Dust on your motherboard???

[pyrate83]

Hey guys, I just installed RAM into my system for the first time...went very well and I am sooo pleased with the increase in performance. I now have 1GB of RAM. Ne ways, when I was inside the PC I first noticed that my CPU or MB fan...i don't know which, was pretty dusty...clumps of dust on it. Most of that came when my system was at school and it was very dusty there even though I only had it there for a few months. So I carefully vacuumed the dust off of the fan but I think I should use some of that compressed air in a can to get the rest??? Any suggestions from people that have cleaned the insides of your computer when it was open for upgrades???? Or should I not bother trying to rid the insides of dust and just not worry about it altogether??

[sterno]

Don't worry about it. I've opened machines and found thick layers of dust, dust bunnies, cobwebs, etc., and they worked fine. Now and then clean the worst of the dust off the fans because they move air better when they're clean, but even then don't put much time and effort in to it - they'll just get dusty again within a few weeks.

[pyrate83]

Ok, thanks for the advice sterno... :P

[gmatov]

Pyrate,
Yes, clean your PC. Not so much your motherboard, as your CPU fan, and your exhaust fans. Heat is the major enemy of your machine. Blow it out, by all means, just make sure ins and outs are clear. If you have a case fan, look at the outlett. It's probably half plugged with crap, which is actually super tiny fibers that have piled up, plugging the ports. Brush and blow, if you don't have a hand vac..;

[pyrate83]

Gmatov, thanks for the advice. I did some vacuuming but need to get something to really blow the dust I couldn't get to in the cpu fan. Thanks for the info again man...i appreciate it. :P

[snowmoon]

Wow, there are chips under all that dust!

Seriously, just get yourself a can of spray air. One word or caution though, let your system cool down for a bit before attempting to use spray air, the cold can cause the hotter chips to crack from the contraction. This is especially true of todays hotter and delicate CPU's, GPU's, and chipset chips.

[gmatov]

Use a stiff bristled brush to knock the crap loose, just get it out of there.
It is not critical, but if you are going to clean it, brush, vaccuum, and blow.
BTW, take it out on the back porch, it'll make a dusty mess.

[mrtristan]

I have compressed air at my shop and I've blasted out my old pc a few times. I didn't take particular care to be gentle and pretty much blasted the crap out of everywhere. I just bought a Kirby vaccum, so now I don't have to lug my computer to work anymore. It's not just a vaccum, it's a blower, it's a shampoo system...

[rallynavvie]

I would hope your CPU and GPU aren't exposed when you're cleaning them out unless you're good at applying thermal paste and all that. If not than I wouldn't worry about the cold air harming the CPUs under the heatsinks unless you're holding the compressed air upside down and spraying them down with liquid CO2.

You should probably clean it out once in a while to keep airflow moving through the case. If it's that dusty where you have it maybe you should look into getting filtered intake fans. The P4 CPU won't mind the heat as much as an AMD will, so I wouldn't worry about the processor going nuts.

I once hit a machine at work on accident that hadn't been cleaned out in as long as I can remember and it actually started to shoot dust-bunnies out the exhaust fan. That was pretty impressive. Dells get notoriously dusty.

[pyrate83]

So true about the Dells....I basically will just clean the fans since they seem to be of more importance than anything else. However, I don't think I would take my PC outside...I'd be just asking for something to happen to it.

[fmctm1sw]

Ne ways, when I was inside the PC I first noticed that my CPU or MB fan...i don't know which, was pretty dusty...clumps of dust on it.

Pour a whole bunch of water on it dude.....

[Ducatti20]

As Gmatov stated, heat is the enemy. Dust can coat your ram, CPU, video card and other items causing less effective heat transfer. Will it kill your machine? Maybe, I honestly don't know. Will it cause a loss in performance/stability? Over time yes. With today's systems running hotter and hotter stability is affected by heat. A average AMD CPU running over 60C will probably (not always) see some stability issues. Ram and video card issues can arise as well. I have been installing little mesh fabric filters in front of the intake fans on all my custom machines for years. Every few months or so I recommend my customers pull them out and wash them, helping to keep the system cleaner. Smokers are the other problem. Smoke coats really bad, causing big time transfer loss. If you smoke don't do it near your machine unless you want to take apart and clean frequently!!