How often do you clean your case?

R

RooK

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 19, 2001
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Lets see how clean everyone is...

How big is your case? what's the airflow from low to high? do you keep the side of? Do you have pets? Do you keep the rig high? Lets see some good ways to keep our rigs clean.
 
Good way to keep your rig clean? Keep it in a clean room, duh. lol.

I have no filters, it's on the floor, tons of airflow.... basically my computer is a dust magnet.
Meh, I clean it out every few weeks. I try to wipe the dust off the front grate every few days though. I mean, every day I can run my finger over the front grate every day and it will come off dusty.
 
I cleaned mine for the first time in about 5 years..... When I swapped out the original build with my latest. Needless to say it was horrible.
 
I have Lian Li V1200 and I clean the air filters probably once a month. Every few months I will use canned air and clean out my CPU cooler and videocard. Other than that, my room stays pretty clean and dust has never really been a problem for me.
 
Some tips -

1) Positive pressure
2) Fan filters
a) the finer ones are better then the plastic mesh type ones with bigger openings
3) Block openings from the top (since dust will fall in)

An idea of mine I've been thinking about is possibly lining the case with some material that is a little "sticky" which will catch dust and be easier to clean off, compared to dust getting onto the components and heatsinks.
 
I wish I could manage positive pressure, but there are just way too many fans and devices exhausting air. Also my hsh blocks me from adding a side panel fan, bah.
 
Your case is designed for maximum ventilation which is somewhat problematic in this regard. Some things to consider though -

1) Flip the rear exhaust around (and the cpu fan as well)
2) Run the top 200mm at a lower speed
3) Try to block your unused 5.25inch bays (not sure if the covers have holes or not)
4) Low profile 120mm fan for your side intake? (there are 20mm thick fans, not sure if that will be enough for your heatsink).
5) Silverstone has a 3x5.25inch bay to 120mm fan converter if you aren't using any of those. Though I think it would probably be more cost effective to get filters.
 
JapaneseGorilla said:
Good way to keep your rig clean? Keep it in a clean room, duh. lol.

I have no filters, it's on the floor, tons of airflow.... basically my computer is a dust magnet.
Meh, I clean it out every few weeks. I try to wipe the dust off the front grate every few days though. I mean, every day I can run my finger over the front grate every day and it will come off dusty.
Click to expand...

Put your computer on your desk. It will be about 1/10 as dusty as on the floor.


Miker2k said:
I cleaned mine for the first time in about 5 years..... When I swapped out the original build with my latest. Needless to say it was horrible.
Click to expand...

5 years? Your poor computer.
 
Antec 900 (no window).
3 front intakes 120mm @ 1200rpm
1 top exhaust 200mm @ "medium"
1 rear exhaust 120mm @ 1200rpm
Completely closed case, never open apart from clean/tinkering.
No pets.

Inside canned air clean once every 6 months max. Clean the front filter every month.
 
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The positive pressure things can't really work, because for all that air you're forcing into the case to create a positive pressure you're drawing in dust with it. As long as there is air flowing through the case (negative or positive) and there is dust in the air, there will be dust in your case.

Filters do help a lot. I have my ATX HTPC case in a pet free house about 3 feet off the floor up in the built-in entertainment center. I clean mine every 3 months or so and it doesn't get super dusty inside. I have 2 80mm exhaust fans and 1 80mm intake fan.
 
Hi,

I usually clean the inside of my case once a month. I do not always remove the parts individually to dust 'em off. Most of the time its just removing the side panel and blowing across with compressed dry air.
 
i try and clean mine once a month but have not cleaned it for the past 4-5 months now due to severe weather outside.

i normaly take my pc outside and use compressed air to blow out all the dust
 
cmadki4 said:
The positive pressure things can't really work, because for all that air you're forcing into the case to create a positive pressure you're drawing in dust with it. As long as there is air flowing through the case (negative or positive) and there is dust in the air, there will be dust in your case.
Click to expand...

This is true, however if you have a negative pressure design (more exhaust than intake), the makeup air will come through all the little cracks everywhere in the case (between body panels, between drive bay covers, etc). This air is guaranteed dirty. With a positive pressure design, at least the majority of the air inside the case comes from your intake fans. Pair those fans with some filters and now you're leaking clean air out instead of dirty air in.

I'm working on a mod right now where I'm converting my case to positive pressure. We'll see if it makes any difference...

As far as cleaning my computer goes, it's usually on the floor with no filters and it gets real nasty. I just wrapped up college a year or so ago and for the 5 years I was too busy to do it, let's just say the accumulation was undesirable. I'll post pics in my worklog I'm creating tonight.
 
Itx case, SG07, i have a hefty air compressor so i just give it a good blow every now and then to keep it happy... i mean clean
 
Whitewolf said:
5 years? Your poor computer.
Click to expand...


Ok, 5 years may have been a bit misleading. I built it 5 years ago but it had been out of server (in the garage) for the past couple of year. I gutted it and reused the case for my recent build this Christmas which of course involved a cleaning. Needless to say I will be cleaning it more frequently now that it's going to be used.
 
I actually think my Xaser III, was better than my Xaser VI in regards to dust management, at least it had proper filters for every single intake fan, and it was a solid case, now I have to clean every couple of months, and the system is four feet off the floor.

Looking forward to my Fractal XL purchase (as soon as they show up on Newegg this week).
 
Like to clean my case once a month or so, and run clear the front and side of the case where the fans are every few days. Keep it up high.
 
Yeah, i blow it out about once a month, or whenever i change a component
 
KaizerDan said:
Itx case, SG07, i have a hefty air compressor so i just give it a good blow every now and then to keep it happy... i mean clean
Click to expand...

Haha, yeah, every now and then I take my rig to my parents and use my dad's air compressor. It's hard to go back to those puny cans of air when you have seen what a concentrated stream of hurricane force winds can do.
 
atleast once a month. having a cat means she climbs on everything so that means having to clean out the case regularly.
 
Mine gets blown out about every 4-6 weeks. It's about 6" off the ground and running 2 x 120mm intakes + 1 x 120, 2 x 140mm exhaust fans, all usually running around 7.5v to keep the noise down. I blow the dust off the intake fans every 2 or 3 days.

I also live in AZ, where dust is a way of life and have 3 cats. Keeping my pc's clean is a chore in itself.
 
My case is a 13"x13"x18" cube case.
Has 120mm intake on the face of mobo side and 2 90mm exaust on the rear of the hard drive/psu side.
Sits on my side desk .
I usually clean it when I upgrade something
I just added a Silverstone 3 channel manual fan controller to control the 3 fans since they were running at full speed and were quite loud.
My old Antec True Power Trio 650 had a fan header to control the fans but the replacement newer model they sent me doesn't have those fan headers so it ran the fans at full power.
After a year I decided to get the Silverstone since it quieted down the fans and will probably keep the machine cleaner longer since it is not sucking air and dust as fast into the case.
Also, I don't smoke in this room anymore since smoke is really nasty, especially when it gets in and on your stuff.

cube-drives.jpg


the below images are older, Q6600 and GTX260 setup but it looks the same as the i7 5850 parts I have in there now,
cpu-rear.jpg


drives.jpg
 
RooK said:
Lets see how clean everyone is...

How big is your case? what's the airflow from low to high? do you keep the side of? Do you have pets? Do you keep the rig high? Lets see some good ways to keep our rigs clean.
Click to expand...

How big is your case: big. cube case, thermaltake mozart tx.

what's the airflow from low to high: fairly high. 4x 120mm intake / 3x exhaust (on front of 360 rad + 3 x 120mm pull fans on back of rad).

do you keep the side off: only on 25C+ days when gaming.

Do you have pets: yes, cats

Do you keep the rig high: on top of 2 draw filing cabinet​

only clean if bothered or installng new hardware or cooling performance starting to suck.
everyone should keep their pc cases off the floor if possible.
 
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I clean the filters once a week and about once a month I clean the inside. I use a toothbrush to clean the CPU heatsink, wipe down all the fans, clean the graphics card and dust everything else.

I hate dust.
 
I hardly ever have to clean my case. I have filters on all fans. I clean the filters out every saturday.
 
Once every 3 or 4 months. Pulling dust bunnies out of radiators probably isn't the best thing.
 
Every 3 months or so. I have wood floors so dust from carpet isn't an issue. Just a quick hit of air in the HSF and video card, blow out the rest of the case, clean out the filters and it's good to go.
 
I clean my case every other week. If it protect my PC so i should also clean it.. so it always give new look..as the quality of my case is too good so I do not have any complain with it..

south-pak.com
 
How big is your case? HAF 922, which is a big mid-tower.
What's the airflow from low to high? Med-High (2x 200mm fans intake, 1x 120mm and 1x 200mm exhaust; no filters :p)
Do you keep the side of? Don't need to.
Do you have pets? One cat.
Do you keep the rig high? Nope, it's on the floor. The case is a little too big to put on my desk without getting in the way.

I clean it once every month or so. A fair amount of dust accumulates in between cleaning, but that's to be expected given the case design, location, and lack of filters. I use a Metro Datavac to clean it out and it works very well.
 
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Lian Li PC-V354 with optional 120mm rear exhaust fan.

I probably clean it every month or two. Right now, the case is open because I'm working on a wire cleanup project (sleeving, new connectors, the whole 9 yards). Once that's done, all covers will go back on and it will sit quiet and pretty on my desk.

I agree with previous poster that it would be nice to have some catch material to keep dust out of the heatsink fins. Once the fins get dust, it's hard to clean them because the heatsinks are so fragile.
 
It really just depends how dusty your house gets in general. On avg I'd say clean the dust out once every 2 months. Every month if it gets dusty.
 
ive got an abs canyon 595. i blow off the front filters every few weeks, and blow out the insides once every month or two. only time ill fully clean the case and components is when i do a system swap, which is about once every 3 years or so.
 
How big is your case?
Antec 1200, full tower
what's the airflow from low to high?
front: 3x120mm back: 2x120mm top: 1x200mm
do you keep the side off?
no
Do you have pets?
no
Do you keep the rig high?
table height

I clean it every 6 months. My room is generally pretty clean so not much to clean in computer case.
 
How big is your case? Cooler Master Elite 334,which is a small case.
What's the airflow from low to high? 1 rear Delta 120x120x38 @2500rpm (thanks to the AC-DC converter,that thing was LOUD),2 CM 120x120x25 intake @1200rpm,1 NMB 80x80x38mm @3000rpm on the side.
Do you keep the side of?No
Do you have pets? No
Do you keep the rig high? No
I clean the air filter every 2 weeks,and they got tons of dust.After every 7-8 months,i disassemble everything and clean them with a brush,and one exception is the CPU HSF which is clean by submerging into water.
 
How big is your case? CM Stacker 832, which is a pretty big mid-tower
What's the airflow from low to high? Med-High 4x120mm intakes w/filters, 2x120mm exhaust (kept low rpm)
Do you keep the side of? Never, unless I'm testing new hardware which is maybe once a year.
Do you have pets? Cat & Dog, both long hair
Do you keep the rig high? Nope, it's on the carpeted floor with optional stock casters mounted

Filters are cleaned once a week, the case I'll blow out every month or two. I have a small air compressor in the house so it's not a big ordeal and I like messing around with stupid easy stuff like this on the weekends.
 
How big is your case? Corsair 600T Large mid tower
What's the airflow from low to high? In between
Do you keep the side of? No, But i am getting the side panel this friday
Do you have pets? Yes, 2 dogs and 1 cat (Cat likes to get up on my desk a lot)
Do you keep the rig high? Kinda, Its about at my waist.

I clean the interior out once a month with a air compresser. I dust it off every few days. My house is extremly dusty.....
 
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