Cleaning out the computer

Tomorrow I'm going to buy some canned air and a mini vacuum from CompUSA and then will clean out my PC for the first time. When I do this, is it OK to leave everything connected as long as I shut it down and unplug it? How do I clean out my disc drives, since you can't actually dismantle them to get the dust?

 

shadowhawk asks.... "How do I clean out my disc drives, since you can't actually dismantle them to get the dust? "
When your at CompUSA pickup "3.5 disk cleaner" for your floppy (generally use alcohol on a rotating pad). Also pick up a CD cleaner, never used a CD cleaner, not sure how they perform the cleaning function, but they have them.

 

Personally, other than the fans and other exterior dust, I'd leave it alone!

 

Won't argue with that statement. I've been told, (never had the problem happen and tech/fixed staff used them all the time) that the cleaning disk caused damaged. The simplest approach.... if you get continued "Can't read or write errors" from the drive.... and all the normal "check settings, use different disks/CD" does not resolve the problem... you could have a dirty drive. Your choice now is the replace the drive or clean it.
EXPERIENCE... In the 80's and 90's when floppies and tapes were the only game in town, I was forced to use cleaning disks / tape cartridges frequently. Our facility was a dusty environment. NEVER had a drive failure due to the cleaning tool.

 

I used my compressed air to spray out the dust and ran my little vacuum lightly over the PCI cards and I also got the little vacuum into all those hard to reach places. I ran the compressed air through all the fans I could think of and also sprayed it into my disc drives to at least dislodge the dust. Hopefully this helps it somewhat.