Every now and again, we like to highlight some of these stories about Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles that have become overly dusty — and this specific example shows just how bad they can get in certain circumstances!
The owner of this Xbox Series S console is someone known as "Outrageous-Set-1758" over on Reddit, who highlighted a few days ago how they'd cleaned their system after it began sounding like a jet engine. Once they opened it up, they were greeted with the following sight (use the arrow buttons to scroll through the pictures):
Some people in the comments immediately pointed to this being a "smoker's console", and that was indeed the case, but it's not technically anymore. The OP mentions how they "used to smoke a lot" but managed to quit two years ago.
The other culprit is that they used to work in construction and specifically masonry, mentioning how their controllers used to "get the dye you use in mud all over them". They describe their Series S as a "survivor's console for sure".
In terms of the cleanup, they suggest that they used a Torx8 head screwdriver, a duster and a vacuum adapter to get the worst bits "without digging too much in", and their system is now sounding whisper quiet when in use.
We reached out to the Reddit poster to get photos for this article, and they advised to mention that cleaning your console this way can void your warranty in some cases, so just bare that in mind if you're planning to do the same thing yourself. In fact, we've actually got a guide to cleaning the Xbox Series X (but unfortunately not the Series S just yet) elsewhere on Pure Xbox if you're interested: