I haven seen in here for the past several months posts about an older pc shutting down or rebooting possably due to heat. Now I am by no means a "techy" lol or anything like that heck compared to a lot of folks that post here I am meirly a beginner. Anyway i have found that what some call "older" is only 3 years or so. The comp I am on now is a 5yr. old HP. It seems that a lot of these heat compaints stem from dust. After speaking to a few friends I found that most are afraid to open the case and dust it out. I think doing this has saved me alot of money over the past five years. Although I don't use compressed or canned air I use a small vacume used for detailing cars, IE the dashboard and such, after reading somewhere that blowing charged particals around could possably cause a short. Anyways once the warrenty runs out open those cases up and get that dust out of there. Originally I was scared as well but then my modem went bad and I couldn't afford to pay to have it installed so I took a shot at it myself and lord the dust I found in there. Found it did seem to actually speed it up just a bit or rather it no longer dropped of as soon. Anyway just a thought from a beginner. likely

Cleaning computers need to be done about every 6 months or so, or when they are dirty and doing wired things. Dust causes computers to malfunction and do wierd stuff. Remove that dust using some very low pressure of some sort and becareful when cleaning it. If you have an older mouse with the ball, it is also a good idea to clean it too removing all that gray like stuff of the rollers and the ball.

yes dust is bad can of air is good, special vacs are good. i have had one computer catch on fire