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the first indication...


Mark_88

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was a rather loud and progressively louder whirrrrr...I ignored it...thinking my hearing was getting better...then things started to slow down...a bit at first...then more and more...and more...

So, finally, tonight I took the lid off my computer and had a look....:icon_surprised:

If dust were a person I would have heard a whole army singing "we are the champions"...so I got out a vacuum, some Q-tips and a mouth-held flashlight...since I always manage to tuck my computer into the darkest corner of the room...and went to work...

Five Q-tips and a pound of dust later...:yahoo:

The silence is deafening in here...

If you haven't done yours for a year or two...probably a good idea to consider it a worthwhile maintenance project...
 


lil_Blue_Ford

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Mine is looking pretty decent yet but at some point I'll probably drag it outside and hit it with the blowgun. The filter I rigged up on the two main intakes seems to catch a lot of the stuff.

But yes, especially computers with multiple case fans, they do have a tendency to collect dust and it is NOT a good thing (especially those with older AMD machines).
 

AllanD

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about once a year, usually mid-april, I disconnect all the cables from my Mid-tower, carry it out to the garage, take off the access cover, unscrew all the fans and the CPU heat sink and blow everything off with compressed air.

Then after the dust settles I blow it off again.

THEN I take a shower and reassemble the computer and bring it back inside.
 

Mark_88

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haha...I guess you have a good water separator on that air system...I thought about using one but I used to both see and feel the moisture coming out of some of the...thought it might be a bit too wet for my computer so I just used a more passive method.

Just checked mine again after reading this and found the fan was already getting plugged up with dust...and I just put a new filter in my air purifier (Honeywell upright) so I thought it would take much longer to plug up...
 

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I find that about every 3 months is the maximum I can go without cleaning. But, I live in an exceptionally dusty home (wood stove) and use my computer more than just about anybody I know. (About 6-8 hours per day 5 days a week.)
 

Mark_88

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I find that about every 3 months is the maximum I can go without cleaning. But, I live in an exceptionally dusty home (wood stove) and use my computer more than just about anybody I know. (About 6-8 hours per day 5 days a week.)
I'm trying to cut down my computer time...this winter has been too cold for doing much else though...and I just had to clean out the dust again last week...seems I missed the exhaust fan passage so it wasn't quite blowing out the way it should.
 

AllanD

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I have a coal stove in my house which is where the dust comes from

And I usually drain the air tank and dry out my water separator a day or so
before I blow off my computer.

About this time last year I got a computer from the local recycling center.

It was a fairly high-end HP system with a fast AMD dual core CPU.
(it was a computer shipped with a WD "Black" series HDD)
The drive was carefully and thoroughly smashed by the previous owner

What I found when I first fired it up was that the main cooling fan was
so out of balance that it literally tried to vibrate the entire tower off of
my workbench.

Talk about "Dust Bunnies" or "Cat hair" inside a computer?
this one had the whole rabbit in there!

The fan had gotten so clogged up and so out of balance that it had actually started to shed blades.

as it turned out the only thing wrong with it was dust... well that and the smashed HDD.
 
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Mark_88

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Yeah, a coal stove would throw out quite a bit of soot...

What kind of water separator do you use? I tried using one as an oil separator...and, of course, the "brass scintered (whatever that means) filter" wasn't meant to do that sort of thing...at least not very often...and I ended up buying $140 worth of them and the assorted nozzles...only to find out I had wasted that money because of the vacuum on the intake was actually sucking the oil right back out of the bottle...so I have 2 large ones and two small ones that I cannot use...

I might buy a compressor some day but meanwhile they are taking up some space somewhere...

Nice find on the computer~

I'm still using that old Dell GX520 that I found in the garbage two years ago...runs pretty good...I've upgraded the RAM to the max and it is still pretty slow on some things...but I remember you mentioning an upgraded processor...gonna have to have a look at that post again because I think I just found one that might work...
 

simpler=better

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Guys, bust out the arctic silver 5. It's like $10 a tube and will drop your temps an easy 5*-15*
 

Mark_88

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Guys, bust out the arctic silver 5. It's like $10 a tube and will drop your temps an easy 5*-15*
I hadn't thought of TIMs for decades...lol...and I'd never heard of this...apparently the Geeks don't like it as much as some other brands that are more readily available...

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/geek_tested_17_thermal_pastes_face

I've never had a problem with overheating that a good fan won't fix...I'm not running an OC machine and have no intention of trying anything to increase my speed...short of buying a faster PC...or finding one in the trash...

But I'm sure some will benefit from the knowledge of these products...most computer geeks probably already know about this but someone might find it useful...
 

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