Cleaning inside Mac Pro 2013 to keep it running cool

Hey Apple Folks

I had a "dummy" alert come up from an app that my Mac Pro "trash can" from 2013 was running a little hot. Upon further searching here, it probably wasn't dangerously hot, but I would like my computer running as cool as reasonably possible, and realized it had been a while since I addressed dust etc inside the computer.

I read a lot about removing the main cover and using compressed air to get dust off of the boards etc. This does go against my thinking that dust gets blown "bad" places when compressed air is used, but I also understand that static caused by vacuuming is much worse.

I was surprised after a lot of searching to find few references to remove the fan and clean the fan itself. Wanting to be thorough, I removed the five torx screws holding the fan in place on top, but did not disconnect the wiring.

This fan could NOT have been moving a lot of air! It was COVERED in dust! More than any other part of the computer. The only way to remove the loads of dust I saw, without blowing it all back into the computer itself, would have been to remove it like I did.

With the fan tipped away from the computer, and a few pieces of paper covering the top and side of the open computer, I used a digital-camera-friendly bristle brush to gently lift the little bundles of dust off the blades of the fan, working my way around the fan a few blades at a time. I shook the brush off before going back for more. I then gently held the fan from spinning and gently blew compressed air up through the fan at each location. This was the only way I could think of to clean all of this and be able to use compressed air to finish, without blowing the dust back INTO the computer.

I did not let the fan spin with the compressed air, as I read that that might send signal and short out parts fo the board.

I don't see a way to attach a pic here, but I was shocked at the amount of dust that accumulated on the edge of each blade of the fan. The rest of the computer was quite clean, surprisingly. I was also surprised how little I have seen this specific issue mentioned when I read the (many) threads I checked over to cool the computer and clean it out.

Does anything I did ring as incorrect or wrong to anyone? I want to get this out there, or at least remind people that the pretty simple step, to remove the fan, may have been the most helpful step for me. I also do not want to put any bad advice out there. My fan is running over 30% slower now, from 1200rpm on average down to just under 800rpm on average now (inefficiently running fans run at higher RPM than clean ones). The chip locations etc seem to be measuring approximately 25% lower in temperature, on average, since cleaning it out.

Bernie