How often do you have to clean your laptop fan? Or do you have to?

Compared to a desktop PC, laptops often need their heatsinks to be cleaned more often.

if you use the laptop 5+ hours a day then it is best to clean it at least once every 2 months.

simply take vacuum cleaner and press the hose against the bottom vent then suck the dust out.

If you have not cleaned the heatsink in like a year+ then this may not work completely and you will then have to take the laptop apart then using a vacuum cleaner and a toothbrush, scrape the dust off.

laptops run much hotter than desktop PC's and and dirt on the heatsink will eventually become caked on if not cleaned off soon enough.

laptops also use a higher pin density this is why you never see dust on the outside facing part of the heatsink, the fins are close enough together to cause the dust to build up across the fins (which is the worst possible outcome since a small amount of dust can completely block the airflow)

I have been doing this with my acer 5552g laptop for a while then when the warranty ended, I took the laptop apart then removed the heatsink in order to replace the stock crappy thermal compound, with some arctic silver 5, which lowered the CPU temperatures by about 4 C.

I did not have to scrub the heatsink since there was hardly any dust on it. (that laptop doubles as a media center system so it is used heavily.

clogged laptop heatsink