Jon emailed us about his dust-clogged heatsink:

The following pictures show how bad heatsink dust can get. The dust was about 3/32" thick on the inside of the heatsink but there was no visible dust on the other side. From the outside, it all looks fine - the clue is the dusty fan:

A look at the inside of the heatsink's exhaust port shows the dust build-up:

Needless to say, cleaning this out helps reduce CPU temps by a bit. Unfortunately, to do this on many laptops requires serious disassembly. Consumers might want to check out the ease of laptop servicing before buying.

The other alternative is to use canned air and "reverse clean" the heatsink by blowing into its exhaust port - it's not as thorough as removing the heatsink for cleaning, but a LOT easier.

Jon Fettig