PC Cases for High Dust Enviornments?

Ummagumma asks: "My computers have recently been relegated to the basement by decree of the fiancee. Problem is, the basement is carpeted (with a really old carpet), and I have two cats, which generate alot of 'fuzz'. I have had to disassemble my PC to clean the fans and heatsinks out several times now. I am looking for a case that has a built in filter of some kind, even a simple one, that wont blow the bank balance. I have found the Antec SLK3700AMB, but cannot verify that is has a filter, though I have been told it may have. I figure at least a few of you are in a similar situation, so what are you using to prevent dust and fuzz from getting into your cases? My only requirements are: At least mid-sized (full size atx board), room for 4 5.25" drives, minimum 300W powersupply, a front and rear 120mm case fan (or mountings), with a filter at least on the intake." Some of the aluminum cases from Lian Li (and I can't remember the exact model numbers) have simple filter in their front mounted fans. What other case manufacturers have such features?

Comments

Cheap filters...

[(H)elix1]

A nylon stocking will go a long way in keeping cat hair out of your chassis. It won't block everything, but on the plus side airflow is not too bad. Don't forget to filter your power supply if it set to suck rather than blow outside air.

I have a similar problem..

[_hAZE_]

I work for a scrap metal recycling company, with offices and recycling facilities throughout the midwest United States. As you could imagine, the dust is absolutely horrible, and what's worse is that it has a high metallic content (little bits of metal on a motherboard == sparks, burn-outs, shorts, etc). I have yet to find a good solution, other than someone mentioning puting coffee filters near any air vents on the case (which I haven't tried yet).

To be honest, I don't really care if it's a do-it-yourself solution or if there's a company out there that sells "filtered" PCs that aren't outrageously priced (most "hardened" PCs are WAY out of the price range).

We're currently using standard Compaq and IBM business-class Intel workstations and servers, but find that dust and heat can still cause problems. The Compaq PCs come with an on-site warranty, and I pay a little extra for the IBM on-site warranty, but I feel that there should be a better solution then having them constantly out to replace hardware that fails due to dust.

Another option...

[baka_boy]

I have an OpenBrick (http://openbrick.org), which works very nicely as a thin client box connecting to faster/noisier machines located elsewhere in the house; obviously, laptops work well for this, too, and since the bulk of the processing is offloaded to the server, even a fairly old machine works well, so long as it can run X and/or a VNC client.

With wireless cards thrown into the mix, you can just stuff the bigger machines into the attic, a closet, etc., and then set up your thin client workstations wherever you like, without fear of noise and space consumption making them a nuisance.

All of this breaks down as soon as you want to run a recent game of any sort, of course, but that's what the console systems in the living room are for.

Encase your case !

[Lupulack]

At my place of work there's a *lot* of sawdust blowing around , gathering in corners, piling on objects. After having several computers give up and die the foreman came up with an interesting idea :

build a plexiglass case around the PC itself with several industrial fans and filters of the sort used in large electrical enclosures.

Easily replaced without issue , filters are easily changed and they're a standard type to everything else around there. Plus you don't ever have to cut your case up.