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Mon 1 Oct 2018 21:38

any - electrical appliances and dust - gordonbennet

SWMBO desktop computer was playing up just now so she restarted it, and the fan went straight into overdrive and the PC failed to fire up.

The main computer is on the ground under the desk, and we have three hairy dogs who spend all their time with swmbo, so we hooked the PC out and unclipped the side cover...ye gods, dust and dog hairs you would not believe, vacuumed the thing out reassembled and fired up, all good now.

Obviously i shall be doing mine as well as i don't suppose thats any better.

So people, especially if you have loose pets it might be an idea to have a poke nose inside any electrical appliances you use that have on board fans that can suck in dust and hairs, not just for the long term use of your appliances but those hairs must be a quite a fire risk.

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Tue 2 Oct 2018 09:57

any - electrical appliances and dust - Bolt

GB the cpu has an overheat protection so if it overheats and its running it throttles back to cool itself down, if it cannot it shuts pc down automatically and wont restart so no fear of burning out, I have to hoover mine out every month as the electricity attracts dust like all electrical appliances

also its an idea to have an overload protected extension lead connected between pc and wall socket for extra protection. if you have one already forget that...

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Tue 2 Oct 2018 09:59

any - electrical appliances and dust - Falkirk Bairn

Every PC dealer has cans of compressed air - always the first job to blow away the dust/grit contents of a floor/desktop PC. I think you will be about £1 each buying a singleton.

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Tue 2 Oct 2018 11:33

any - electrical appliances and dust - gordonbennet

It was certainly an eye opener to me i had no idea how bad it might be, going to be a regular thing from now on, vacuuming from outside with a strong suction has done virtually nothing for the insides, its the dog hairs mainly here.

Overload and surge protector in place, a nearby lightning strike a few years ago taught us that message the hard way when about £2000 worth of electrical equipment failed.

Edited by gordonbennet on 02/10/2018 at 11:35

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Tue 2 Oct 2018 11:37

any - electrical appliances and dust - FP

Just to add to this - the reason the pros use compressed are to blow, rather than a vacuum to suck, is that it's all too easy to cause damage to delicate components inside the PC. If it's just the outside you're working on, that's fine, of course.

Edited by FP on 02/10/2018 at 11:37

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Tue 2 Oct 2018 14:11

any - electrical appliances and dust - Bromptonaut

Certainly with PCs, including laptops. When kids were at home giving PC internals an annual clean out was a regular task.

At least one of my laptops over years had a heat-sink that routinely clogged up. Sometimes a blast of air was enough but that tended to push the dust back inside.

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Tue 2 Oct 2018 16:13

any - electrical appliances and dust - Bolt

Certainly with PCs, including laptops. When kids were at home giving PC internals an annual clean out was a regular task.

At least one of my laptops over years had a heat-sink that routinely clogged up. Sometimes a blast of air was enough but that tended to push the dust back inside.

It is surprising how clogged up they get and even the fans have dust stuck to them on occasions, partly why I use a vacuum cleaner with rubber hose attachment, my mates pc was so bad, had to use paint brush to dislodge the dust from the heatsinks

some of the newer laptops have terrible heatsinks, and some now use heat pipes as they are more efficient and work better on the thinner machines

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Fri 5 Oct 2018 19:14

any - electrical appliances and dust - Engineer Andy

I find that its best to put the vacuum cleaner on with the hose attachment near to the open PC case, then use a fine brush for more hardy components like the HDD, and/or air duster (compressed air in a can) to blow the dust etc off the delicate/intricate components like the motherboard, graphics card, fans and heatsinks and memory towards the suction opening of the vacuum cleaner.

I always do this in short bursts as the air from the air duster can get very cold (large and sudden temperature changes are not good for metal components) very quickly if you use a sustained burst (besides rapidly and often needlessly depleting the can).

Seems to do the job well.

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Fri 5 Oct 2018 12:32

any - electrical appliances and dust - Captain-Cretin

The trouble with air cans is that you are just blowing the stuff into the air - it will settle down again and you will be back to square one.

I use a 1-2" paint brush to brush the stuff off, and have a vacuum cleaner nozzle there to suck it up as it comes loose.

Being doing it this way since before Win3.1 came out and not had a PC die on me yet.

Ré cpu over temp protection; yes they do but.....

It wont protect the cpu if the heatsink has come loose, the heat rise is too fast.

Excessive heat over a long time dries out the thermal transfer compound, so the cpu throttles more and more, as it stays hot for longer and longer.

Running at higher temps also shortens the lifespan of the cpu; so the cooler the better; even though Intel and AMD specify 60-90C as max operating temp (depending on cpu series); I dont let mine run above 55C even under a torture test,

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Fri 5 Oct 2018 20:25

any - electrical appliances and dust - nick62

Got a new built-in fridge-freezer in the (recently re-fitted) room where you prepare food. It has an air inlet cut-out in the plinth below and this needs regular de-furring due to pet hair. The first time I unblocked it I swear I heard the F-F give a sigh of relief?

It probably helped ease my 'leccy bill as well?

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