Clean Your Damn COMPUTER!!!!

Dam! Mine was never that bad even when I lived in Mesa, AZ with all the dust.

Florida is much cleaner. :)

I wonder if it still was a running unit or it just over heated and shutdown.....
 
You've obviously never worked in an repair shop before. That's pretty common actually. The worst were the computers from the pig barns from the Hutterites. Smell like pig crap a mile away, are disgustingly dirty, leave your desk stinking, and they usually have porn DVDs in them because Hutterites aren't allowed to have internet so they watch them on DVDs.
 
Dam! Mine was never that bad even when I lived in Mesa, AZ with all the dust.

I live up near Lake Pleasant and I have an easy solution for the dust: use intake fans and double filter them. Never ran a cleaner computer. Intake fans reduce the incoming air from the cracks and other case holes, and double filtering takes care of the dust coming into those fans. You'll only need to blow it out every three months instead of every three weeks.
 
I live up near Lake Pleasant and I have an easy solution for the dust: use intake fans and double filter them. Never ran a cleaner computer. Intake fans reduce the incoming air from the cracks and other case holes, and double filtering takes care of the dust coming into those fans. You'll only need to blow it out every three months instead of every three weeks.

It helps a lot if you make sure your case is positive pressure and not negative pressure, too. More intake than output fans.
 
I've never had the whole computer like that but way back when, when I had an AMD XP+somethingorother, the heatsink was so caked with dust that it literally was one solid block, it was odd because the rest of the computer (including the fan) you couldn't really see that much dust... oh well cleaned it out and sure enough temperatures came crashing back down to Earth :D
 
Not holding the fans while blowing them off is a good way to ruin the bearings.

Twitching the wand around like that only makes cleaning take longer as well.
 
Bah, that's nothing. You should see some of the computers that I clean on a monthly basis from the steel foundry...

BTW, if you use an air compressor to blow things out, hold the fans steady or stick something in them to prevent them from spinning uncontrollably. The fan bearing/sleeve can burn up if you spin the blades too fast with high compressed air. Also, they emit a current back to the motherboard.
 
That's nothing.

In the late 90's, when I worked at CompUSA as a tech, an old guy brought in a computer with a dead PSU. It sat on the shelf for a day or two due to backlog. When we finally got around to looking at it, we picked it up and dropped it on the work bench. About a dozen or so tiny cockroaches came out of the power supply running everywhere.

We all freaked. We immediatly wrapped the entire computer in a large garbage bag and called up the guy to come pick up his computer. We told him it was infested with cockroaches, and we refused to work on it. Hell, we refused to even open up the case. When he picked it up, the bag was full of cockroaches.

A few days later, we had to call an exterminator because our shop was then infested with cockroaches.
 
Looks like a pretty typical neglected warehouse computer.
 
Much prefer good old fashioned dust to the sticky smoker crap that webs in the case, or roaches.
 
That was NOTHING.
Few years ago, had a shop floor processing machine that stopped responding to the monitor board.
Went out to take look-was a beige-cased desktop.
Pulled the cover and there was ONE titanium dust bunny that conformed to the underside of the case and filled evry nook and cranny.
Removed the whole thing as one piece by hand, blew it out, and removed/reseated all the cards and memory.
Powered back up and ran fine after that.
 
When you got that much dust why not use a vaccum and get most of that crap out then use the air.
Toxic dust weeee!
 
1. You don't use a vacuum because the generate lots of static electricity and won't effectively clean the many tight spaces in a computer case / around a motherboard.

2. If you work on computers, especially those in dirty conditions (factory, farm, steel mill, etc) you should seriously consider http://dirtbag.biz/ for your customers. These are very effective filters, easy to use and eventually exchange (although they can be removed, cleaned and then reused). Much better than individual fan filters that clog quickly, and they keep the case well-ventilated.

3. I second the fan comment. If you blow out machines like this, use a non-conductive tool to hold the fanblades in place, so they may not spin. An air compresser can easily apply enough torque and excess RPM on the bearings (this goes doubly for cheap fan bearings) to damage or immediately destroy them. It's easy to stop the fans from spinning. Do so.
 
Thats pretty bad. Makes me want to clean my computer after watching that.
 
My question is how did the thing stay running long enough to suck up that much crap!?
 
My question is how did the thing stay running long enough to suck up that much crap!?


When I was a kid my father worked at a parts department and the computer where that filthy, since they are leased, when they died they just replace with another one, just call the tech guy.
 
I have seen hundreds like that but nothing beats PC's full of animals or bug mess or dust build up from cigarettes they are the worst! If you can call what smoking does dust.
 
I've seen worse when I was working for a computer repair shop. It was usually systems that were in a back corner of a shop, warehouse, etc. that sat for years and years.
 
I would be scared that PC would burst into flames if I turned it on. That lint like dust crap will burn with the right conditions & with it sticking out of the vents it might be contained to the case interior.
 
I would be scared that PC would burst into flames if I turned it on. That lint like dust crap will burn with the right conditions & with it sticking out of the vents it might NOT be contained to the case interior.

Post edit: Not be contained to the case interior.
 
Compressed air is no match for a computer caked on with cigarette tar. Found a computer in the garbage that was full of that shit... I didn't even feel like scrapping it. Went straight back in the trash where it came from.

:mad:
 
You've obviously never worked in an repair shop before. That's pretty common actually. The worst were the computers from the pig barns from the Hutterites. Smell like pig crap a mile away, are disgustingly dirty, leave your desk stinking, and they usually have porn DVDs in them because Hutterites aren't allowed to have internet so they watch them on DVDs.

Ikr? I wish I could say I haven't seen worse, but that's not nearly as bad as a couple I've seen.
 
Compressed air is no match for a computer caked on with cigarette tar. Found a computer in the garbage that was full of that shit... I didn't even feel like scrapping it. Went straight back in the trash where it came from.

:mad:

There's one thing worse than cigarette tar when it comes to dirty cases, and that's THC, way more sticky than ordinary tobacco smoke. :)

So that's prolly what you found if it was really bad. ;)
 
Props to that guy for doing that without a respirator. Call me chicken but aint no way I'd have touched that thing without gloves and a respirator.
 
That's nothing.

In the late 90's, when I worked at CompUSA as a tech, an old guy brought in a computer with a dead PSU. It sat on the shelf for a day or two due to backlog. When we finally got around to looking at it, we picked it up and dropped it on the work bench. About a dozen or so tiny cockroaches came out of the power supply running everywhere.

We all freaked. We immediatly wrapped the entire computer in a large garbage bag and called up the guy to come pick up his computer. We told him it was infested with cockroaches, and we refused to work on it. Hell, we refused to even open up the case. When he picked it up, the bag was full of cockroaches.

A few days later, we had to call an exterminator because our shop was then infested with cockroaches.

That story was great!
 
No feathers, no roach nests, bad as it is (and it was bad) I have seen worse.
 
Dust mites are microscopic arachnids whose primary food is dead human skin cells.
 
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