Vacuuming and dust-busting

You do want to give your computer some compressed air from time to time, especially for that heatsink that sits on top of the processor and all the fans (particularly the CPU and the power supply fans). At least once a year, I would say. Vacuuming also works. In fact, doing both is desirable. Dust is one major factor contributing to overheating, which results in freezes, blue screens, crashes, etc. This requires opening up your computer tower. Needless to say, you must first turn the computer off and – just to stay on the safe side – unplug the power cable from the power supply. This primarily applies to desktop computer, although I’ve seen a few laptops where clogged CPU fans cause overheating and subsequent shutdown.