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Making Your PC Dust Free?
Kranfer asks: "Recently, I cleaned out my PC to find not only dust... but also feathers from my from rather large parrots. I have struggled with keeping my PC dust free for years, but I have yet to find a workable solution that will keep the dust from stacking up every few months, inside my PCs at home. I was hoping that my peers on Slashdot might have thought up some innovative solutions to this common problem with any PC. How does one cut down on the dust entering a PC and sticking around? I run an Antec File Server Case with each and every fan slot taken blowing out, and even one of those Harddrive coolers and PCI slot coolers. What have you done to rid yourself of the dust and pet dander inside your PCs?"
Put fan filters on all of your fans! They cost around $1 and do a good job.
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each and every fan slot taken blowing out
That is your first problem, you need as many fans sucking in that you have blowing out. You might have three sucking in on the front of the case, and three blowing out. This will mean less load on the fans, less dirt coming in through crevasses since it needs a place to get air, and better cooling
I think someone else said filters for your fans, and that would be a viable solution as long as you changed them out ever-so-often.
Sig: I stole this sig.
you need to keep a positive pressure inside the PC (so blow the fans IN, more than out), and then you can filter the air on the intake and not have dust getting in anywhere else... as for what filter material you use, i don't know, hopefully others can suggest something cheap and easily available in large rolls (i'm thinking of aquarium filter, probably not fine enough though for air). you want some fine mat material that you can replace or blow out every few weeks. :)
i've been meaning to solve this problem myself because it cant be good for component life either.
you have parrots in the same room as the PC?!
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
My current frankenstein-box, before I gave in and bought a non-stock cpu cooler, was cooled by a 20" galaxy fan (about $11 from WalMart) bolted onto the side of the case in place of an actual case cover. After a few months, the entire case was a christmas wonderland of gray gunk. I had to take the whole thing apart and peel off sheets of lint that reminded me of cleaning out the lint trap on a dryer. So I bought an air conditioner filter, and duct taped it onto the galaxy fan. Changed it every few months, and not one bit of dust.
Of course, this still works with normal 80mm fans. Go to Walmart and buy an aircondioner filter, and cut out 80mm diameter circles. Just screw through them with the same screws that hold your fans onto your case. Change whenever they look really bad, or when you notice your temps going up.
Yes. Stockings. From the significant other that you wish you had. They make excellent, cheap dust filters.
If you have serious issues, prevent pets from getting into the room. also a cut up HEPA filter from a vacuum is very effective... But as many others have mentioned, you NEED intake fans.
my karma ran over your dogma
every fan slot taken blowing out
BAD IDEA
Then all the air coming into your case will be sucked from the edges and between hte drive bays, places where dust is likley to collect anyway.
Its better to run them at a 50/50 (40/60 can work too) mix of in/out fans, and the sugestion about the filters is on the mark as well.
The more I learn about Windows the more I am surprised it runs at all
1) Get rid of the pets or do a better job of cleaning (oops, sorry - I forgot we're all geeks, here)
9 /29/2224204&tid=222&tid=137). No fans, no dust.
2) See story just following yours (http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/0
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Get a full room air purifier. If your pc is getting all that crap building up inside it why would you want that in your lungs. Once the air itself is cleaned the pc won't be so apt to get contaminated.
Open-cell foam is what's commonly used in cases that have filters. It seems to work pretty well. You could also use a metal screen, like those used in windows. That way, it'd be reausable and easier to clean. Of course, dust filtering in my case is near impossible. I've got a Cooler Master Centurion 5; the whole damn thing is covered in ventilation holes.
You said each and every fan slot was blowing out. That is your problem. The air that is going in to the box is coming from whatever cracks, vents, etc there are. Most, if not all, of these will be unfiltered so you are sucking up environmental dust.
In order to keep dust out of your PC, you need to control the air going *in* to the box. That means having more fans blowing in than out so that the case has a net positive air pressure. This way, air is blowing out of the miscellaneous cracks in the case. Once you do this, you add filters to the fans that are blowing in. No more dust in box.
The most important thing to remember if you use filters on your fans is to clean them often. Clogged intake fans will heat your case up like crazy.
I would also note that you need a balance of fans blowing in and out so that you get the best airflow through the case. Don't have them all going the same direction as that will rarely provide the best cooling.
Make sure you have more air being forced in that being sucked out. Filter all the intake fans. Reduces dust by over 90% from my personal experience. My monthly cleanings are now annual.
Put the water cooler and pump outside.
Then you can seal the box. The water cooler
might get dusty, but the PC wont. Which do you
care more about?
I have this case - it's smart, solidly built and not overly fancy:
t eID=1&ID=151
http://www.kingwin.com/pdut_detail.asp?LineID=&Ca
It has a removable, washable sponge-like filter behind an external metal grill - all in front of the entry fans at the front of the case. Air moves in from the front and exits (now warm) out at the top rear. The metal grill actually traps most of the pet hair, while the filter traps most of the dust and dirt.
It keeps the interior signficantly cleaner than my past computers, but could still use a little cleaning every few months. And don't forget to clean the air filter occasionally so it doesn't clog up!
My only complaint is that my current system is a bit loud - but that's more the fault of the power supply I put in there.
As others have said, make sure you've got positive pressure in your case. Turn around some of your fans so they're sucking air in.
As for filtering the intake, your cheapest bet is to use some used dryer sheets. You know, like Bounce sheets. Tape one over each fan grille and you'll be good to go. They're cheap, you probably have them anyhow, and you don't need any fancy contraption to hold them on.
Clean the CPU heatsink when it gets fluffy, or your CPU temp goes up to the point where you feel uncomfortable. Otherwise, don't bother. And unless you have *serious* temperature issues, turn off a few of those fans. Your computer doesn't *have* to double as a wind tunnel, ya know.
:-)
My mythtv box runs at 40 to 60 degrees C for it's CPU and 45-55 degrees for it's drives, 24/7, with no failures yet. As a guide to it's lifetime, it's main drive is over 17000 power on hours.
A few years back, I used to work for a coal sampling laboratory. Coal dust used to get *EVERYWHERE*. I have a photo somewhere of a i386 desktop case PC full of coal dust all over the motherboard, well past the point of not being able to see the tracks on the board. A finger run along any flat surface in the case left about 1/8" deep track in the coal.
This computer still operated perfectly, again, 24/7, and had been doing so for 8 years when I opened the case to put a bigger drive in. So, if coal (being 70-80% carbon) has little effect, then I fail to see how a bit of dust can.
But I'm sure there's a mob of angry slashdotters with pitchforks and burning torches just itching to refute this statement and paint me as an idiot, so I'll hand it over to them
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
You can really reduce the amount of dust in a case just by getting it up off the floor. Higher is better. Dust tends to settle near the floor, and especially if you have carpet, walking by the desk will kick up small amounts of dust every time.
60/40 on the in/out for fans (don't waste money & time with slot fans) and you can get cheap filter material from a motherboard box. You know, the spongy stuff inside the box? Cut it into 80mm squares. Works like a champ. Mount between fan & case.
Don't use the Troll mod just because you disagree with me.
A long time ago I did a study of 41 computer case manufacturers. NONE of them made cases that were well-designed in every way.
Only one of those manufacturers sold cases with built-in fan filters that were removable from the front. If a case doesn't have a fan filter, it is necessary to take it apart perhaps every 6 months to clean the dust. That's far more expensive than just cleaning a filter.
The computer parts market has been corrupted by the presence of buyers with no education and little maturity. The most common way of appealing to those buyers is to use the word "extreme". Typically the price is double what it would normally be, if those buyers didn't exist.
Submerge PC in large vat (well large enough for the PC, small vat for micro PC) of non-conductive liquid of choice. I'd choose something pH neutral and otherwise inert that is unlikey to ionise. Perhaps mineral oil.
...
Voila, no dust.
Oh and you can swith off your fans too, you might need a stiring mechanism though (quite low frequency should do).
Google it, it's out there
Train the parrots to clean the PC.
Heh, this question is not as difficult as it seems. All off the shelf stuff.
.... You gotta have a spoiler).
Sure, you need positive pressure in the case, but think Auto Shop!
They sell high volume paper/oil air filters. The oil traps the airborne dust particles quite effectively, and they are easy to replace.
So, just find an old turbo, install a brushless motor from a RC plane and controller with a servo activator PCB (many hobby places sell these) so you can adjust the speed - or even control it straight from the PC.
Use this as the impellor, with the Turbo attached to the case (mock up the back end, or even use it as the exhaust) and just attach an Auto Pod Filter...
Don't forget to add "Phulli Sik" stickers to the side of the case, and maybe a few logo's on the front.... AMD, Nvidia, etc. Attached to the drive bay door at a slight angle. (With an Intel sticker cut in half, upside down, on the spoiler
Bonus points if the Turbo spools when you use a pedal accelerator on driving games.
Oh, and wear your cap on backwards at Lan parties.
Well, it might sound funny, but this would actually work. Of course, you can buy car air filters as flat panels also, and the oil comes in a spray can, but that's just cheating now!.
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
Perfect solution!
I foudn that if you keep your computer off the floor it cuts down on the amount of dust collected. Dust still collects, but there is better circulation on my shelve than when it's on the floor.
I started working on computers back in the 80's when everybody had their own custom case, style, and philosophy. I worked for a well known mom-and-pop computer shop in our city that had a reputation for low prices so I was working on pretty much everything. Many of the higher-end PC's were built with the large-computer mentality of the mainframe / minicomputer era of over-engineering. Besides being overpriced, many included filters over the fan because "real computers" had them. Most of the time the filters were more trouble than they were worth.
The primary problem was that people were not cleaning the filters. Out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Putting filters over your fans means that somebody has to regularily check and change them. I've had PC's on shop floors that had the filters so clogged with oil and gunk that the fans they were covering burned out from overload. After I replaced them and explained everything to them I might have to go back 6 months later to do the exact same thing because "they hadn't got around to changing them". I've burned my fingers on parts inside some of those machines, and that was the days before heat sinks in the first place.
Filters are good as long as you're going to religiously inspect them every month or so and clean or replace them.
As a passing curiosity, does anybody know exactly how much heat the load resistor on one of the old original 63.5 watt PC's put out when you had it hooked up in place of the 2nd floppy drive? I remember one particular system that was in a dusty factory. Somebody had jury-rigged a filter across the front of the system using window screen and medical gauze. The gauze had gunked up so much the fan in the power supply was basically worthless. A coworker managed to get a second degree burn off the load-resistor and I never could figure out how that managed to happen with something that only had 63.5 watts in the first place.
I'll second that. Fuck those "cheap" $1 fan filters. Grab a dryer sheet, fold it in half, slap it on. Change them every three months or so and you're golden. Plus, if you use the scented kind, the whole room smells like fresh laundry! ;)
:P
Anyways, I use a bounce sheet on my side intake port (bonus: because it has a bolt-on grill, I just punch holes in the sheet with a pen and thread the screws through em) because it was horrible for blowing dust all over my video card. No filters on my front ports yet though. I'm lucky - because my house is 3/4'ers populated by allergy sufferers, we bought an electrostatic filter for our furnace/ac system. They're not exactly a "cheap" solution, but they're freakin awesome for cutting down on the dust throughout the entire house. Get one, get your furnace/ac/whatever and pipes cleaned, and you'll be amazed at how much smaller your friendly household dustbunnies will be. And speaking of AC... because its so dry where I live, in the summertime I just pipe my room's AC right into my computer. Keeps my baby nice and chilly even when its blazing hot outside and i'm into my 6th hour of playing World of Warcrack.
Yeah, um... when people were talking about "positive pressure"... I don't think they meant '30 psi of boost'. Not unless they were planning on decorating their room with bits of PCB board, anyway.
Well I use an automotive brush* from walmart to remove dust. It's soft enough, but stiff enough to get into tight spaces. e.g. HDs. Plus being round means it gets everywere. I have another brush (same department and make, but stiffer) to comb through the CPU heatsink.[1]
*It's originally ment to remove brake dust.
[1] Some people use an old toothbrush to do this.
At least the pc- 30 and pc-60 series have 2 80mm intake fans at the front, covered by a loose filter. This is enough to keep my pc relatively dust free for a few years now, despite myself being a fairly heavy smoker.
linky
That's the Lian-Li pc-60 plus and has only a 120mm fan in the front. Older pc-60 models also lack the blower at the top.
had similar problems so here's a run-down:
positive pressure: point all rear fans out and all front fans in, or vice-versa if you can duct your PS exhaust away from the intakes. 1, positive pressure means higher air density and greater thermal conductivity of... air. 2, put some light foam mesh filters on the fans and you have less sound and filter dust as long as you clean them.
do not put them on carpet or hardwood: i recommend a sheet metal base for the cases, which can be dusted often. tends to accumulate less dust, and will decrease the ground (electrical) bias between the tower and floor, helping keep the ground dust from being attracted to the case.
side cowling for fan: basically a cover for the top of the fan intakes so any drifting dust is less likely to get sucked in. preferably with a grating to keep feathers etc from getting sucked in also. also putting a oversized flat sheetmetal "hat" on your case helps too for the same reason.
those ionic things from sharper image: expensive and extreme, but they actually help with the smaller dust. prolly pointless in your case though.
really the filters and positive pressure are the big ones, but it all depends on how far you want to go.
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Pluck the parrots.
Found one:
Silentmaxx Watercooled 450W PSU
A latent existence
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Moving air brings dust. The obvious solution is to eliminate fans. Perhaps a move to water cooling is in order for you.
1. the dust in your computer is coming from the air in your computer room. the dust in the air of your computer room comes from you, your animals and the outside world. so moving the animals to another room would be a good place to start, and you might want to think about cleaning that room and yourself once in a while (bird owners are always the dirtiest people). and by the way smoking contributes alot to the dust in the air. get your tower off the floor, there is more dust in the air by the floor than there is by the ceiling (dust is heavier than air).
2. air filtration is vital. when is the last time you changed the filter on your furnace\ac? when is the last time you changed the bag on your vacuum cleaner. somebody already mentioned a stand-alone filter for that room and thats another great idea. you could also upgrade the air filtration on your furnace or ac and that would make a huge difference in your air quality of your whole house.
3. again its already been touched on, but your fan setup is also very suspect. more fans will move more air, and that means they are also moving more dust. if you could get by with fewer fans, you would be sucking less dust into the case. i'm not sure you need all the fans that you mentioned. what's the pci slot cooler for? is it actually cooling anything? you could switch to a cooling solution that uses larger heat sinks or heat pipes that would cool just as well with less air movement (fewer fans at lower speeds). or change to a liquid based system for cooling, no need for fans, and its a closed system. fewer and slower fans also means less noise, and your ears will thank you for that. also you do need to move a similar or greater amount of air in than you are out, and the fans pulling the air in are also where you would install fan filters.
4. shut your system down when you don't need it to be on, if its not on, it can't suck any dust in. you could also use sleep mode which should shutdown most of your fans when you aren't actively using the system. this will also lower your electric bill (money good).
All fans blowing out. Coupled with sealing every hole except for one side replaced with previously mentioned AC filter.
"He's a real midnight golfer"
I've found negative ion generators are good for reducing the amount of airborne dust. Obviously not a solution by themselves, but they could substantially increase the time between changing/cleaning filters.
Disclaimer: I'm not going to insist negative ion generators have any other benefits, but I have seen dust and cigarette smoke drop like a stone with one switched on, and I've serviced equipment run for nearly ten years in a room with one that looked almost pristine inside. And no, it wasn't because the room was cleaned often (the vacuum was one of last items I fixed, and had been out of commission for some time judging by the amount of grit in the carpet). Like all anecdotal evidence, take with caution, YMMV, etc.
Blank until
When I was living with a friend of mine (he's married now and this was about three years or more ago) he had two Ionic Breeze filters. I can personally vouch that these things are totally useless. It was a two bedroom apartment and there was always dust, even with these things running 24/7. We would clean them and sure enough the blades inside were black with filth, but neither of us ever noticed a signifigant reduction in the dust in the apartment. Later after he got married and I got my own place (the one I have now) I bought a Honeywell from drugstore.com (you can see it here: http://www.drugstore.com/products/prod.asp?pid=836 08&catid=46773&trx=GFI-0-PLP&trxp1=46773&trxp2=836 08&trxp3=1&trxp4=1&btrx=BUY-GFI-0-PLP).
I had another Honeywell in a small boarding house room with two cats years before, and even with the two cats and the litter box and myself people always commented how they could not smell anything unpleasant. So it was because of this experience that I returned to the Honeywell brand. It is an awesome air purifier and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to seriously control the room dust.
As for the computer dust problem I don't have much to share. I just keep my case and PC components clean and run the Honeywell as much as possible. Keeping myself and the apartment clean also helps. :)
I want to thank all of you for the great tips. I'm going to get my tower up off the floor and I got a couple boxes of Swiffer pads so I'm going to try that filter idea.
As for the vacuum I want to share a story on that...a friend of mine vacummed the inside of his case one time and then his computer wouldn't start. Come to find out he'd sucked up a couple jumpers off the mobo. So I would be leary of using a vacuum inside the case.
- dc
Oh yeah, wanted to add this....I have an Antec case with one fan in front sucking air in and two in back sucking air out (a case fan and the PSU). The case has a grille on the door side and flanges in the front. There is a cool little plastic cage for the front fan to snap into. The back fan is mounted on the case. I am seriously considering replacing my stock Intel heatsink/fan with one of these Zalman products - the CNPS9500 LED or the CNPS7000B-ALCU. The CNPS9500 LED is pretty amazing, for the fan sits horizontal over the CPU and blows air out the back of the case (toward the back case fan). - dc
Use the green scrubbing pads [the sort you use to clean dishes] & add velcro to the four corners for easy removal > then mount them over fan grating = they will act as filters and collect the dust.
Probably because most server rooms are filtered well.
I have parrots too. Cockatoo dust is the worst to try and filter. I just vacuum the dust out every month and use compressed air to blow out the case comletely. Be sure to unplug your machine first. I had too much dust in the air and BBQ'd my power supply when I left mine plugged in. Incidently, my Grey learned "son of a bitch" on that occasion.
If you want a cheap filter, use your girlfriends or wifes old nylons duct taped to the case in front of the fans. (Or, since you have a slashdot ID and parrots, just buy the nylons yourself. I kid, I kid.)
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass