Cleaning Dust from iMac

With the Mac turned off there's three places to clean on an occasional basis - the long vent on the back at the top, the circular vent behind the stand and air intake along the bottom edge of the iMac where the RAM and speakers are. I just run my vacuum cleaner with a nozzle attachment over them a few times and it seems to do the job.

Hi _ j

I suggest shutting down and vacuuming out the bottom grill work and small intake port under the stand on a regular bases. Dust build up will vary depending on the environment, if a small amount of dust is noticed after a couple of months then perhaps a quarterly vacuuming is in order.

My Intel iMac will be 5 years this next January and I have faithfully vacuumed out the air intakes every few months sense the day it was new. After 3 years of running, in Jan of 09 I opened her up to upgrade the Hard Drive and there was almost no dust build up on the fan blades or anywhere inside of the iMac.

Caution: do not disturb the dust with the iMac on (fans running) or blow with compressed air, that will do nothing except to blow what little dust is collected on the air intakes deeper into the iMac.

Dennis

Your welcome!

Either they don't really understand or don't care if that surface dust gets into the fans or on the heat sinks. No sweat for them, heck' when your HD or Graphic's chip cook you'll be back for an expensive repair or new iMac.

I never pull the grills, the vacuum is way stronger than the fans and should pull out any heavy dust build up. However in an extremely humid environment where dust tends to cake and stick then it might not be a bad idea to check under the grills on a yearly bases.

I honestly believe that mine has survived the years, because I've kept the air intakes clean and clear.

Dennis