Two questions.

Question 1) When using compressed air, is it best to hold a fan, whether it be CPU fan, case fan, what have you while blowing the dust out. Or let it move while doing so?
I've heard it both ways, so which is "optimal"?

Question 2) When you have a laptop charging cable, you need to match wattage, but does the maker play a role in it also? Like if the original was, for all intensive purposes say a dell and I matched the wattage of a replacement but it was an aftermarket charger, would it damage the machine, if it were used in place of the factory Dell branded charger?

Maybe simple questions, but I can't remember the answers, and don't want to give out false information if I am asked about them.

Thank you,
Spock96

 

Most fans can't be held as they're hidden behind grills ect. so it's impractical to hold the fan in most situations plus don't think it would offer any advantage. The best way is to blast the fan from the reverse direction so blow air into he exhaust and let the dust come out of the intake, this is the most important thing to do because the dust builds up on the leading edges in one direction and often won't dislodge with air in the same direction as the fan blows.

Nah it doesn't matter what the make of the power supply is as long it's the same voltage and has sufficient wattage, I would much prefer to use a Dell power supply for say a Toshiba laptop than use an after market or universal one as they're all junk and some are even dangerous and I'd go as far as swapping the plugs over to make it fit.

 

Greetings, Spock96...

To add to Question #1: agreed with Rikky for the most part. I just offer the caveat about not allowing a fan to spin too fast - I've never actually seen it happen, but I have heard of some cheaper fan bearings suffering damage because of excessive RPM.

 

On number two, i have seen some 3rd party power bricks that had the tip weighted differently and caused damged to a laptop my boss had. We had to have the inner jack in the laptop soldered twice before realizing that the power brick was the cause of this. Rare, but i have seen it happen.

 

2) Not all power adapters are created equal. If you're going to use a generic power supply check that the watts, amps & polarity match.
Over all I try not to get those cheap replacement power supplies (Ebay). I can't find the article but one guy took one apart and sighted all the missing components used in a good power supply. The cheap ones put out dirty power.

 

Thanks guys.
That's what I wanted to know.

 

I tried one as quick cheap solution.

First the screws on my laptop started to give me little shocks when I touched them but it still worked fine,after a couple of weeks I dropped it about 12 inches onto a carpeted surface and it exploded in a fireball and popped the fuse.

I can post pictures as I still have it plus a comparison with the the original from HP and there's no comparison. Basically the cheap Chinese version is a transformer with a large capacitor and a couple of voltage regulator semi conductors.

Sorry spock had to spit that out:cool

 

I'd like to see the pictures. :-D

 

Hi Spock96

I second the this. Usually the centre pin inside the plug to the laptop is the positive and the outside metal is the negative. I bought a generic chinese power supply for a HP lappy and when I plugged it in the smoke got out. Damn hard to get the smoke back in and HP didn't want to fix it. Turns out the plug was the wrong polarity and I didn't check :cry so it blew the battery charger part of the motherboard:-o
We needed a new laptop anyways

re: fan
If the fan has a sleeve bearing it is usually OK to let it spin fast with the compressed air (unless it is a bit tight or sticky and spinning fast will make the bearing overheat and seize) but if the fan has ball race bearings then spinning faster than the bearing's rated speed can cause damage so if you are not sure what sort of bearing the fan has then my advice is not to let it spin too fast....... you know...... that high pitched screaming sound that sounds fun but is really way too fast

FYI the really high pitched whine means the fan is probably spinning between 20,000RPM and 30,000RPM which is way too fast for fan ball bearings
In the workshop I have a non contact optical tachometer and using a small diameter high pressure air nozzle and 130PSI compressed air, I got an old 80mm Antec case fan with sleeve bearings to spin at 32,000RPM before the fan blades started breaking off ......lucky I was wearing a face shield....... Why do it...........well it was a slow day at work hehehe.... :-D

Cheers