• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Dust Removal

I do a quick clean every 2 months and a deep clean (take all components out of the case) twice a year. I wish I had an air compressor but I can't afford one so until I can I guess I'm stuck with canned air.
 
Greg-O said:
my suggestion would be not to blow it out, rather than suck it out, such as using a vacuum cleaner with a small nozel and being very careful. If you were to remove things such as Heatsinks and fans an air compressor or canned air should work just fine. It really just depends on how dirty it is. Also if you are cleaning heatsinks a good alternative is use soap and water but be shur and let it dry very well befor reinstalling.

Hope that helps, and all of this is coming from my experience with some very dirty computers.:D
Click to expand...

Soap and water? WTF?

If its worth doing, its worth doing it right the first time.
With that said, take out your components and use some rubbing alcohol.
The same alcohol you put on your cuts and scratches to kill the germs.
Let it dry before sticking your components back into your computer and turning on.
Alcohol will not disolve any of the circuitry, so it's your best bet if you're not willing to use canned air. Sometimes canned air wont remove that 'baked on' dust, so alcohol is your best bet.
 
When I clean mine, its only compressed air. I will use a slightly wet q-tip on the fan blades.

A vaccum?!?!? it might be the fastest way to clean, and the fastest way to kill a computer.
 
I just unplug and carry mine out onto the porch and use the air compressor, never had a problem. For those that live in apartments and don't have room for an air compressor, and don't want the noise of one, just get one of those smaller portable tanks and take it down to a local station that has free air to fill it up, then you can use whenever you want to.
 
You guys worry me - why are you getting all this dust in there in the first place? I've modified a couple of vacuum cleaner filters to fit over the inside of my side intake ports, the front intake has a filter already, and I have an air purifier / deioniser constantly running beside the PC (which is also on constantly). It's not needed cleaning for ages. Helps if the case has positive pressure (more air going in than out) as well. Dust should not be accepted as an inevitability.
 
I'm moving all my components of 1 year into a new case...

I'm thinking about just giving everything a nice rubbing alcohol bath...

Only concern of mine is if that will dissolve any of the thermal paste on the video-card or chipset. ? I'm reapplying the CPU so I'm not concerned with that.

Just wondering what everyone suggests... canned air gets expensive and meh...
 
I bought a 5-gallon air compressor on sale at Sears for what I spent on canned air the previous year. Works great.
 
My old roomate's computer got really dusty so I told him to take it outside, open the case, and blow really hard. It was rather amusing to watch him put his face 3" away from the case, blow, and get a face-full of dust.

Of course, after this was all done he asked what the bottle that said "compressed air" was for :eek::cool:
 
I already have an air compressor in my garage for my air tools so I use it to blow out my case. It is much much better than using canned air :p
 
garycoleman said:
I already have an air compressor in my garage for my air tools so I use it to blow out my case. It is much much better than using canned air :p
Click to expand...

Not the greatest idea... condensation in the line could cause big problems next time you fire the computer up
 
I have a thought that involves both a vac and a can of air.

I haven't done it, but I'm thinking, all that dust you blow out with the can o air may end up back in the system, so why not blow the dust towards an open nozzle of a vac and suck all of it up with. The vac shouldn't be in the machine if done right.

That way, you're not making everything else dusty around your machine and you're not letting most of that dust get back into that system.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top