about a week ago my dads computer really bit the dust (quite literally). He uses Norton 360 for virus, spyware and firewall protection. the subscription ran out though on  night about a week ago. that same night he discovered the wonders of p2p filesharing. you can probably see where this is going. his hard drive is now in my computer and is being scanned. so far my computer has found 764  infections and I'm only half way through. while i was taking his hard drive out i decided to give the insides of his computer a bit of a clean as there was enough dust and cobwebs to decorate a haunted mansion at disneyland. the cpu fan was particularly bad so i pulled it off and went at it with a cotton bud. once i'd pulled it off  though i saw just how bad it really was. the cpu heatsink was completely stuffed full of dust. completely full. i used a screwdriver to pull the dust out. it had formed a sort of grey cake that stayed in one piece after pulling it out with my fingers. i cleaned between each fin  and eventually got it clear. i wonder how hot that thing was running to bake the dust like that. wee got that computer in 2003 and its never been opened  up until today. also wee've been doing a lot of tearing down and rebuilding of walls and ceilings in the house recently so its very dusty.

that's my story. feel free to diss my dad. he's come to accept that i know more than him about computers.

he's been using computers since university and he's now 45 years old. you'd think he'd  know by now.

i usually blow my pc out with compressed air to clean the dust bunnies out... some people have said its bad cause it contains very small amounts on moisture but its never hurt it at all... that's no good about the viruses though.. maybe format and reisntall would be the best if its that bad

my friend has just done the same thing, but shes got a dell, and the back is tacked shut so i can't piggyback the HDD to clean
I tried to install NOD32 to clean it using her PC but its beyond even that

That would suck...764?!?
Oh and was that poo poo really dust or was it the thermal paste that seals the heatsink to the cpu?