Do you know that getting rid of ants in laptop is easy-peasy?
You’ll get to know the blueprint to remove ants from your laptop in 3 simple steps in this post.
It doesn’t end there.
You’ll also get to know some ingenious ways to make your laptop ant-free, forever.
Sound’s good?
Keep reading to protect your laptop from ants.
Why Do Ants Enter Or Go Inside Laptop?
Before you think of removing ants from your laptop, you need to know why do ants enter laptops.
Else, no matter what you do, ants will keep coming back to your laptop and may damage it.
So, let’s find out the reason.
There are two main reasons for ants inside laptops.
Your Laptop Has Food Stains.
It’s quite common to work on the laptop while munching something on the side.
Your hands and fingers have oil stains that stick with the keyboard and other places like the screen and mouse.
There are also little food crumbs that you drop on the laptop while eating and working at the same time.
These food crumbs get stuck between the gaps of the keys on the keyboard.
The stains and the food crumbs attract ants to your laptop.
The Heat From Your Laptop Attracts The Ants
Two types of ants prefer to nest in laptop, electrical outlets, and inside other electronic home appliances.
These ants are fire ants and crazy ants.
Crazy ants move in an random fashion and that’s how they got their name.
Ants prefer to make their nests in dry and warm places.
Electrical items like laptops, iPads, and phones are generally heated up when you’re working on them.
And when you shut it down, the residual heat remains for a while.
That heat, plus the food stains, attracts the crazy ants to your laptop.
Ants take your laptop as an ideal place to build their nests. Ants sneak into your laptop to build nests and to lay eggs!
That’s not something that you’d want. Because when the ants sneak in, they can cause severe damage to your laptop.
Also, ants prefer to sneak into the laptop through the CPU fan vent. When the laptop is on, the working CPU fan may chop the ant into pieces causing the pheromones to spread.
These pheromones attract other ants to your laptop.
Ants have a habit of chewing little wires of electrical appliances. So, once they’re inside your laptop, they will surely chew on the little wirings inside.
It will make your laptop defective if you don’t act fast.
Signs Of Ant In Laptop
Ants in a laptop can be hard to spot unless you’re aware of the signs of ant infestation.
And what are they?
Live Ants Around Your Laptop
The surest shot sign of ants in the laptop are live ants around your laptop.
They are there because of the pheromones from other ants and food stains.
You’d also notice ants on the laptop screen, on the keyboard, and sometimes near the laptop’s charger.
A laptop’s charger can also attract ants. It’s because the charger gets hot when you use it causing the ants to gather near the small holes near the adapter wire.
When ants try to sneak through the holes of the charger, the heat smokes them up. It causes the pheromones to spread, which attracts other ants.
So, if you keep your charger idle in one place for days and it had ants, you may end up with a scene below.
Ant Feces or Frass Around Your Laptop
If there are ants inside your laptop, they will push out their feces, also known as frass, from the laptop’s vents.
If you see dust like wood shavings on the surface where you’ve kept the laptop, then that’s a sign of ant infestation inside your laptop.
That’s how ant feces look like.
How To Get Rid Of Ants From Laptop?
Now that you know why ants get into your laptop and what are the signs, it’s time to get into the process of getting rid of them.
It’s so easy that even a five year old can do.
So, let’s check out the three steps to remove ants from your laptop for good.
Clean Your Laptop’s Exterior To Remove The Food Crumbs And Dirt
It would be best if you begin with the exterior of the laptop.
Cleaning a laptop is not that straight forward as it seems, but it’s easy.
All you would need is an electronic wipe and a keyboard cleaner.
First, use the keyboard cleaner over your keyboards and at the rear vents on your laptop.
Keyboard cleaners work like a vacuum cleaner. It’ll remove all the food crumbs, dirt, and a few ants from the laptop too.
Keep the nozzle of the cleaner half an inch or an inch away from the surface of the laptop.
After one or two rounds, take the nozzle close to the laptop’s surface. It’ll suck out the food crumbs and dirt hiding deep in the keyboard and in the vents.
Once you’re done with vacuuming, it’s time to use the electronic wipes.
Use Electronic Wipes On The Laptop’s Surface To Get Rid Of The Food Stains
Electronic wipes work great on removing food stains from the laptop and other electronic appliances.
They breakdown the stains making them easy to remove with just a couple of swipes.
To begin with, start with swiping the screen of the laptop.
Then move on to places like your keyboard, mouse touchpad, and the laptop’s rear.
Make sure that you use one wipe for each portion of the laptop.
Using the same wipe can transfer the stains from one portion of the laptop to another.
Electronic wipes don’t cause any scratch on the laptop’s screen or the laptop’s surface.
Plus, they dry quickly. Electronic wipes don’t leave behind any sticky residue of the food stains.
Clean The Laptop Interiors To Get Rid Of The Ants Hiding Inside
To execute the process if you’ve to open your laptop.
Some people get a bit nervous when it comes to opening a laptop, but it’s easy.
All you’ve to do is take the battery off the laptop and unscrew the screws at your laptop’s bottom panel.
You can check out the video below if you need guidance on deep cleaning the laptop.
Once you’ve opened the laptop, and if you’ve ants, you’ll see ants scurrying out.
Now it’s time for action!
Take the vacuum cleaner and use it over the open portion of the laptop.
But be careful. Please don’t use it close to the laptop’s interiors.
The high pressure from the vacuum cleaner can dislocate the capacitors and circuits inside the laptop.
Use the vacuum cleaner an inch or two from the laptop’s surface.
Vacuum the laptop for a good 7-10 minutes till you’re sure all the ants are gone.
There may be some ants hiding inside the laptop.
But don’t worry, there’s a solution for that too.
Use An Ant Bait To Attract The Ants Out Of Your Laptop
Now it’s time to act a bit smarter than the ants hiding inside the laptop.
Don’t reassemble the laptop. Keep it open.
Take a few ant baits. Keep them around your laptop two or three inches away.
To up your game, take a few ants from the last step and squish them.
Keep them around the laptop near the ant bait.
Leave the dead ants and the ant bait for one night near your laptop. Ants are nocturnal, and their activities peak during the night.
The pheromones from the dead ant, plus the ant bait, will attract the ants out of hiding from your laptop.
The next morning, you’ll see many ants on the ant trap.
How To Keep Ants Away From The Laptop Forever?
There are three ways you can keep ants away from your laptop forever.
Treat Your Home For Ants
Ants in a laptop is a sign of a bigger problem.
It means ants have infested your home, and you need to contact a pest controller to get rid of them.
The presence of ants inside the home is also a sign of an active ant nest within your home’s premises.
The nest can be in your yard, your basement, or even underneath the floor.
The first thing you must do is hire a reliable pest controller to get rid of the ants from your home.
Maintain Laptop Hygiene
Refrain from eating around your laptop, especially those foods like burgers and sandwiches that drop crumbs.
Using your hands while eating and working on your laptop leaves food stains that attract many other bugs other than ants.
So, the best you can do is eat, wash your hands, dry your hands, and then touch your laptop.
Using a keyboard skin goes a long way not only in protecting your keyboard from getting overused but also in keeping the ants away.
It covers all the gaps between the keys that can be the entry points of ants inside your laptop.
If you’re eating and working at the same time by chance, then the food stains won’t stick with the keyboard’s surface.
Do Ants Harm Your Laptop?
Yes, they can. Ants can damage and destroy your laptop from inside if you don’t get rid of them.
Ants are also known for chewing the wires in and around the electrical outlets. They also can hide inside electronic appliances.
Do ants chew the capacitors or processors inside the laptop? No, they don’t.
But they can cause a short circuit inside your laptop.
The gap between the two conductors inside the laptop is narrow. If an ant falls in between, it’ll get electrocuted.
That can cause a short circuit, which will lead to laptop malfunction and loss of data.
So, if you see ants around your laptop, your alarm bells must ring. You should follow the steps that we mentioned in the post.
Conclusion
Now you’ve got to know how simple and easy it is to get rid of ants on the laptop.
All you’ve to do is –
- Clean your laptop’s exteriors by using a vacuum cleaner.
- Use electronic wipes to remove food and oil stains from the laptop’s surface.
- Clean the interiors of the laptop.
You also got to know the precautions you need to take while cleaning the laptop. Following these precautions can save you from the damages to the laptop.
Ants in the laptop indicate that there is severe ant infestation in your home.
We recommend contacting a pest controller to treat your home against ants asap.
We’re Mark and Jim, and we’re retired pest controllers who made homes pest-free for more than three decades. We, along with our team of experts, founded this site to give you the pest control hacks that work.