Been busy lately and have just let everything run and haven't paid much attention to my cruncher lately. Thought one of those dang Dust Bunnies took out one of my video cards. The GTX 275 hadn't shown in the manager for awhile and I assumed it dead. Finally had time to take it apart and clean it all out and didn't see anything wrong so I put it back together and all worked. Just needed to chase all them dang Dust Bunnies away and all is good again. Lucky me!!!

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

...and a power grid somewhere goes into overload. :)

Before firing up each of my computers at my new place I have been taking the time to clean them all out. For fun I weighed the CPU heatsink in MoTD box before and after cleaning it last night. You really don't want to know how much dirt can be held in there. It lost about 40% of its weight post cleaning.

I normally clean my systems every year or so, but now I am thinking I might go with better filtration for the air that gets in. That seems to be more in line with my general laziness. Less dust inside the box = less cleaning = more time doing nothing = :D

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

Been busy lately and have just let everything run and haven't paid much attention to my cruncher lately. Thought one of those dang Dust Bunnies took out one of my video cards. The GTX 275 hadn't shown in the manager for awhile and I assumed it dead. Finally had time to take it apart and clean it all out and didn't see anything wrong so I put it back together and all worked. Just needed to chase all them dang Dust Bunnies away and all is good again. Lucky me!!!

Here the Dust bunnies can be rather slimy, Hence I'm converting to water and making sure that there are really good air filters(Demci-performance pcs) on there and the filters do seem to work and once dirty they clean up rather easily with just soap, water and a scrubbing sponge.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

I have been meaning to do the same to my 4 old crunchers. One refuses to boot, and I may have post the 450w PSU. Hope I am as luck after the clean next week

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It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues

I'm using these large Coolermaster ATCS840 cases and they have three inlet filters. With three 230 mm fans and one 120 mm fan these cases pull in more dust than an average vacuum cleaner...
One of the filters in the bottom of the case serves as a PSU inlet filter (mounted fan-down in the bottom of the case). Within two months after putting the first case into use, the PSU of one of that pc failed because the PSU filter was completely clogged, literally suffocating the PSU :-(

I now clean the filters once every 2 months with a dustbuster and once a year I spend a few cans of compressed air to blow all the dust out of the cases. One advantage of these large cases is that you can pull and clean the filters without shutting the pc down (yeah, I do this at my own risk...)

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Seti@Netherlands website

The downside to using filters in most of my PCs is that much dismantling has to be carried out to get at the filters... so I may as well not bother. I think my rigs last about 6 months before I have to strip things down, clean out and rebuild.

The most troublesome though are some graphics card heatsinks, where much dismantling is needed to de-clog those.

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Brian.

I just cleaned my filters yesterday. As easy as popping the 5-1/4 bay covers out (8 of them) and running hot water through them backwards, laying them on a towel for an hour or two to dry, and then pop them back in.

Thermaltake Armor VA8000BWS. The only dust that makes it through the front filters is the really fine talcum powder-type dust. The CPU heatsinks accumulate a lot of it, and the power supply does, too. Just looking at the inside of the case, you can't tell there's any dust in there, but once you start blasting 90psi around.. wow.

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Linux laptop:
record uptime: 1511d 20h 19m (ended due to the power brick giving-up)

Well this inspired me to do something about the filtration on my machines.

My main rig uses a Thermaltake M9 chassis. Which has a bunch a filters down the front which do a good job of keeping dust out, but there are a few problems. Such as the ventilation holes in the side panel. This one for example is pretty good size and right by the video card. So I figured I would take care of it first.

I went to the local hobby shop & got a adhesive backed 9" x 12" magnetic sheet. Which I cut into pieces then trimmed to have 1/2" border. Giving me a little frame I could stick my filter material to. I used a piece of a 3M furnace filter cut to size (I already one free as I cut them up for cabin filters in my car) & stuck it to the magnet after peeling the backing off.

Here is the front & back of the finished filter. Also a finished shot of it doing its new job. It may not be pretty, but it's also my first attempt.

The magnetic sheet was $3 which I used about a third of to made this filter. However the center portion I cut out will be able to be made into a vent filter for the round vent by the CPU. So 2 for 1! :) Then I will end up using about $0.50 worth of the $8 3M filter I've cut up for both. In the end these filters will only end up costing about $0.75 each. Now I just have to see how long they last and hold up to being washed.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

I did something similar on my system a few months ago, but not as refined as your implimentation. Used a pack of register filters from Home Depot and a roll of masking tape. Not pretty, but it works.

My Power Supply doesn't even fit in my case...There is no way filters could work unless I put the whole thing in a filtered box! The H50 is strapped outside the case also to get better airflow. It's been so long since I saw the side covers I am not sure I even still have them. I used 3 cans of air then my Vacumn blower...All pretty now and all works again.

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

Buy yourself one of these. Even the cheapest/smallest ones are more than sufficient. I takes about an hour for all my seven boxes to be clean(including plugging out and back in). So fast and easy i do it every couple of months.

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LOL, have one but the kid thinks he needs it more than me most of the time....

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

Buy yourself one of these. Even the cheapest/smallest ones are more than sufficient. I takes about an hour for all my seven boxes to be clean(including plugging out and back in). So fast and easy i do it every couple of months.

On most of the air compressors I have see you need to hook up a separate water trap. Nothing like blowing all of the dust out to find you have left a liter of water in there. Then again that might just apply is you live in a humid area like I once did.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[