Remove fan to clean heatsink inplace (stock AM3)

[R2_]

Hello fellows, I bought this Phenom II X4 945 about an year ago, and it's full of dust on the heatsink.
It must be clean, temperatures are rising and fan rpm also.

However, I don't feel skilled atm to remove the heatsink it self and do the cpu cleaning, reappling thermal paste, etc, etc.

So I thought i could just remove the [black plastic part] with the fan, use one brush and vacuum machine to get the job done.

Thats when I found my self with this:



As you can see, there is no screw attaching the plastic part to the heatsink.



And I got no clue on how to remove this!
Any tip?
I always felt like the fan cooler is on the way of the brush and doesn't allow me to reach some parts of the heatsink and really get dust AWAY, just moving to another part that i can't reach.

Very hard to find a similar using google images, in deed i think AMD ship different fan to different countries.
And yes this is the stock fan+heatsink, very poor compared to the BE edition with cooper pipes (http://www.silentpcreview.com/amd-phenom-coolers)

BTW i took the pictures with the fan running at 3300 RPM and sony cybershot with flash did work pretty nice.

Thanks in advance and sorry for any bad english.

[bonestonne]

As far as I'm aware, the fan is on a shroud which can only be removed from the bottom, as in, taking the heatsink off, flipping it over, and popping off the plastic tabs (probably 4).

I would suggest using compressed air if you don't want to re-apply thermal paste. Take the computer outside on a fairly nice day (less than 90% humidity, not raining) and just blow the dust out. It sounds tedious, but depending on your tools for the job, it could be easy or really hard. At work I have a 5 gallon compressed air tank, at home I have a small air compressor for car tires, using a different valve at the end lets you control it.

If you buy the small cans of compressed air, it will also work, but depending on how much dust you have, you will probably go through at least one full can of it.

Vacuums are frowned upon around computers because many build up a static charge on the end of the tube which can zap and kill your computer.

A full cleaning is not always needed, just blowing the dust out is usually a perfectly suitable option for you.

[R2_]

Oh thanks a lot for your reply bonestonne.

But isn't clear for me why would vacuum may cause static charge and using compressed air would not?

Actually activating the Asus Q-Fan and AMD cool n'quite did lower the noise very considerably.

[m1st]

If you have a vacuum that can be reversed and blow air instead of sucking it in, then that can be used to clean computer components as well.

The reason why most caution against using a vacuum cleaner to clean computer components is that you don't want the vacuum to come into physical contact with the computer parts. This is when static could be dangerous. But if you're blowing air out to clean the dust instead of sucking it in (and letting the vacuum come into contact with the components), then you should be okay.

I have a Kirby G4 vacuum that I can reverse and it acts like 10 compressed air cans. Makes a nice dust cloud when I point it at my computer

[R2_]

Hmmmm i see... what if I had already touch the board with the vacuum cleaner? LOL



I mean, while computer was turned off of course... and good to point that my windows is 100 meters from the sea.

[Flanker]

humidity helps discharge electrostatic which can be a good thing

[speedkar9]

You can reach behind the fan blades with a cotton swab. You can also try to use paper towel to get in between the fins, but compressed air works best.

[R2_]

Thanks speedkar9, i'll try that next time. Didn't find these air cans you guys mention. But i think there's place i could use pressurized air for free next to my neighbor.