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Clean Your Damn Computer!

H

HardOCP News

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[H] reader "Banditt" is a tech school teacher that has his class do free "computer tune-ups" for the public a couple times a year. The students get real world experience and the public gets a free tune-up. What a great guy! It's a win - win for everyone involved...except maybe the kid that got stuck with this computer.
 
This topic again?! I ought to just assemble a copy and paste, ready-to-paste, on-demand, the-post-to-end-all-posts post with the grossest and worst pictures of all time spanning back to the 80s.
 
The gross part is 75% of household dust is skin cells from us and our pets
 
Smokers do worse, that stuff sticks to components and leaves the smell on anything and everything.
 
Actually it's been my experience that the ones like the pictures show aren't that much harder to clean then cleaning dust out of any computer. One place I worked had a warehouse facility where the trucks actually backed into the building which resulted the inside being permiated with diesel soot.

Dust and dirt by itself is annoying, but when soaked and coated by soot it becomes sort of an thick oily sludge and is almost impossibly to effectively clean out of a computer. YUCK!
 
Probably the worst I've seen in person was at a screw machine shop. You know where they make small turned metal components for all sorts of assemblies. Anyway there's always oil and such in the air even with some heavy duty filtering and exhaust fans. So oil constantly coats the components, then dust, then more oil, etc etc. So you can imagine what would happen after a couple year without a cleaning. It kind of looks and feels like oil soaked dryer lint.
 
ImperfectLink said:
Nothing a vacuum cleaner can't pick up.
Click to expand...

Actually, vacuuming your computer is a really bad idea. They create static electricity as they suck up the dust and you're also more likely to knock off some components of the boards. Your best bet is getting an air compressor or at least some canned air.
 
RE: Vacuum's are bad for computers

What IS the defacto way to really scrub out the dust and grime from the insides of a computer?
 
a user brought in their personal computer to me a few years back complain it would turn on and lock up almost immediately or just turn off. So I opened up the case and low and hehold a bazillion cigarette butts fell out. The case of stuff full of them...her daughter was smoking and hiding the evidence...
 
Few years ago I was cleaning a computers from canceled internet cafe and every of them looked very much same as in your picture, kinda nasty but whatever :p I cleaned them with air compressor.
 
master noran said:
Smokers do worse, that stuff sticks to components and leaves the smell on anything and everything.
Click to expand...
Ya. Dog hair + smoke gunk is probably the worst I've seen.

I left an old computer on a porch for a year and it wasn't as dirty as some of these computers.
 
I have a customer that has his computer like that, at least this last time he cleaned it before bringing it over.
 
That M7NCD Biostar motherboad is from the Athlon XP days. I would have guessed more than 10 years of dust buildup to get that nasty. Must have been an in-house smoker.
 
Turbo Mach 5 said:
At least it wasn't infested with roaches...:eek: I've dealt with some. Uuugghhh..
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Yeah nothing like having things look back out at you when you pop the side off....

In my experience in dealing with really bad heatsinks from smokers or what not you just have to take it out off of the CPU and wash it with hot water and strong soap. Can't really do that with the main board but I have had to deal with heatsinks like that. Lots of fun.
 
Nasty, but I've done worse. I hated working on smokers' computers the most, but we did have one infested with roaches before when I was at CC. I also heard the story of right before I transferred in, some people brought their desktop in because it was slow and had a nasty smell. The case got opened and the father said "Oh, that's where I hid that Easter egg!" ...Easter had passed quite a while back.
 
bink said:
a user brought in their personal computer to me a few years back complain it would turn on and lock up almost immediately or just turn off. So I opened up the case and low and hehold a bazillion cigarette butts fell out. The case of stuff full of them...her daughter was smoking and hiding the evidence...
Click to expand...

WTF!?!?! :confused:

This makes me wonder three things, firstly how much did she smoke that the filters clogged up the insides of the computer (although I guess it could have been a small case) and secondly what did she think they just evaporated once shoved in there so she just kept packing more and more in?

Finally wouldn't her hidden evidence make the room with the computer smell like a large ashtray even without the computer running, but even worse when the computer was turned on and heated up all the butts?
 
zkostik said:
Actually, vacuuming your computer is a really bad idea. They create static electricity as they suck up the dust and you're also more likely to knock off some components of the boards. Your best bet is getting an air compressor or at least some canned air.
Click to expand...

I usually use air, but keep the vacuum running right inside the case to catch all that blown out dust.
 
zolointo said:
RE: Vacuum's are bad for computers

What IS the defacto way to really scrub out the dust and grime from the insides of a computer?
Click to expand...

Compressed air + alcohol solution?

And I've seen computers come into the shop that look at LEAST as bad as the OP one. Gross.
 
Eureka mighty mite canister vacuums have an exhaust port which allows you to hook the hose onto. We have an old one at work and it works great. I liked it so much I bought one for home. Only thing is the new model doesn't blow as well as I'd like. I have to attach a small nozzle attachment to get decent air pressure. Still works good for blowing out computers.
 
bink said:
a user brought in their personal computer to me a few years back complain it would turn on and lock up almost immediately or just turn off. So I opened up the case and low and hehold a bazillion cigarette butts fell out. The case of stuff full of them...her daughter was smoking and hiding the evidence...
Click to expand...

this made me lol
 
wtiger said:
Probably the worst I've seen in person was at a screw machine shop. You know where they make small turned metal components for all sorts of assemblies. Anyway there's always oil and such in the air even with some heavy duty filtering and exhaust fans. So oil constantly coats the components, then dust, then more oil, etc etc. So you can imagine what would happen after a couple year without a cleaning. It kind of looks and feels like oil soaked dryer lint.
Click to expand...


+1 for this being one of the worst environments ... ever ... I worked in a machine shop for years, so I can only imagine what my lungs look like, but the computers would be so caked in oily crap that it was easier to throw them away and buy new ones, than to try to clean them. And this was in the office next to the shop.
 
Ive vaccum my desktop PC for years, it keeps it clean, its fast and no it doesn't affect anything, use a soft brush with your vaccum. Today's casing is alot better with the fan filters, it prevents so much less dust building up.
 
A long time ago I knew a neighbor who had 12 cats, two dogs and a rabbit. I was guilted into going over and fixing her computer. Ug...I think the hairballs had hairballs from eating the hair-ridden rabbit droppings. The computer was even worse. The two fans in it had actually stopped due to all the hair/fur clogging up the blades. I WISH i could have taken a photo...because no one would ever believe that the inside looked like a grey shag carpet...over the entire inside, like a blanket. Seriously...a shag-freakn-carpet.

I couldn't bare trying to clean it out and fix it, so I told her "you'll have buy a new one". If you have to suit up in hazmat to fix a computer....it ain't worth fixing.
 
zomby said:
Ive vaccum my desktop PC for years, it keeps it clean, its fast and no it doesn't affect anything, use a soft brush with your vaccum. Today's casing is alot better with the fan filters, it prevents so much less dust building up.
Click to expand...

Yeah. If you're not haphazard about it, the vacuum just pulls most of the dust right off everything. Usually the buildup is on fans and filters so I'm not concerned about putting the nozzle right up to it. The rest can be handily blown off with the trusty air can.
 
I still find the half eaten sandwich I found in someones case humorus, clearly it had been there for a while as it had crusted itself to the bottom of their case.
I asked them if they wanted it back, they declined.
 
I still think the worst had to be opening a customer computer who was a smoker (outside of case was dark yellow and had burns on the top where i guess they missed the ash tray) to find 2 dead and rotting mice inside. The funniest / grossest had to be when a customer came in with a Canon printer that wouldn't feed paper. My boss took it apart and found a human tooth (with partial roots) in the paper path. The look on the customer's face was priceless when we showed him it. LOL
 
Vacuming PC is ok, I'm also doing this twice per year and computer is fairly clean.
 
This isn't even that bad, take it outside with an air compressor and blow it out. If you want to see a horrible system, try something that's been sitting in an auto shop for 10 years full of exhaust, soot, oil, etc.
 
It's perfectly fine to vacuum out a case with all of the components removed. It's a really bad idea to vacuum out a "full" case due to static. Static generated by a vacuum cleaner can generate volts into the five figures.
 
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