Ants in Laptop | How to Get Rid of Ants in Your Laptop

You find yourself wanting to browse through the internet, maybe write, play a game, or do something else, but suddenly ants start coming out of your laptop. Don’t worry, with the following methods you can remove them with ease.

So, how to get rid of ants in your laptop? The best thing to do is to open up the laptop and slowly vacuum the ants. If you are inexperienced with laptop hardware or opening electronic devices, you should take the laptop to the computer store, and they will open it up and remove the ants for you. This process does not require professional exterminators.

If your laptop has been infested with ants for quite a while and you are seeing them all over the house, then you should also consider contacting pest control services. If there are ant colonies in your house, it might be very hard for you to deal with this problem on your own as some types of ants are very hard to eradicate.

How to Get Ants out of Your Laptop

Shaking Them Out

The easiest way to get rid of ants is to shake your laptop. These movements will hopefully scare the ants; in most cases, at least some will come out.

Vacuuming The Laptop

Vacuuming ants is very effective, but the downside is that you can’t vacuum ants inside the laptop without opening it fully. You can try to vacuum the vents on the sides or below and also even if you open your laptop you must be very careful when vacuuming over the components such as RAM, CPU or GPU.

Cleaning Your Laptop

The only way you can be entirely sure that your laptop is ant-free is to open it and clean it. As we have said, laptops can be very fragile, and there are a lot of parts and connectors that you need to be careful with.

Something can be torn off or broken easily. If you decide to do it yourself, better watch a couple of tutorials on YouTube to see what is the best way to open and clean your laptop. For example, the video below.

If you are unfamiliar with opening laptops, and you don’t have confidence in your skills, it is better to hire a professional to help you.

Unorthodox Method – Water Moat

One rather unusual way of evicting ants from your laptop is to create a water moat. The point is to make ants feel isolated and unsafe.

You can do that by filling a washbowl or something similar with water. In it, you should place something that will resemble an “island” on which you need to place your laptop.

Make a “bridge” that will be the only way to leave the “island.” When an ant leaves your laptop, they see that they are surrounded by water and that they have only one way to cross it. This will motivate them to leave.

Ant Bait Near the Laptop

You can make bait from borax and mix it with something sweet, like sugar or honey. Ants will eventually come out to forage for food and water, and they will stumble upon your trap.

You can also place stronger insecticide baits. Borax and insecticide are strong enough to kill an ant, so this bait can help you in resolving this problem, but bait alone is not enough. Opening and cleaning your laptop is the only way to be positive that you got all the ants.

Try our recommended baits for ants like Home Plus Ant Killer and Terro 324 Liquid Ant Baits if you want to avoid preparing the borax mixture by yourself.

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Seeking Professional Help

If you are not familiar with DIY methods, or you just don’t want to risk anything, then simply don’t try to resolve this problem by yourself. The best solution would be to call a professional who will open your laptop and clean it of ants and their eggs.

Paying a couple of dollars to a professional is nothing when compared to the possibility of total destruction of a laptop in the hands of an inexperienced person. Sometimes it is just better not to get involved, and to accept that you can’t get everything done by yourself.

Related: Ant Exterminator Cost | Ant Treatment Price Guide

Reasons Why Ants Have Infested Your Laptop

In most cases, leftover food inside the laptop was a magnet for ants. Most of us, while watching a movie, working or playing games on a laptop, eat snacks. Crumbs can fall over and get inside the laptop.

Can Ants Harm Laptops?

What damage can ants cause to your laptop? They can damage and destroy the physical components of the laptop by creating a short circuit. While ants are small, the components within laptops are even smaller. By simply walking over the circuit board, they can create a short circuit with their bodies.

When you notice ants around your laptop, be sure to act quickly. Don’t wait for the problem to escalate because it will be too late. If ants damage your laptop from the inside, a repair can be very expensive or even impossible.

How to Prevent Ants From Entering Into the Laptop

The main thing you should do is not to eat around your laptop or leave any food nearby. That way, you will remove the main reason why ants have moved into your laptop in the first place.

The other thing you can do is to take your laptop to the service regularly to be opened and cleaned. That is definitely the best option, because you will be sure that your laptop is clean of ants and any dirt, and that way, the performance of your laptop will always be good.

If you have a regular spot for your laptop, you can sometimes change it if you have a suitable location. That way, even if some ants did locate your laptop and thought to move in, they would not be able to find it.

Related: How to Get Rid of Ants | Safe and Effective Methods

List of Sources

Alder P., Waldvogel M., Tips for Effective Ant Baiting, N.C. Cooperative Extension

Ants, University of California

Keck M., Drees B., Managing Red Imported Fire Ants in Electrical Equipment and Utility Housings, Texas Cooperative Extension, College Station, Texas

Ants, U.S. Department of Agriculture, University of Florida