Do cans of compressed air do anything besides scatter dirt inside?

They often recommend to use cans of compressed air to clean laptop inside.

I'm curious if scientifically this good idea. All the spray seems to do is scatter the dust in the laptop, it doesn't actually remove it, correct? So why do they recommend?

Isn't using a small vacuum hose cleaner better recommendation? (laptop is turned off obviously)

2 Answers

Spraying compressed gas or using a vacuum, the results will vary based on the laptop's design, as well as what kind and amount of debris is stuck inside. That being said, compressed air does come out with more force than a vacuum. If you really want to clean out a laptop, you will likely need to remove the cover to expose the motherboard and the fan. Then you can use compressed air to thoroughly clean the dust.

Canisters of compressed air may be expensive, and I'm not advocating for them, but they do work (better than a vacuum cleaner).

It is a lot easier (and I'd argue safer) to create high pressure air stream then a vacuum - and this is probably where the benefit of pushing rather then sucking comes from.

I'm not advocating it - as its definitely not a best practice due to moisture - but I've also had success using an air compressor (once even at a petrol station) to very quickly.clean a dirty system) and indeed I do this regularly to unblocked heavily clogged [water] filters which vacuuming would do little for. I have not tried them (yet), but you can get devices to put on an air compressor to remove the moisture.

Used correctly blowing does remove dust + but more importantly it dislodges caked on dust making it easy to wipe off and vacuum.