Forum Home
Press F1
Thread ID: 135866	2013-12-20 22:01:00	How often do you blow your PC out ?	Digby (677)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1363181	2013-12-21 06:07:00	I did not know this was or needed to be done. But I just had a video card that died and i found the fan hard to spin by hand, so that may have been a clue. The HP Quad core I have has a Nvidia 9500 which has issues with the cooling fan,after lubing the bearing I replaced it with this dx.com Have found after 2 years have to do the same with this as it was cheap but worth a try Good fun doing this rather than replacing	Lawrence (2987)
1363182	2013-12-21 08:11:00	Cleaning needs depend a lot on the manner in which your computer spends the majority of its time... often its idle time. If it's sitting on a floor (ie surface nearest to the most dust) then it'll accumulate dust faster. If its left turned on 24/7 then it'll gather dust lots faster. If the case sits with its widest surface horizontal it'll have its air intakes closer to dusty surfaces, so again will foul up faster. The reverse of all this... if it sits upright, off the floor, and is turned off when not in use it'll go for ages without cleaning. For me a clean out is usually triggered by: Heat issues / Fan issues / if I feel disgust when I poke my head into the case. If it's just used for email and spreadsheets, then it shouldn't have any real thermal issues. However, if it's used for high end gaming or multimedia, then heat (and cleaning) becomes more relevant. Like Metla, I run my PC with a side off the case. Great for cooling. Not great if you have a dozen fans installed (noise). Not great in an environment with kids or pets that might get into the case. I have neither. :) Surprisingly, it stays fairly clean running without the side on the case, prolly coz the air and dust can easily exit the case, rather than swirl, stagnate and settle. Running with the side off makes me more aware of issues that lead to heat. Anything using Flash will quickly trigger the fan to speed up (Flash is still a total dog). Some multimedia will intermittently trigger the fan. Oddly, with gaming whenever I pause Borderlands it will run hotter on pause than when actively exploring the environment - sounds like some dopey coding in use there when a static image causes more CPU load than the gaming itself... but I imagine the Pause / Unpause routine gets very little attention from the designers, given the scale of the rest of the job.	Paul.Cov (425)
1363183	2013-12-21 08:28:00	A good thing to keep dust out is to have positive air pressure inside your case, basically having less fans exhausting then you have intaking, this will keep any dust from entering through grills or other parts of the case.	Slankydudl (16687)
1363184	2013-12-21 09:32:00	I usually do mine once a year at the start of summer. I just use a vacuum and a small brush which I use to dislodge dust build up and suck it up with the vacuum. I take the cpu fan above the heat sink off so I can get at the dust from between the fins better. I don't remove the heat sink though (better to leave that as is because I don't have the special thermal paste needed when replacing it). Pretty much what I do too. As for removing the heatsink, I don't either, but if your temperatures don't go down after cleaning, you may find that the thermal interface material has dried out and you need to replace it anyway.	Agent_24 (57)
1363185	2013-12-21 09:50:00	Same too but one time I upgraded the HSF and had to take the mobo out after a blower was used there is still quite a bit of dust after it taken apart .... Quite a bit also gets stuck at the fans ...	Nomad (952)
1363186	2013-12-21 10:15:00	I clean the fans\fan blades with an electric toothbrush and vacuum cleaner.	Agent_24 (57)
1363187	2013-12-21 18:48:00	Whenever the front fan grill cover looks fluffy, but I use a natural bristle brush + vacuum cleaner. Brush gets into the crevices and HSF fins and fan blades etc....vacuum to suck up the mess. Usually about twice a year...better to do it often than end up with the sort of filthy, hairy monster my son gets....he fried his PSU once like that - I took it apart as it seemed a bit young to die - and the immense packed in pile of dust and fluff in it.....it's a wonder it didn't catch fire too.	pctek (84)
1363188	2013-12-21 21:51:00	I havent blown one in/out for a long time. However I blew one UP the other day. The hard drive is ok & stored. The rest is in the garage awaiting disposal. I was able to transfer all we wanted from that HD, Maryanns, onto my PC. Thats life!!!!!!!!!! PJ	Poppa John (284)
1363189	2013-12-22 18:40:00	Whenever I fancy. Since I shifted the house is alot less dusty, so it's only been done like once here. The last place needed it quite frequently. Before I moved, I even took apart the PSU and dusted a massive couple of bunnies out of it. My laptop I tried to do more recently thanks to it idling at 60-70 degrees and overheating and crashing during games these days. Didn't manage to get to the fan. Just broke the ribbon cable for the touchpad which I never used, put it back together and gave up.	8ftmetalhaed (14526)
1 2