Dust & Overclocking : Performance Requires Cooling

Overclocking is the practice of making a component run at a higher clock speed than the manufacturer’s specification. The idea is to increase performance for free or to exceed current performance limits, but this may come at the cost of stability. Buy a lower-end system, overclock it, and achieve the performance of a higher-end system.
The main aspect of overclocking is the need for more effective cooling than that of air-based cooling systems. Wikipedia then has an extensive list of advantages and disadvantages of overclocking and its mechanism. [via Wikipedia]

Daniel at Dynatech looked inside his computer built 5 months ago as the temperatures seemed a bit on the high side of 120F load (100% CPU usage) after overclocking. So he decided to open the case and have a look inside….

Dust… Dust.. Dust… and plenty of photos to show that too.

“This computer sits right next to me on my desk, never on the floor, I have no idea how all this dust got into a closed rig.” he clarifies. After a little help from the toothbrush, he managed from 120F to a little above 80F after the little clean up. Amazing how much dust affects the stability and overclockability of your system.

Have you looked inside your overclocked computer for dust blocked performance?