Making Your PC Dust Free? 89
Kranfer asks: "Recently, I cleaned out my PC to find not only dust... but also feathers from my from rather large parrots. I have struggled with keeping my PC dust free for years, but I have yet to find a workable solution that will keep the dust from stacking up every few months, inside my PCs at home. I was hoping that my peers on Slashdot might have thought up some innovative solutions to this common problem with any PC. How does one cut down on the dust entering a PC and sticking around? I run an Antec File Server Case with each and every fan slot taken blowing out, and even one of those Harddrive coolers and PCI slot coolers. What have you done to rid yourself of the dust and pet dander inside your PCs?"
Easy! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Easy! (Score:1)
Seems to me that cleaning the filters every couple months and cleaning the computer itself every couple months is about the same thing.
And without filters it take a whole lot more dust to cause overheating problems.
Re:Easy! (Score:2)
No, not at all. If you've got a case with integrated filters, cleaning them takes about a minute, if that. I used to just remove the front bezel which just snaps off and on, take out the filters, blow the dust out of the window and I'm done. These days I've removed the filters for an increase in airflow - I'm not too worried about the dust - but it certainly worked fine. In
Re:Easy! (Score:2)
Re:Easy! (Score:1)
It's probably the dedicated A/C unit pulling most of the dust out of the air.
uhhh.. (Score:1)
Re:uhhh.. (Score:1)
Re:uhhh.. (Score:1)
Lots of companies out there don't have proper server rooms. It's funny when these silicon valley types get a dose of how the other half lives.
Balance the fans (Score:3, Insightful)
That is your first problem, you need as many fans sucking in that you have blowing out. You might have three sucking in on the front of the case, and three blowing out. This will mean less load on the fans, less dirt coming in through crevasses since it needs a place to get air, and better cooling
I think someone else said filters for your fans, and that would be a viable solution as long as you changed them out ever-so-often.
Re:Balance the fans (Score:2)
Re:Balance the fans (Score:1)
tips following clean room standards (?) (Score:5, Informative)
i've been meaning to solve this problem myself because it cant be good for component life either.
you have parrots in the same room as the PC?!
Re:tips following clean room standards (?) (Score:2)
Re:tips following clean room standards (?) (Score:1)
Re:tips following clean room standards (?) (Score:2)
Actually, to be serious, do any of those electronic air filters work? I'm referring to the ones where they ionize the dust particles before passing it through a metal grate. If so, why not just put one close to the intake fans?
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Re:tips following clean room standards (?) (Score:2)
Air conditioner filters (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, this still works with normal 80mm fans. Go to Walmart and buy an aircondioner filter, and cut out 80mm diameter circles. Just screw through them with the same screws that hold your fans onto your case. Change whenever they look really bad, or when you notice your temps going up.
Re:Air conditioner filters (Score:2, Funny)
Stockings (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stockings (Score:2, Interesting)
all blowing out? (Score:4, Informative)
BAD IDEA
Then all the air coming into your case will be sucked from the edges and between hte drive bays, places where dust is likley to collect anyway.
Its better to run them at a 50/50 (40/60 can work too) mix of in/out fans, and the sugestion about the filters is on the mark as well.
yes all blowing out (Score:1)
Two ideas (Score:2)
2) See story just following yours (http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/0
air purifier (Score:1)
Re:air purifier (Score:3)
Re:air purifier (Score:1)
Re:air purifier (Score:1)
Re:air purifier (Score:3, Interesting)
mmmm...ozone. Can't live without it, but let's not live with it aroun us. When ozone is up in the stratosphere, it's blocking out the UV rays and saving our hides from skin cancer. But when it's "down here", it's harmful to us. These ionic filters create ozone. Long term
Re:air purifier (Score:2)
http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/ArticleID/1108
Re:air purifier (Score:2)
Riverside has much higher ozone (due to many environmental factors), but I have to replace the wipers on my car more often than I do on my mom/dad's b/c of the ozone.
Grump.
Re:air purifier (Score:2)
What I use... (Score:2, Interesting)
'Blowing out' not good (Score:4, Informative)
In order to keep dust out of your PC, you need to control the air going *in* to the box. That means having more fans blowing in than out so that the case has a net positive air pressure. This way, air is blowing out of the miscellaneous cracks in the case. Once you do this, you add filters to the fans that are blowing in. No more dust in box.
The most important thing to remember if you use filters on your fans is to clean them often. Clogged intake fans will heat your case up like crazy.
I would also note that you need a balance of fans blowing in and out so that you get the best airflow through the case. Don't have them all going the same direction as that will rarely provide the best cooling.
Positive air flow... (Score:2)
Use water cooling... (Score:2)
Then you can seal the box. The water cooler
might get dusty, but the PC wont. Which do you
care more about?
Re:Use water cooling... (Score:1)
http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.13/it.
Although maybe not as powerful as you need. I'm sure it depends on what you want to put together. Does anyone know of a 450Watt external power supply!?
-P
Re:Use water cooling... (Score:2)
Water cooled power supplies do exist, I have seen them reviewed in computer magazines before. They seem quite hard to track down though and some intensive googling may be in order. I would imagine they will be sold as part of a water cooling kit somewhere.
Alternatively there is the Zalman TNN 500A [tomshardware.com] fanless case - the whole case is a heatsink and there are no fans anywhere, even in the power supply. It is very expensive though.
Water cooled PSU (Score:2)
Found one:
Silentmaxx Watercooled 450W PSU [quietpcusa.com]
Re:Use water cooling... (Score:1)
this perhaps? no fan, no dust.
Cheap and easy filters (Score:2)
As for filtering the intake, your cheapest bet is to use some used dryer sheets. You know, like Bounce sheets. Tape one over each fan grille and you'll be good to go. They're cheap, you probably have them anyhow, and you don't need any fancy contraption to hold them on.
Cheap = Bounce, Expensive = Electrostatic (Score:2)
Anyways, I use a bounce sheet on my side intake port (bonus: because it has a bolt-on grill, I just punch holes in the sheet with a pen and thread the screws through em) because it was horrible for blowing dust all over my video card. No filters on my front ports yet thou
Don't bother. (Score:2)
My mythtv box runs at 40 to 60 degrees C for it's CPU and 45-55 degrees for it's drives, 24/7, with no failures yet. As a guide to it's lifetime, it's main drive is over 17000 power on hours.
A few years back, I used to work for a
Re:Don't bother. (Score:3, Informative)
That 486-33 in the corner, in other words, might continue to work fine for 20 years in three fe
Re:Don't bother. (Score:1)
Then that's why! Generally, the only moving parts in a computer are drives and fans, and guess what is more affected by dust. Dusty fans will still spin if they've been kept in use, but they'll lose a lot of efficiency. Heatsinks fill full of dust too, and will cause your cooling abilities to fail - and for a 386, that isn't a huge deal. Most can run with a bare amount of heatsink and fanless, unlike today's genital scorching PC's.
Re:Don't bother. (Score:1)
Been tea-bagging the ol' heatsink, eh? Watch out for the fan blades.
Re:Don't bother. (Score:1)
Coal is already mostly carbon by your own admission, and has a reasonably high ignitation point, but it also explosive when the atmospheric dust concentration
Dust on the other hand catches fire a lot easier - I've had a case fire from not cleaning out before, and it's not a pretty sight to see your home fileserver have (but my uptime was 700+ days at the time) - now I clean my boxes a lot more reguarlly, incl. cl
Get your case off the floor. (Score:5, Informative)
60/40 on the in/out for fans (don't waste money & time with slot fans) and you can get cheap filter material from a motherboard box. You know, the spongy stuff inside the box? Cut it into 80mm squares. Works like a champ. Mount between fan & case.
Re:Get your case off the floor. (Score:1)
Contrary to what other posters have said, I have more fans blowing out than in. I've got a 3" fan on the side, and one in the back - they're both blowing out. Then the PS has a larger diameter fan blowing in (
Re:Get your case off the floor. (Score:3, Interesting)
While this seems pretty logical, I'm not entirely sure that it's true. The reason being is that I noticed that items on my desk seem to collect a lot more dust than my tower case. I thought this was a little strange, so I decided a few weeks ago to conduct a littl
Re:Get your case off the floor. (Score:2)
Oh! Maybe you have a cat that likes to secretly...lick dust. No, cat's can jump. Ok a really fat cat or perhaps a little wiener dog?
Re:Get your case off the floor. (Score:1)
All kidding aside, my post reflects my personal experiences in my native environments. Your results may vary, especially if you don't ward off the shoe gnomes and dust bunnies with electric fencing. God, let me go home already.
Cases with built-in fan filters? (Score:2)
Only one of those manufacturers sold cases with built-in fan filters that were removable from the front. If a case doesn't have a fan filter, it is necessary to take it apart perhaps every 6 months to clean the dust. That's far more expensive than just cleaning a filter.
The computer parts market has been corrupted by the presence of buyers with no education and little maturity.
Re:Cases with built-in fan filters? (Score:1)
The problem is that the dumb kids have more disposable income (since everyone's a dope fiend); or more precisely, the average maturity and wisdom of young adults has fallen sharply, thus the "Bling Bling" phenom
Re:Cases with built-in fan filters? (Score:2)
dust free ... under liquid! (Score:2)
Voila, no dust.
Oh and you can swith off your fans too, you might need a stiring mechanism though (quite low frequency should do).
Google it, it's out there
Re:dust free ... under liquid! (Score:2)
Re:dust free ... under liquid! (Score:2)
Easy (Score:5, Funny)
No, no (Score:2)
Case mod time... (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, you need positive pressure in the case, but think Auto Shop!
They sell high volume paper/oil air filters. The oil traps the airborne dust particles quite effectively, and they are easy to replace.
So, just find an old turbo, install a brushless motor from a RC plane and controller with a servo activator PCB (many hobby places sell these) so you can adjust the speed - or even control it straight from the PC.
Use this as the impellor, with the Turbo attached to the case (mock up the back end, or even use it as the exhaust) and just attach an Auto Pod Filter...
Don't forget to add "Phulli Sik" stickers to the side of the case, and maybe a few logo's on the front.... AMD, Nvidia, etc. Attached to the drive bay door at a slight angle. (With an Intel sticker cut in half, upside down, on the spoiler
Bonus points if the Turbo spools when you use a pedal accelerator on driving games.
Oh, and wear your cap on backwards at Lan parties.
Well, it might sound funny, but this would actually work. Of course, you can buy car air filters as flat panels also, and the oil comes in a spray can, but that's just cheating now!.
GrpA
Important Omission (Score:2)
Dust free (Score:3, Funny)
Elevation. (Score:2)
Re:Elevation. (Score:2)
Not really.
I get more dust on my ceiling-fan (mounted to a vaulted ceiling) than anywhere else in the house. Dust is everywhere, the only location moving it will help would be somewhere where humans (source of dust) aren't - like a rarely-used closet. There's no dust on anything in my computer-room closet, and I haven't moved hardly anything in there in 4 years.
Be very careful when it comes to Filters... (Score:4, Insightful)
The primary problem was that people were not cleaning the filters. Out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Putting filters over your fans means that somebody has to regularily check and change them. I've had PC's on shop floors that had the filters so clogged with oil and gunk that the fans they were covering burned out from overload. After I replaced them and explained everything to them I might have to go back 6 months later to do the exact same thing because "they hadn't got around to changing them". I've burned my fingers on parts inside some of those machines, and that was the days before heat sinks in the first place.
Filters are good as long as you're going to religiously inspect them every month or so and clean or replace them.
As a passing curiosity, does anybody know exactly how much heat the load resistor on one of the old original 63.5 watt PC's put out when you had it hooked up in place of the 2nd floppy drive? I remember one particular system that was in a dusty factory. Somebody had jury-rigged a filter across the front of the system using window screen and medical gauze. The gauze had gunked up so much the fan in the power supply was basically worthless. A coworker managed to get a second degree burn off the load-resistor and I never could figure out how that managed to happen with something that only had 63.5 watts in the first place.
Re:Be very careful when it comes to Filters... (Score:1)
Re:Be very careful when it comes to Filters... (Score:2)
My issue was more how did it manage to get that hot with what litt
Lian- Li Cases (Score:1)
linky [anandtech.com]
That's the Lian-Li pc-60 plus and has only a 120mm fan in the front. Older pc-60 models also lack the blower at the top.
been there (Score:2)
positive pressure: point all rear fans out and all front fans in, or vice-versa if you can duct your PS exhaust away from the intakes. 1, positive pressure means higher air density and greater thermal conductivity of... air. 2, put some light foam mesh filters on the fans and you have less sound and filter dust as long as you clean them.
do not put them on carpet or hardwood: i recommend a sheet metal base for the cases, which can be dusted often. tends to accumulate
Water cooling (Score:3, Informative)
common sense (Score:1)
Did anyone mention...? (Score:2)
Disclaimer: I'm not going to insist negative ion generators have any other benefits, but I have seen dust and cigarette smoke drop like a stone with one switched on, and I've serviced equipment run for nearly ten years in a room with one that looked almost pristine inside. And no, it wasn't because the r
Re:Did anyone mention...? (Score:2)
Re:Did anyone mention...? (Score:2)
I've never heard anything that suggests an electrically inert material like rubber would be affected by ionized air
my 2 cents worth (Score:1)
my 2 cents worth + (Score:1)