’ll be worth it.

So, take a few minutes to read this guide, gather up all the necessary equipment to get your computer looking good as new. That said, let’s stop yakking and get going!

Let’s begin this guide on how to clean your laptop screen. The LCD screen of a laptop is very delicate, so even the removal of a little dust from the surface should be carried out with extreme care and attention. What do you need? A very common microfibre cloth, which can be purchased for just a few euros in any supermarket or home cleaning store.

As an alternative to the microfibre cloth you can use a chamoiscloth which is just as good. However, avoid abrasive cloths, towels, paper towels, and similar clothes that can irreparably damage your computer screen.

What to do, you can work it out quite easily. All you need to do is turn off your computer display and gently slide the microfibre cloth over it until all traces of dust are removed.

In the most “serious” cases, i.e. when dust has accumulated for a long time or there are also spots on the monitor, you’ll have to moisten the microfibre cloth with a solution made up of 50% water and 50% white vinegar, gently wipe it over the area of the screen in question and then dry the screen using a dry part of the same cloth.

In most cases, the carrying all this out is more than sufficient to clean your laptop screen and the use of detergent products therefore is a bit superfluous.

However, there may be times where just cleaning with a cloth and a home-made liquid solution is not good enough and then it’ll be necessary to resort to the use of special cleaning products that can completely remove the dirt.

If this is your situation, I recommend: only use solutions designed specifically for this purpose that you can find at fairly low prices in any electronics store, supermarket or on-line, on sites such as Amazon or eBay.

If it’s necessary to resort to the use of special cleaning products to clean your laptop screen, you’ll never have to spray the liquid directly on the screen. Proceed by spraying the detergent on the microfibre cloth or the one supplied with the detergent and then proceed to clean the screen.

Regardless of which method you use, you shouldn’t exert too much pressure on the screen when cleaning your laptop. Therefore, try to be as careful and sensitive as possible when carrying out these instructions so as to prevent your computer from being damaged.

Cleaning the external parts of your notebook

Now let’s see how to clean your laptop by taking care of its “body”, namely the mouse pad, the keyboard, the back and … all the rest of the body.

In this case, I recommend you use another object that is easily found in all stores which sell household cleaning items. I refer to those so-called magic erasers that allow you to remove traces of dirt from plastic and steel.

To clean all other parts of the same except for the display, proceed by first turning off the computer, remove the battery and disconnect any peripherals (for example, mouse and external hard disk) and disconnect the device from the power supply and the electrical outlet.

Once this is done, submerge the eraser under water, squeeze it to remove excess water and use it to clean the surface of your laptop: keyboard, mouse pad, etc. When you’ve finished, dry the “body” of the computer using paper or – better yet – a microfibre cloth and you’re done.

You can do this both on laptops with aluminium bodies and on standard plastic laptops.

If there are any crumbs or traces of dust between the keyboard keys and the connection ports, get rid of it using a can of compressed air. Everything will go away in a few moments, trust me.

If you want to remove the keys from their housing instead to clean them, it’ll help to use a knife when doing this. Use extreme caution while detaching the keys from the keyboard to avoid damaging them, breaking the connectors or injuring yourself.

Also, before removing the keys take note on how to reassemble them in the correct sequence.

Now take a bowl and fill it with some water and a few drops of dish soap. Soak all the keys in the soap and water solution until all the residues have been cleaned. In some cases, you may need to gently brush the keys or wipe them with your fingers to remove dirt.

When you’ve finished cleaning them, wipe the buttons one by one with a clean cloth and then, before “reassembling” your laptop, wait a few minutes for them to completely dry.

In the meantime, do not close the screen but leave it open so that the air can circulate freely and completely dry any part of the computer.

Cleaning the internal parts of your notebook

Has your laptop started to overheat and you’ve decided to clean your ventilation system? This isn’t an operation everyone wants to do, but we can all do it.

First, you have to disassemble the laptop by finding the exact instructions for your model of laptop in the user manual which is usually attached to the sales package of your device, or on the internet. Then you have to identify the location of the fans and proceed to clean them.

Unfortunately, I can’t be more precise than this because each laptop has a different structure and, therefore, has its own way of opening and reaching the various internal components.

Once the laptop has been disassembled, to remove dust from the fans, use a cotton bud, passing it gently over places where there is the greatest concentration of dust.

For further explanation on this subject, you can consult the Internet Instructables website where there is a step by step guide dedicated to this operation that will surely come in handy. It’s in English but includes many photos that make it easy to understand even for people who don’t speak the language.