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Please Make Sure You Clean Your Heatsink Fins Out

Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:35 pm
by Apoptosis
Had a customer of mine bring this by today because it wasn't running well... He said he used a can of compressed air before he came over because he always knows I yell at him for all the dust bunnies he has in his companies PC...

This is after a whole can of compressed air...
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Looks like he forgot the CPU cooler and to remove the front panel... I can only imagine how bad it was before it came over. Oh and yeah it had a heat issue since it was running an Intel Pentium 4 processor!

Re: Please Make Sure You Clean Your Heatsink Fins Out

Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:47 pm
by skier
what year is this PC from? I Cleaned our Dell with a full-sized Air Compressor(150psi) after 4 years of not being touched(pentium 4 3.0 HT), and it wasn't nearly as bad, granted it was pretty nasty all the same

Re: Please Make Sure You Clean Your Heatsink Fins Out

Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:53 pm
by Apoptosis
skier wrote:what year is this PC from?
October 2004

Re: Please Make Sure You Clean Your Heatsink Fins Out

Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:02 pm
by hercules71185
in one of my picture folders somewhere I have sooo many computers like that!!!!

Re: Please Make Sure You Clean Your Heatsink Fins Out

Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:27 pm
by geokilla
Is that even possible?! So dirty!

Lol I've owned my computer in sig for a year, and I've never cleaned it yet. Opened it up on Wednesday cus I was going to add some Mushkin RAM (believe they're defective >.<) and surprisingly, the inside is VERY clean. There's little to no dust anywhere.

Re: Please Make Sure You Clean Your Heatsink Fins Out

Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 10:23 pm
by Skippman
Worst rig I ever saw dirt wise was a PC from the Honey Baked Ham company on Manchester Rd. back in the mid 90's when I worked at Professional Computers.

Turns out the machine was in the same room where the do the honey glazing. Needless to say the entire inside of the machine was coated in a sticky film. CPU fan, case fan, PSU fan... everything. Basically the PC died because it was caramelized. On the plus side it did smell delicious!

Re: Please Make Sure You Clean Your Heatsink Fins Out

Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 6:35 am
by GI-JOE
I just had someone bring me a computer wondering why it kept shutting off. When I opened it up, the heatsink was only attached by 1 push pin! :shock: (LGA775 in case you are wondering! :mrgreen: )

Re: Please Make Sure You Clean Your Heatsink Fins Out

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 10:17 am
by MrBen
I just stick the vacuum in the heatsink and fans.
Sometimes use Q-tip to clean around the fans properly.

I clean it monthly and always find it weird how fast dust builds up in there.

Re: Please Make Sure You Clean Your Heatsink Fins Out

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 11:53 am
by bubba
I "shave" the servers here at work once every 3 months. I have all the boxes up off the floor on a cart now, so I hope [-o< this will cut down on the crap they suck up.

What is real gross is a PC that has been in a dusty shop for a year or so that has grinding dust floating in the air along with a user that chain smokes.

Re: Please Make Sure You Clean Your Heatsink Fins Out

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 6:36 pm
by lordvic
Wow...really dirty. My old, old computer that I bought from 2002 is really clean (I've only cleaned it once in...7 years?). How in the world does the front panel get that much dust in there?!? I mean...how is that possible?!

Re: Please Make Sure You Clean Your Heatsink Fins Out

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 7:42 pm
by bubba
running it 24/7, set right on the floor, if you have a cat that likes to snuggle up to it for warmth, near an AC vent, cruddy house cleaning, lot of things add to the dust collecting.