ispiron laptop fan cleaning

Dust accumulation is one of the main reasons for fan noise and system overheating. Cleaning the air vents is first step to see if the issue can be resolved. Compressed air is a great way to clean dust from the air vents. Please ensure you have disconnected the ac-adapter and any external components before proceeding further. 

Following are my suggestion for your concerns:

1. It is not necessary to remove the battery to clean the air vents of the fan, provided you are not removing any components on the system. I wouldn't recommend you to remove the battery, unless you are very experienced in disassembling computers.

2. On this model, the base cover cannot be removed and the only way to access the battery & fan is by removing the keyboard and the palmrest. Removing the keyboard will help as it exposes the top of the fan, which can be cleaned using compressed air.  Instructions to remove the keyboard can be found in the owners manual from the link: http://dell.to/1VeVf2A . Removing the keyboard, will also give you access to battery switch, which can be turned off, if you are willing to disassemble further (not recommended unless you are experienced)

3. The intensity of the air would be subjective. Recommend you to start will short bursts to see how effectively you are able to clean the fan and increase it if required. 

4. I wouldn't recommend the fan removal unless you are experienced. Any damages during the dis-assembly wouldn't be covered under warranty.

5. I wouldn't recommend usage of any liquid to clean the fan. 

6. You need not worry about the static electricity unless you are disassembling the system to access the inner components. Usage of anti-static mat and wrist straps are necessary if you are disassembling the system, ensuring your safety as well as the system hardware. 

Hope I have addressed all your concerns. Please do get back if there are any further queries. 

From Dell, download the service manual for your model and carefully follow the instructions for disassembly and reassembly. Search online for disassembly and cleaning instructions for your model and you will likely find instructional videos.

Use a muffin tray, chocolate box, weekly medication organizer or something similar with many compartments to deposit screws as you remove them. Label each compartment with a number and write on a sheet what each numbered compartment contains. This will help you to know what screws go where when you reassemble. Many of the screws will be a common size, but some may be different, so you need to keep them organized.

Get a canister of compressed air to blow in the body and in the fan. Before blowing in the fan, use a pencil, scribe or something else non-metallic to prevent the fan from spinning. Compressed air can cause the fan to spin at a higher-than-designed speed, so you don't want that. You can incrementally move the fan with the scribe to blow/clean various areas of the fan.

If the laptop is old or has been used in dusty areas or a home with pets, there may be dust balls accumulated in the fan that won't be removed by air alone. I recently disassembled the fan from an Inspiron and removed a dust ball that was clogging the radiator fins.

If you choose to disassemble the fan, again check the manual and videos. If it's like mine, the fan is fixed to the cooling heat sink, so the heat sink must be removed from the CPU. Before replacing it, you'd need to clean off all the old thermal paste from CPU and heat sink (and maybe GPU, if you have one), and then apply new thermal paste. Again, there are good instructional videos showing how to do that.

I recommend that you use an anti-static wrist strap whenever doing anything inside a computer. They typically cost less than $10, so it's cheap insurance. An anti-static mat is useful, but you may not have one and they are more expensive. As an alternative, use a large sheet of cardboard, which you can cut from a large shipping box.

Take your time, organize all screws and parts, take photos as you go.