This is the problem I am having. It's hot and I want to use my AC and it turns on normally but doesn't do much of a job of cooling my room, in fact it doesn't really cool it down much at all. I will give yesterday as an example. It reached about 99F outside and with my AC on full blast I was getting a temp of 92F inside my room. I really want to solve this problem ASAP cause I work overnight and sleep during the day and if my room is too hot I can't sleep.

I own a Haier 5,200 BTU window unit. My room is slightly larger than the ideal size for that size AC but I had to purchase something within my price range, and still manage to bring it home at the time (which was on public transportation). Despite the size problems I have not had this bad of a problem before. I bought this AC in May of 2006, so I have not had it long at all. The first summer I didn't get any spectacular results. It got my room cool to about 74, which is a comfortable temp to me, so I was happy and was able to sleep. Then summer of 2007 I was getting about 80 or so most of the summer. Now this year its really bad and the AC is barely blowing out any cold air.

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. If push comes to shove I may just save up my money and try to hold out until I can buy an 8,000 BTU unit.

About the only improvement you can get is by cleaning the coils and filter. Once they get dirty, the unit cannot do its job properly

What would you recommend I do in order to clean the coils properly? I already cleaned the filter a couple days ago and got pretty much no improvement.

To be honest I kind of think I need to just buy a new AC anyway. The first day I got it an installed it I kind of had the feeling that I got a crappy AC but since it cooled my room down to 74F I was satisfied with it until it stopped cooling my room as much. I never even heard of Haier till that day and friggin Walmart only had those ACs. I was looking for one of the more recognized name brands like fridgidaire or something.

slide the unit out of the case and clean the evapoator and condensing coils. You will be surprised how much crud will gather on them. Clean coils= better performance

Buy a bigger unit. They are very cheap now days

Yep,, you can buy a bigger unit,as cheap or cheaper than you can call in a pro. About all that can be done is a good cleaning,, and that takes a special chemical you can`t buy in local grocery store,, to do it right

Well so far I haven't been able to even touch my AC to clean it. I have ju st been way too busy.

As far as buying anew one, I really want an 8,000 but that's going to run me about $200, which I don't have right now. So hopefully I can get to cleaning this one I have now and it will last me a little longer

Unless you have an extremely filthy coil (both coils) I suspect your air conditioner is bad. How large is the room? Are there many windows facing direct sunlight at any time of day? Hold a thermometer in front of it and see what temperature air is blowing out of it. If it's around 50 degrees, it's doing it's job... and I doubt it's anywhere near that if you can't keep the room tolerable. I've cooled very large room with 5000 BTU units. Sounds like yours is in trouble.
Hope this helped.