Ridiculous Dust Amounts!!

S

Syndacate

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 5, 2009
Messages
93
Hey,

So I'm quite sure this is the right place to put this, it was either this or "cooling" as far as I could tell, so sorry if this is the wrong place :(.

Anyways, I took these pictures of my case:
http://s168.photobucket.com/albums/u177/SynForumPhotos/Dust/

This happened in my appt after approx 6-8 weeks after its last cleaning. As you can see it's an Antec 1200, the front filters are clogged to hell, there's dust all over the NB heat sink, the GTX is caked in dust, both with the fan and simply the back of it, and worst of all, my zalman cooler is CAKED with THICK amounts of dust.

Apparently I've been going too long between cleaning it. Now I can't really lower the amount of dust in the room, or anything like that, so I have to work with this amount of dust. Obviously in the future I'll go less time inbetween cleans, but in the meanwhile (and I suppose also for future cleaning) - how the hell do I clean this?

It's too delicate (the fins of the cooler) to use a regular vacuum on (although that's probably what I'll end up doing..), compressed air will just throw it everywhere else inside the case, not helping the matter any, yet everything needs to be cleaned, like the dust that's building up on the exhaust fans and especially the CPU cooler.

Any methods for removing this much dust would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
 
Usually I just blow the dust around with a Duster can, then collect the large bits from the bottom of the case or wherever they end up. I try not to vacuum around my case, but a lot of people tell me its no big deal.
If you're computer is stored on the ground, you may collect less dust if you move it up onto a table or desk.
You could also try an alcohol swabs on some of the larger flat areas, such as intake and exhaust grills, that may work.


http://img26.imageshack.us/i/144980.jpg/
 
I use canned/compressed air + a vacuum. For example I would put the vacuum behind the CPU heatsink and blow in air from the front. The vacuum will catch most of the dust that gets blown off without having to touch anything with it. For the GPU, put the vacuum just above the fan and blow in the compressed air from the exhaust vents. The vacuum will again catch almost all the dust the compressed air blows out.

Best of both worlds.
 
I always found antec's filters on the front of the case won't stop the fine dust as it will trap larger ones. To help prevent future dust bunnies inside the case try modding your fan filters with pantyhose (dust will find it a lot harder to get through). For cleaning compressed air with a vacuum is the best method.
 
I just haul it to the garage and use a can of air to blow it out. You can buy one of those air purifier machines and it collects a lot of dust in the room and you will breath better too.
 
Thanks all for responses and sorry for long response time. Just finished finals week, it's been hectic as all hell :(.

iDylan said:
Usually I just blow the dust around with a Duster can, then collect the large bits from the bottom of the case or wherever they end up. I try not to vacuum around my case, but a lot of people tell me its no big deal.
If you're computer is stored on the ground, you may collect less dust if you move it up onto a table or desk.
You could also try an alcohol swabs on some of the larger flat areas, such as intake and exhaust grills, that may work.


http://img26.imageshack.us/i/144980.jpg/
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd assume that's what a lot of people would recommend but A) This is a lot of dust, and B) I was out of compressed air. It is on the ground, but due to my desk being crowded enough as it is, it can't really come up on top. Wet (with anything) swabs definitely crossed my mind, as the dust would stick well to those, but it crossed my mind after I already cleaned it with a regular vacuum, a process that took too long and was very much-so too blunt for what I was trying to do.

brom42 said:
I use canned/compressed air + a vacuum. For example I would put the vacuum behind the CPU heatsink and blow in air from the front. The vacuum will catch most of the dust that gets blown off without having to touch anything with it. For the GPU, put the vacuum just above the fan and blow in the compressed air from the exhaust vents. The vacuum will again catch almost all the dust the compressed air blows out.

Best of both worlds.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much what I did minus the compressed air, I just put the vacuum under/around it with the crevice tool on and pushed the dust off with a small paint brush and it got sucked up immediately. This only worked for the larger chunks though, there's still like, dust "residue" remaining on the HS and the like. I'm going to take another stab at cleaning it in a week when I'm back from break.

foxtrotniner said:
I always found antec's filters on the front of the case won't stop the fine dust as it will trap larger ones. To help prevent future dust bunnies inside the case try modding your fan filters with pantyhose (dust will find it a lot harder to get through). For cleaning compressed air with a vacuum is the best method.
Click to expand...

Interesting idea for the front intakes.

Alien432 said:
I just haul it to the garage and use a can of air to blow it out. You can buy one of those air purifier machines and it collects a lot of dust in the room and you will breath better too.
Click to expand...

j-sta said:
I use my air compressor, set to about 50psi or so :p
Click to expand...

Yeah, I used to do that with my old P4 and DAMN did it work good, but the problem is I roasted a few fan bearings from overspinning them.

All in all a vacuum seems to have to be used, this was perpetuated by teh fact that I didn't put the side of the case back on (and the left side faces the wall, where you can't notice), so the CPU fan was pulling air through the side, instead of through the intakes, that's probably the reasoning for the large amounts.

My girlfriend found these little vacuums and the like seemingly created for this purpose, anybody have any experience/knowledge/recommendations as far as those go? Something like this seems logical, as it can both blow and vacuum.

http://www.selftrading.co.uk/files/images/metro-datavac-pro-computer-vacuum.preview.jpg

Though from what reviews I found, they seemingly got a low tolerance to use as they get hot fast.

Thanks for the answers guys, any more info is def. still thx :).
 
i just place my pc in a industrial fan fitted wind tunnel- outside

._.
 
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