| Author |
Totally. Random. Question |
Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
|  Posted: 2005-06-07 15:25
Would dust (and i mean A LOT OF DUST) cause a computer to randomly lock up? cause my computer has been locking up whenever I play music from my HD....... *(edit: scratch that, it just locked up doing NOTHING!)*
I look inside my case, and it's practicly a sheet of grey on everything.
also I only have one fan......on the side.........but it's got a hell of a lot of holes in it.......
[ This Message was edited by: Fattierob (x2 Pistolet Makarov) on 2005-06-07 15:30 ]
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Xilaratu
Cadet
Joined: May 06, 2004
Posts: 745
From: Florida
| Posted: 2005-06-07 15:38
Simple answer: Yes.
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Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2005-06-07 15:40
.........blast it.........I'm ready to like fdisk my drives and everything......
::goes to get a vacumn..er.....vacumner::
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LordShard
Cadet
Joined: April 28, 2005
Posts: 140
| Posted: 2005-06-07 15:51
The dust stops your PC from cooling down, making it overheat and lockup.
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Feralwulf
Grand Admiral
Joined: January 24, 2004
Posts: 1729
From: sitting somewhere drinking beer
| Posted: 2005-06-07 15:58
Dust is also conductive. Can you say 'Fire', 'short' or 'Fault' ?
I'm an electrician and I've seen Electrical explosions (aftermath) where floating dust particles caused an arc in 4160 volt switch gear. Imagine a COAT of the stuff all over the little sillycone crap in your comp. Bzzzzzzt! Fzzzzzzt! Poof! Smoke!
I don't know much about computers but I DO know they are not worth scrap parts if you "let the smoke out of it".
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Sweet Mary
Cadet
Joined: June 05, 2004
Posts: 109
| Posted: 2005-06-07 16:16
you're an electrician too Feralwulf? cool
well you're gonna wanna be careful with the vacuum.. i'm sure you're aware of electrostatic discharge and what it does to electronics
so be careful
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Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2005-06-07 16:23
yeah, I've vacummuned it before.......it happens quite often..<.<;;
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Axianda The Royal
Fleet Admiral
Terra Squadron
Joined: November 20, 2001
Posts: 4273
From: Axianda
| Posted: 2005-06-07 16:31
Okay let me say this clearly as im one of those IT geeks that tries every day to fix ppl's computers that deserve to be shot for not taking care of it *no pun intended here*
Dust = EVIL
Dust will slowly kill ANY computer why?
Dust has the amazing ability to get into every corner of any part of the computer... this means from the obvious dirty PSU units to tiny bits of dust that get INSIDE the hard drive...
Dust will make your computer go insane.
Remedy?
There are these nice canisters of compressed air, use that while the computer is of to blow any dust away and to clean it... wait 10 min b4 turning it on and your safe for the next month... 2 weeks if its on the floor 
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Doran
Chief Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 29, 2003
Posts: 4032
From: The Gideon Unit
| Posted: 2005-06-07 16:31
sounds like you need some sort of air filter there fattie.
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Drafell
Grand Admiral
Mythica
Joined: May 30, 2003
Posts: 2449
From: United Kingdom
| Posted: 2005-06-07 16:35
I just stick mine under the jetwash and then let it dry for 24-48 hours. Not a good idea to leave it plugged in when doing this though.
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Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2005-06-07 17:02
I think my CPU's fan makes it very dusty..
side of graphics card facing fan: clean as a whistle
side of graphics card facing CPU: sheet grey.
I had to manualy remove that dust, since the vacum I was using was crap...
it seems fine......I think what the main cause is...is that I was T-stormed last night........but i DO have a surge protector......just a very old one....
next time I clean it out i'll try that compressed air method......
and anybody have some non-dust tips? my comp sets about a foot off the ground, near a heating vent......
maybe I should make sure that heating vent is not used........ever again.
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Coeus {NCX-Charger}
Admiral, I can't read,
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: February 16, 2004
Posts: 3635
From: South Philly
| Posted: 2005-06-07 17:19
Dust is bad. Heat is worse. Dust & a heating vent... I praise your comp maker for it surviving this long.
That reminds me... I gotta clean mine out. Its been in this computer hutch for a year or two now... only cleaned it once.
Damn right I run my comps hard =P I still manage to get 6-7 years outa 'em without burnouts (save a vid card here or RAM chip there, which is to be expected - never lost a CPU though  )
But yeah... dust can cause some MAAAJOR shorts... I remember back in a HS comp class we were building P90s from spare parts (easy crap, but then again it was an easy A ) and a dustbunny had settled on the motherboard I was working on... I didn't notice it, even though it was right on a block of jumpers... powered up the comp... FZZZZFWOOMP! nice little fire coming from the jumper block Shorted a neg & positive together across 3 rows... not pretty. Yeah, that mobo was toast  The smell was something I'll never forget either... hehe.
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Azreal
Chief Marshal
Joined: March 14, 2004
Posts: 2816
From: United State of Texas, Houston
| Posted: 2005-06-07 17:20
Dude, a HEATING VENT?????
1. if it is a floor vent like mine, expect about two weeks between cleaning. Those things are horrble.
2. It is always best, IMO, to put your PC near an air conditioner. the lower the temp, the better it runs.
3. pay special attention to the heat sink fan on the processor. It is almost always the culprit when mine locks up. Remove the heatsink, blow all the vents out VERY GOOD, get some more grease from a local pc shop, and reapply to the brass/aluminum core, and reattach. Just be very careful removing/reattaching the fan. It can be a real pain.
4. If all else is done and you still have problems, try updating your video card drivers. Could be that it isn't a heat issue at all(though in this case it does sound VERY likely), but just some issus with your video card.
GL, hope it helps.
Az
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Maskerade
Grand Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 21, 2002
Posts: 638
From: Canada
| Posted: 2005-06-07 17:29
If your heating vents are pumping out that much dust the filters need to be change in your furnace (assuming you are in a house).
Not to mention, again if you are in a house, get the vents cleaned. Alot of people rarely clean the filters in their homes....
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Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2005-06-07 17:41
you see, I never knew all this...
but this JUST started.....today.....i've had this computer in this spot for years....
and the heating vent isn't on.....it's summer.......look......outside ...
well.......hm..removing my heatsink?.........I'm not THAT willing to miss around with my comp.........I'm just going to keep the case open and have a fan next to it....
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