Beware the dust bunnies!

[fos]

My wife's computer has been doing strange things. The first thing I thought of was some sort of virus infection. It got to the point today where it would only boot Windows. (Can you immagine that?) She usually works in Mepis.

When I started doing some trouble shooting, I found that it was even hesitant to start up in Windows. When I tried to load GRML, it kept going to run level 0 and shutting down.

I took the cover off and did a visual inspection. The CPU cooler fins were completely closed off by dust. The majority of the power supply vent holes were also covered. It was either doing a thermal or voltage shutdown.

After cleaning up the cooler and vent holes, I got back to trouble shooting. The ram card is the only problem that remains. It is only showing 108 MB out of 256. GRML runs fine. There isn't enough memory to start up a gui.

I'll stick a different ram stick in tomorrow. That should fix the problem.

Moral of the story? Periodic dust maintenance is down time well spent.

I checked the rest of my boxes. My favorite mini-itx system had a small amount of build up, the others were fine.

fos....

[bluesdog]

I regularly blow dust out of my computers, using one of those compressed air cans, using short bursts so the components won't get too cold from the air stream.

Whenever I repair a computer, I usually take the thing outside or on the porch before blasting the crud out!

Dust can also cause short circuits, so it's good practise to keep it under control.

[fos]

I sure learned my lesson!!!

fos....

[jpaulb]

I read in a discussion on an Acorn forum many years ago about using filters. The fan sucks the air through the filter, doesn't blow it through. I ran them on an old RISCPC, you wouldn't believe how much crud they stop. The danger is the filter clogs the box gets hot.

Paul

[RedAlpha3]

Acorn! Now you are talking! I worked with Acorn systems from the BBC B to RiscOS (a very stable operating system) in the Education System for years. Very impressive but they were very susceptible to dust problems indeed. As I recall, I had to spend Monday mornings before school cleaning out the mice on the Archimedes systems. It was a complete pain.
You can still buy RiscOS systems and emulators to use the wealth of Educational software that was developed for them. Never spoken to anyone who has though, :)

[Red*Fox]

yeh its good to clean your computer once a month, my computers gather dust like a filter so i usually clean once every 4 weeks, it drops my temb by almost 4-7 degrees farenheight every time i clean it. and theirs this one fan that really makes me mad that sucks air downward to blow it directly on the motherboard theirs a marble of dust on it ive been meaning to get out but im just too lazy :p.


now i have used filters in one case.. after a week i took them off because they were reducing the airflow throught the case.

[fos]

Will the dust bunnies never end?

You should see the exterior vent holes and interior of my youngest son's PS2. After finding a cool PS2 repair site www.exploitstation.com/index.php?page=ps2repair, getting the rig apart wasn't too bad. I'm not sure the dust is the main problem, this "refurbed" unit has seen better days. Two of the four screws holding the internal CDROM cover are missing. Is that a clue?

To finish the repair job, I'll have to first locate my jewler's screw drivers. (I have single handedly kept at least two tool suppliers in business during my lifetime.) Anyone else have four sons?

The dust bunnie saga will continue.....

fos....

[fos]

Success! The PS2 is free of dust bunnies and operational again. All is well with my youngest son. He can now play Chuck Madden NFL Football 2013 or whichever year is current.

fos....