Computer Cleaning

[ski]

For those of us who do not use air filters on their computers(and perhaps even for those who do), here's a tip to keep your system running smoothly(and also to help prevent the video card from frying) -
Make sure to thoroughly clean out any dust that may have built up in the video card's heatsink when doing a general cleaning.

My system recently experienced a freezing problem which was caused by an overheated video card(GF4 TI 4400) chipset due to dust that had caked up deep inside the narrow passageways of the card's heatsink.
Removing the card, probing with a plastic zip tie to loosen the dust, and a lot of compressed air fixed things.

[104456]

I understand the thin pan scrubbers can be cut to size to make good filters on your fan intakes if you have a dusty atmosphere near your PC.

[ski]

Thanks for the suggestion, 104456.

[Ridgerunr]

And,,a very light spray of WD-40 on the scrubby at installation makes them collect even more dust. For those who are frugal,they can be cleaned with a drop of dish soap and warm water,dried and re-installed...

[Szara]

These are all excellent things to know, keep it up!

[TeeDub]

That sounds so much easier than my method... Plus it won't clog up the dishwasher.

[K G G]

Another good, inexpensive and easy-to-cut filter material is this stuff , which can be found at Home Depot or Menards.

[alphanumeric]

Leaf blower or shop vac in reverse works for me. I just had to replace my floppy drive because it was full of dust. I must have had a negative pressure in my case so air was being sucked in through the floppy drive. I just installed two hard drive bay coolers at christmas so I think I'm OK now. I would chuck it but I need it to load my raid drivers from floppy.

[104456]

Putting the PC pieces in a hot dish washer would get them clean [funny that reminds me of a recent water cooling question for some reson]