"Dude, I think my CPU is overheating. You want to come check it out for me?"
Posted Feb 21, 2011, 1:45 PM UTC
14351
that's smokers dust too
20
Yup.
15
Nicotine is a royal pain in the ass to remove from anything.
5
Don't forget to clean your case, PC builders.
EDIT: This is a friend's computer, btw. After cleaning out the heatsink the CPU ran 30°C cooler.
16
How did you get everything cleaned?
9
Tornado. Only way to be sure.
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I thought a nuke was the only... oh nevermind.
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Used a can of air to kick up the dust and a shop-vac (outside of the case) to suck up the airborne particles. I used a cloth to pick up the big stuff and a cotton swab with a little rubbing alcohol to get the finer spots.
13
How well a computer works is like this
How good is the actual computer?
What about the cooling.
At one point early in my career I had my own computer stop working. I thought that the CPU had failed. It had not failed, there was in fact a chinchilla hiding between the heatsink and CPU fan. To bad it was a Intel stock heatsink so I couldn't really take off the fan to give it a good lovin, I still got it clean.. Never again.
-5
Yeah, when my stock fan got full of dust, I just said fuck it and bought a new fan.
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[deleted]
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without properly maintained cooling your computer is worthless. half of what makes a computer good is the cooling. I know its a hard concept to understand..heck I get that reading an entire paragraph may seem a daunting task for some. so I apologize for the confusion.
a chinchilla is a grey rodent. the dust that collects in your computer is also grey..
1
I have an Antec DF-85 with dust filters. Even with the front fans at around 50%, I still have to clean out the filters every 3 days or so because they've turned from dark black to just gray and coated with dust.
Its shocking how much dust goes through a computer.
And yes, smoker's computers are the absolute worst. I had one that was so bad I had to take it out to my garage and spent 20 minutes taking an air compressor to it. The dust felt so toxic I had to take a break so I could actually breathe. Went and got a gas mask I had and finished the job. Think I lost a month of my life from that.
9
Cue dozens of "I've seen worse" posts...
(I've seen worse. WAY worse.)
8
Indeed. Gotta love the ones that smoke all day around their computer while it sits on a carpeted floor.
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Why does sitting on a carpeted floor make a difference?
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Particles tend to be trapped in the carpeting, in comparison to wood floors.
5
Which whisk cat hair RIGHT up to the intake filters with no resistance. I'm just fortunate mine are designed to be snapped out and cleaned without having to disassemble the case.
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Dust tends to collect worse in carpet if it is not vacuumed frequently. Add that it is obviously more difficult to vacuum around a computer/wires and there is more dust trapped in the carpet.
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Not to mention carpet is bad in general due to poorer air flow and static
3
Well there's your problem.
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I'll be building a new PC when Sandy Bridge gets relaunched, meanwhile can anyone give any tips/preventative measures on how to minimize/avoid dust accumulation inside the case?
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Pressure (and filters):
http://www.demcifilter.com/filters_performance.php
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/238184-13-case-airflow-positive-negative-pressure
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Read this in the morning.
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Dude don't forget to read that thing about dust like you said you would!
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Nothing is worse than cat piss. I charged $300 for that call.
5
Cat piss will rust open metal quickly on computer cases. Damn mother and sister with too many cats...
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I believe this comment could apply to literally dozens of service industries.
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What was your experience? lol
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I own cats. :/
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I don't have a problem with anybody that owns cats, but if you have like 9 and you only have one litter box, you can seriously go fuck yourself. Otherwise, its all good.
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Compressed air is your friend.
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Meh. I tried cleaning and putting new thermal paste on my laptop's heatsink, ended up screwing up the GPU (it shares the heatsink with the CPU) in the process. Time to call Dell's tech support up (shudders) and get a replacement motherboard. I'm fucking lucky too as my warranty expires in two days.
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I think you pretty much voided your warranty.
2
Not if I didn't tell them why it stopped working... :P
My warranty expires tomorrow anyways.
1
The picture makes me feel better about my being anal-retentive when it comes to doing PM on my machine.
- Monthly blowdown on all intake filters.
- Quarterly washing of all foam filters, wet-wiping of all metal mesh filters, blowdown on the CPU cooler, detail dusting of all fans.
- Semi-annual complete teardown of the entire chassis, dusting of al components except MB; that gets a through blowdown.
2
It's been six months since I cracked my case... I can't imagine how full of dust the Cpu cooler is.
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Could be terrible, or not so bad depending on cleanliness around the case, and air filters. Amongst other things.
1
I used to get incredible builds up of dust like this, it really messes up a computer... most people dont even have a clue about them either and throw away their laptops due to overheating.
I have to recommend the antec 300, with dust catches, saved me so much time in dusting inside my case!
1
I have the 300 Illusion case and was pleasantly surprised to realize that it case with a built in dust filter on the front two intake fans. That saved me about $15 on Newegg.
1
someone pour cement in that their fancy CPU! lol I had a family member who's heat sink looked almost identical to that a few weeks ago. It sits right no the floor with 2 cats and a dog and hadn't been cleaned in 5 years haha.
1
This pixture makes me sneeze.
1
Late to the party but oh well. I should of took pictures; I once was asked to fix a guy's computer and I always open them up to get all the dust out first. When I opened it.. mother of god.. I almost passed out from the sight of it. This guy smoked cigars and apparently blew the smoke and residue directly into his computer. The whole inside was caked in cigar residue, all sticky, smelly, and brown. My whole room smelled like disgusting, old cigars the second I opened the case up. The fans couldn't even spin because of it. I spent a good two hours taking it apart and cleaning all the pieces, but the damage was done.
Computer still ran and all, so just grabbed the HD out, plugged it into my computer and cleaned out all the malware and garbage. Got tipped 60 bucks for it atleast.
TL;DR: Opened guys PC, couldn't make out a single component due to being covered in sticky cigar residue.
1
Needs more blur
i can still make out a pixel
Dehance!
And some lens flare.