Spouse got a laptop from a pawn shop. It needed a keyboard replacement and a cleaning so I spent my morning taking it apart and cleaning. Normally I just use a cloth and some compressed air on the dusty fans and we were good. Well compressed air turned the fan into a SMG. Those fins were YEETED across the room. In all my years of seeing shop accidents this was the most surprising and funny one yet.
Thank goodness the fans are cheap to replace. 😏
43 Comments
jesus did u use a jet engine?
On the positive side, it does look clean now
if you MUST use compressed air you’re supposed to brace from the opposite side so they dont spin or flex
that’s what I do in a pinch
Were those fans petrified?
The issue is usually in creating a generator rather than a shrapnel gun, but I guess if you force more air through it than it’s designed for, going at higher speeds than it’s designed for, then sure this happens.
Fins were probably worn out, the reason you don’t want to use compressed air on fans is because PC fans are DC motors and turning them can generate a current that has potential to cause damage. I hold my fans with a finger and blast them without any issues like this.
Damn … This fan was probably too much dried and this is why every blade broke.
I didn’t know you could disassemble the fan blades to clean them better!!!
This may have been plastic degradation in action, especially if it’s an older device (which it kinda looks like it).
This the new high tech Fanless cooling solution?
but making fans go zzzzzzzziiiIIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG is fun!
i don’t own laptop, last one i cleaned was ~2017 and compressed air did not do that to the fan i also have GTX 1060 (desktop) with blower fan that i cleaned many times with compressed air and it was fine. my guess would be that plastic lost its integrity due to overheating in the past
its why when using any air duster, you’re supposed to hold down moving parts so that they don’t end up moving/spinning faster than they are designed to
can’t do this with punk ass canned air or a vacuum
Not only this but the electric motor in there will act as a dynamo if you blow compressed air on it and can introduce current into the electric board and fry stuff if youre unlucky.
Air go brrrrrrrrrtt!
i did this on an old laptop too. Swear it was the same fan. Weak and feeble.
On the bright side, now it’s gonna be even quieter than the Noctuas.
on the bright side nowyou got passive cooling
the fins’ plastic was probably cooked, the fan’s time had come. oh well.I guess better to find out this way than to have it disentigrate while it’s in the laptop eh?
The fan ain’t faning anymore
Brother, did you legit let the fans spin freely while you cleaned them?!
Tooth pick between fans while you use one saves them
The blades broke because they were shittly made or you used a jet engine. Cleaned a bunch of laptops without issue with cans
Did you use an air compressor? Like the big tanks and big metal nozzle?? Not an air can? lmao
So, does she love you or not?
I did that to my video projector, was’t cheap to replace 😀
You can use air on fans but use your finger to hold the fan in place
They’re basically tiny windmills and if you spin them too fast they’ll shatter
A clean paintbrush also works on fans if this experience changes your habits
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Or you know… You could have just placed one finger on the fan to stop it from spinning.
Turn off the fan first….. like, wtf were you thinking?
Not only this, you can fry your motherboard doing that on a plugged in fan since back driving a motor turns it into a generator, and if a fan spins at 2500rpm at 12V if you spin it at 20000 the voltage will be much higher.
Still wrong. It’s fine to use them if you support the fans from rotation and yaw.
https://preview.redd.it/6kf9g2syoeze1.jpeg?width=704&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b172a539ed87d46849585e030f0abe2ecdc7c571
Looks like it was… not a fan after compressed air XD
You **attained ludicrous** speed.
I’ve done that plenty with my old Dell Inspiron laptop just to hear the fan go “reeeeeee” and not once did a blade ever snap off. I guess they don’t make them like they used to.
I have the same compressor, and it doesn’t seem that strong, even with the smallest focus nozzle. I’ll be a bit more cautious now that I’ve seen this.
Did it spin up to sonic speeds before it shattered, or did the blades just get swept off before they could spin up?
No, they say it because almost any electric motor is also a generator, so if you spin them you could burn some things in the computer, never seen this happen.
You can totally use a industrial compressor, just hold the fan still when doing it.
Didn’t realize pc fans came in the Dyson bladeless variant.
Boneless fan