If there is dog / cat hair, does it matter how big your CPU cooler is?

Happy Hopping

Happy Hopping

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jul 1, 2004
Messages
7,837
whether your CPU block is 15 cm or 9 cm, can the hair run into the center of the fan? If so, will the fan stop rotating?
 
Fans don't really stop spinning from dust or hair; the heatsink fins just get coated with it, slowing the air and reducing heat transfer

A larger heatsink will end up clogging too; maybe more quickly

Maybe I don't understand your question
 
If the system has decent intake filters with slightly more intake pressure than exhaust, the filters will catch most hair. However, not all hair and dust particles.

Only very cheap, crappy fans on the cooler might ingest enough furballs to cause the bearings to seize prematurely. Maybe. Because of the rotation of the fan blades, inertia will pull dust particles out towards the edges of the blade rather than into the fan bearings. The airflow is greatest towards the edge to the fan - the fan hub is a dead spot with weak airflow, so contaminants are more likely to just go with the flow - and build up on the cooler fins. A 140mm fan would have a slight lifespan advantage over a 92mm model - dependent on the make/model of the fans.

Cheap sleeve bearing fans will wear out on their own even in a pristine fur-free clean room environment. Cigarette/Joint smoke is more of a problem than pet hair for fan motors - if the case has no intake filters or is a negative pressure design. Good quality fans are less affected.

Periodic cleaning of the fan blades and cooler as well as the system intake filters and fans will reduce furry failures. As well as pet hair, some of the dirt buildup in a rig is from human skin. Some of those 500 million skin cells we each shed per day on average are going to be ingested by the system.

Quarterly/Monthly/Weekly cleaning is the best defence. I know, cleaning out a system is tedious and no fun. Maybe train the cats and dogs to do it. Just make sure they wear clean room suits. And no chewing on the custom wire combs.
 
Well after like 6 months I found some trash/junk in the EK block...caught in the bottom. It was like black pieces man kinda looked like gasket/seal material...got me all paranoid...but I mean everything looks fine though.

some more strange stuff too today...whole thing just shut off and a post code about memory not detected...
 
Last edited:
what if it's a pet store? as long as the dog hair doesn't tangles at the center as it keep rotating, then it's good enough for me. I'm curious to know if those hair can get rotate into the center and slow the fan to zero rpm
 
Happy Hopping said:
what if it's a pet store? as long as the dog hair doesn't tangles at the center as it keep rotating, then it's good enough for me. I'm curious to know if those hair can get rotate into the center and slow the fan to zero rpm
Click to expand...
The likelihood of that happening is pretty low. As mentioned earlier in the thread, fans kinda fling everything that touches them away from their center by nature. Maybe if it was severely neglected for several years in a very very happy environment you might see that, but you'd likely hot thermal problems long before the fan would stop.
 
Be warned having a girlfriend can be bad for PCs too, not just because of their dangerous long hair.
 
Nenu said:
Be warned having a girlfriend can be bad for PCs too, not just because of their dangerous long hair.
Click to expand...

Honestly, I've never had this problem and my Wife's hair goes to the middle of her back.
 
Nenu said:
Be warned having a girlfriend can be bad for PCs too, not just because of their dangerous long hair.
Click to expand...
um yeah there used to be a post here about an ex of mine trashing my system... :(

re the hair issue, no it isn't a prob for the fans. I have never seen a fan stopped from hair build up in the fan only. I have seen hair and dust build up enough on the heatsink to hit the fan blade and stop it.
 
Yeah I wouldn't worry about hair or dander too much. This pic is from a client's PC that was in her garage for 2 years that had 4 Great Danes living in it, and she was a heavy smoker.


Picture 006.jpg



Picture 007.jpg



Picture 009.jpg
 
Last edited:
I was more concerned with the pizza places tower that "just shut off during our evening rush". all the IDE/floppy cables were shredded and it was full of mouse piss and shit. I wouldn't work on it and just handed it back. no hanta for me thanks.
 
To slightly change the subject, what is the effect of smoke from cigarette to a PC?
 
the residue in the smoke sticks to things and then dust sticks to it and it sticks to the dust in endless layers until you get what you see a few posts above ^.
 
pendragon1 said:
only thing worse is that combined with a pig farm. did service work at one, enclosed office with a smoker and then pig shit dust :vomit:
Click to expand...
Now come on. Everyone knows that is the killer rub for competition BBQ!
Joking aside I did job for a guy who helped me do some concrete work. His tobacco dust was rust coloured and so sticky and stinky. I pulled and scrubbed pounds of that shit out of there. Horrible. Die smokers, die!
 
pendragon1 said:
the residue in the smoke sticks to things and then dust sticks to it and it sticks to the dust in endless layers until you get what you see a few posts above ^.
Click to expand...

so the smell on the inside and outside of the PC case, including motherboard, power supply etc., how do you get rid of it?
 
blow it out real good. cleaning wipes for the outside and inside of case. electronics cleaner for the components.
 
easy for you to say. How exactly do you clean the chips and digital resistors on a motherboard?
 
Happy Hopping said:
easy for you to say. How exactly do you clean the chips and digital resistors on a motherboard?
Click to expand...

I used a shopvac and makeup brushes to clean that one up above, than I covered the whole inside with paper towels and saturated them with Febreze. The oustside of the case was cleaned using Orange Clean in conjunction with alcohol wipes.

Not that it mattered, it was returned to it's original state within a year. Smokers need that tar.;)
 
I have seen forum posts where those cleaning the motherboards or computer parts put them in the dishwasher, I have always wanted to try but haven't yet....
 
deaedius said:
I have seen forum posts where those cleaning the motherboards or computer parts put them in the dishwasher, I have always wanted to try but haven't yet....
Click to expand...
I don't know that it's comparable, but I used to manufacture PCBs the old fashioned way, by hand-soldering. Before the conformal coating, we'd do just that: treat them like dishes with a brush and some Dawn. We'd then dry them off with an air knife and let them sit in a dehumidified room for a day before finishing them off with conformal coating and installing them in their chassis.

Those were just 7400-series ICs, resistors and caps though. Everything was sealed or potted, and there was nothing that could have been damaged by water. I don't know if a motherboard would fare as well.
 
deaedius said:
I have seen forum posts where those cleaning the motherboards or computer parts put them in the dishwasher, I have always wanted to try but haven't yet....
Click to expand...

Same. Something inside me can't get past the issue of water and PCB's don't mix, that is unless there is a block on it.
I've seen Youtube vids of a guy washing fans and GPU Coolers with a garden hose and a scrub brush, than putting them on his roof to air dry, just makes me cringe to think about all that water in the hubs of those fans.
 
technically you can do that to all electronics and as long as they are dried properly it wont be an issue.
 
No MB, but my brother put a video card through the wash once, dried it off by hanging it from a fan and no problems that I know of (Edit: stripped off the fans/whatnot beforehand).

Back on the smoking, I was renovating a place back in the day, and the sun room was the pipe smoker's room for twenty odd years. Had to rip out the drywall, and douse the studs/etc a couple times in cleaning solution to remove the stench (tried cleaning/painting the drywall a couple coats before that).
 
Last edited:
pendragon1 said:
only thing worse is that combined with a pig farm. did service work at one, enclosed office with a smoker and then pig shit dust :vomit:
Click to expand...

I used to do general IT for a pork company. Lots of brown dust buildup in the farm pcs. The smell would never leave them. Laptops were great too. Power them on for instant farm smell anywhere. It really grows on you though.
 
Yes you can sack your girlfriend to protect your psu as well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top