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Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Electrostatic Contamination?
interval1066 writes "I've generally made it a practice to blow the dust out of my devices 1) when I remember to do so 2) after about 3 or so years of use 3) when I can get inside the case. My monitor is very thin and difficult to open. When I did finally crack it open I didn't really notice a whole lot of dust, but I blew the thing out anyway and put it back together, and it's doing ok, as far as I can tell. I'd be interested in knowing other Slashdotters' experiences with maintaining their devices in this way and where possible. And I actually extending the life of my devices, or am I just wasting my time?"
For the most part I find that only devices that have forced air cooling, aka fans, have issues with dust. And in those cases it is defiantly a good idea to clean them out regularly as overheating is defiantly an issue with enough dust accumulation. You would be amazed the amount of dust that will accumulate in a PC, even after a few years. In the case of computer cases you can get filters that help a lot however you need to make sure you clean the filters out or you will just be making the situation worse.
You, and the Slashdot editors that posted this, are wasting everyone's time with this question. What's next, an Ask Slashdot for shaking crumbs and pubes out of your keyboard?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I was having problems with my system crashing under "load" (i.e. games) last year. I replaced the drivers, the video card and the power supply before I noticed that the CPU heart sink was stuffed with dust. One blast of canned air later and I haven't had a problem since. It had probably been two years since I installed that processor. So yes, there are times when it really does make a difference.
I was given a ration of shit by a girl I know.
She found a jar of chutney in my fridge fully 10 years past it's expiration date. Still smelled fine.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Also clean your PCI/PCIe/ram slots with fine steel wool to prevent oxidation buildup. Run you CPU through the dishwasher on 'pots and pans' to clean slow electrons out of infrequently used data paths.
Use a mixture of bleach and ammonia for fast and easy cleanup (of the gene pool).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I smelled chutnet a full year before it expired and it didn't smell fine ...
Short and Sweet: YES, do take the time to clean your electronics. Below is my own subjective experience. YMMV
When I was 17 I owned what was arguably the best laptop available to consumers in the whole world. It had the first edition of Pentium 4 mobile processors, a dvd burner and a 32 MEG (!) GeForce 4 mobile video card. I was the envy of all my friends. (I got it from the make a wish foundation after having cancer, they envied the laptop, not the cancer)
A year later the CD drive seemed to stop reading any media that I put in. It was intermittent for a long time but eventually it wasn't able to read anything. This made was a pain because bios' back then didn't support booting from USB and when I wanted to re ghost the thing the CD's were useless. I tried booting it over the network but that was a huge pain in the ass and didn't go well. I continued to use the laptop for another year or two.
I got a new desktop computer and the laptop went to collect dust in my desk drawer. A few years later I was cleaning out my desk and brought out the old laptop, wondering if I could get the OS reinstalled somehow. CD ROM drive still didn't work. I took a Q-tip and swabbed the little laser lens thingymabob just for shits (it didn't look dusty or dirty) Magically, Every CD I put in suddenly worked. The lens was just a little smudged I guess. I didn't use a perfectly good computer for years because of some stupid dust. (I forgot to mention, the computer was at a point where I reformatted but hadn't put any os on it so it was useless even for simple tasks)
I also had a desktop computer that use to freeze occasionally during times of intense rendering / cpu usage. It was pretty old and when I opened the case there was a lot of dust collected in the proc's cooling fan. I just blew on it (no canned air) and got most of the dust out. No more over heating problems.
I read that as "Dear Slashdot, I heard you should regularly take baths so you don't die. Is this true?"
I was scared for a second there!
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Trolling aside, I've found that the best way to clean those ISA/PCI/AGP connectors is a white "STAEDTLER" eraser.
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There's a tradeoff between lifespan and maintenance requirements. For fun, I restore old Teletype machines from the 1920s and 1930s. I have four of them running.
A normal maintenance operation on early Teletypes is to remove the two electrical parts (the motor and the selector magnet) and soak the entire machine in cleaning solution to get rid of dust and dead oil. For machines in heavy use, Western Union did that annually. Then they had to be oiled again (there are several hundred oiling points and six pages of lubrication instructions), gears and sliding joints greased, the electrical parts re-installed, adjustment procedures performed, and the machines re-tested.
Because of this design for maintainability, I've been able to take 80 year old machines that were covered with rust and dirt, and restore them to full operation. But who would put up with something today which required that kind of maintenance? Getting people to clean or change the filters on their desktop computers is difficult.
Run you CPU through the dishwasher on 'pots and pans' to clean slow electrons out of infrequently used data paths.
You'd be surprised.
Modern CPUs (by which I mean socket 370 PIII and forwards) are pretty resilient. I regularly wash off CPUs in the sink with mild dish soap to get old thermal grease off them (grease is grease, after all). Just make sure you dry them off with compressed air afterwards. Other techs freak the fuck out when they see this, but it's actually pretty safe and I've done it to a couple dozen chips over the course of my career and have yet to experience a failure. It's even easier these days due to the pins (the only fragile part) being on the board now.
RMS, is that you?
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
That's a golden rule.
Most consumer equipment does not need or tolerate frequent maintenance. Cracking open an LCD monitor is not going to make it last longer, on the contrary, you are putting stress on plastic tabs (specially if it doesn't have screws), and on marginal quality harnesses and connectors that are meant to be assembled once.
My other signature is a car
Let me guess - you're a smoker? That's the nastiest dust I've ever cleaned out of a heatsink. There's oily crud mixed in that just won't let go.
Normal dust comes right off, usually.
Just make sure you've discharged any static in your body before putting the CPU into the water. I routinely walk across the kitchen to a running faucet and get shocked just by touching the grounded water stream. That discharge could easily travel across the chip and ruin it.
Once I grabbed a carton of cream from the fridge, and when I went to pour it, nothing came out. It was completely solidified. I was confused because it was still 2 weeks before the expiration date. Of course, they don't include the year in the exp. date.. I just happened to grab it about one year after I bought it.
Everyone who has ever taken a bath has died within 120 years. Baths cause death!
Learn to love Alaska
yes.
No!
Vents get blocked, causing overheating, more noise, and it ends up shortening the life of the machine.
One colleague's laptop was getting slow and was quite loud. All the dust stopped it cooling properly, so the CPU kept getting switched to a low speed and the fan still couldn't pump enough air through. After hoovering out, it was quiet and quick!
If you don't keep your machines clean, this happens:
- Dirty, dirty PCs: The X-rated picture guide
- Dirty PCs: How much filth can you take?
- Filthy PCs: The X-rated circus of horrors
- Unfeasibly vast amphibian found croaked on video card
- Bring out your dead
-- Steve
If you're cleaning them correctly and carefully, you'll extend their lives. Dust buildup is a leading cause of overheating in PCs, and heat is a real problem.
But if you're cleaning them incorrectly, you'll shorten their lives. Any time you open the case, you're exposing sensitive components to risk, especially static damage. Not grounding yourself to the case when you're touching internal components will allow any static buildup on your body to discharge through a component. Vacuum cleaners draw so much air through them that they generate static electricity, particularly on the tip of a plastic nozzle. Static discharges at lower voltages are invisible and can cause latent damage that you may not immediately discover, but those weaknesses enable other normal stresses to destroy the chip.
When you take it apart to clean it, you're exposing it to non-zero risk. You might make a mechanical mistake in assembly that impacts proper cooling. You might put the CPU heatsink on cockeyed, fail to equally tension all the heat sink mounting screws, or drape a stray cable across a fan and prevent it from turning. Failing to put airflow devices back in their correct place, or failing to reconnect the fans to the power cables, could reduce needed airflow. When you carry it to the workbench, you risk dropping it. I've seen people reuse old thermal paste or glob on a thick layer of new paste when replacing the CPU fan (the fan maker's pre-paste is usually horribly thick.) A bad thermal paste layer will insulate the CPU from the heat sink and cause overheating. Lots of the aftermarket CPU fans have really weird mounting hardware, and you need to be sure they're correctly mounted so they effectively transfer the heat. All these risks can be reduced by learning how to do it right, reading the directions, and taking appropriate precautions.
One way to greatly reduce the risk of damage due to improper handling is to clean the machines only as often as necessary. Dust buildup is dependent on your particular environment. Fabrics, pets, dirt, open windows, flowering plants, carpeting, low humidity, high humidity, smoke, grease, cooking oils, hair sprays, colognes, all are factors that contribute to the build up of dust. So clean it after a year, and figure out what the cleaning schedule should be based on what you discover. It might be that annual cleanings are appropriate, or maybe you can wait two or three years.
All heat is a problem. Direct thermal damage from too much heat is possible, of course, but temperature changes can cause problems too. Thermal expansion causes the mechanical motion of parts. Every material has a different coefficient of expansion, (e.g. aluminum expands more per degree than steel, plastic expands more than aluminum,) so as parts heat and cool, they tug at solder connections, screw mountings, and other interface points inside the case. Repeated heating and cooling cycles increase the possibility of damage. Keeping it clean will keep it cooler, reducing the amount of expansion and motion, and extending the life.
Note that I'm not saying you'll ever drop your computer or ever reassemble it incorrectly, I'm pointing out that the act of cleaning it creates a risk greater than zero, and that the risk is zero when you are not cleaning it. And bigger risks lead to shorter lifespans.
John
I just bought a case with filters on the air intake and a positive-pressure case, so the video card and power supply draw air from within the case and bent it out. I've not had any dust buildup other than on the filters, which clean up fine in 10 seconds in a sink. Oil with a little mineral oil for catching smaller particles - requires more frequent cleaning, and the addition of soap when cleaning..
Learn to love Alaska
If you can't get those, might I suggest aiming in another direction.
So, to quote Steve Jobs, "You're holding it wrong."
Obviously steel wool is a non-starter and I'll leave the bleach and ammonia to others at the shallow end f the gene pool.
Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer, Retired
Trolling aside, I've found that the best way to clean those ISA/PCI/AGP connectors is to leave them alone alltogether.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
I work in a semiconductor clean-room. There are modern desktop systems, old 486 systems, and lots of industrial logic boards, cabinets chock full of arrays of huge computer fans...some of this stuff has been going since the early '90s and there isn't a spec of dust on them. It's pretty weird to see old computer equipment, including fans, that DOESN'T have even a trace of dust on it. Very strange.
Over on the Vintage Computer forum, people do in fact run old circuit boards such as PDP-11 modules through the dishwasher, and clean contacts with fine abrasive. Blasting core memory stacks with compressed air however is a definate no-no as this destroys the fine wiring.
If you are having problems with fanless devices getting too dirty inside, you might want to think about improving your indoor air quality, if for no better reason, your own health.
Cpus and other devices with fans stay much cleaner inside if they are not placed on the floor.
This depends.
Assuming the unit is in a nice, clean, and properly maintained environment, there should never be any reason to do anythiing at all to a card edge connector, or to its slot.
However, people are fucking slobs, and put computers in places they should never be placed. They suck in all kinds of horrible filth, and some very "interesting" (from a chemical standpoint) things can happen.
One noteworthy one I encountered more than once when I did professional PC repair, was the "disgusting oily film" buildup that happens when computers are kept in filthy bedrooms, dormatories, or around pets (dogs especially). This "funk", for lack of a better word, coats everything inside, causes dirt to adhere, is mildly corrosive in and of itself, and causes a kind of "organic patina" to form on edge connectors and ports.
That shit is nasty, and chemically binds to the metal, altering the conductivity of the edge connector pad, and causing very intermittent and irritating problems.
RAM is especially susceptible to "funk" buildup, and can cause some really irritating and difficult to reproduce/diagnose errors.
I found that a white vinyl eraser (made for archival paper, acid free, pumice free) on card edges can safely and efficiently clean the funk off. Just do so gently, and with slow motions to avoid static exchanges on the card's contact pads.
Usually, cleaning the card edge is enough. Occasionally though, the "funk" contamination is so extreme (literally, it is fucking "sticky and brown" inside! Blch!) That you will be presented with having to decide between telling the customer that their fucking filthy living conditions have ruined their computer and that they need a new one, (and for whatever reason, the people to which this applies are always dead ass broke and can't afford such a solution) or you have to grit your teeth, put on some nitrile gloves, and gently clean the slots as well in order for anything to fucking work even half-assedly.
In case of the latter, you offer to attempt cleaning under the firmly and fully understood condition that this is not something that can be waranteed, is dangerous, and can totally hose the computer permanently. Literally, at this point the options are replacement, or hairbrained cleaning, with the slim prospect that a few more months or years of service can be squeezed out. Eg, the system is beyond normal help, the preferred solution is replacement, but if they can't afford that, this is the only alternative, and that you won't do warantee work if it fails later, and that you refuse to be held liable for damages. If they agree, then you can proceed. Otherwise close it up and send them on their merry way with their box of filth.
In the unfortunate event that they agree to those terms, you can half-assedly clean a PCI slot with one of those cellulose sponge business cards. (Essentially a tightly pressed dry cellulose sponge, cut to the size of a businss card, and printed as such. They are a novelty product, but are also conveniently the right combination of chemical free mild abrasive, nonconductive, disposable, and correct thickness.) This process can only be performed once. It is not something I ever suggest doing, because PCI slots are precision made, and jamming things in there is simply not smart. Again, this is only for a system where it has been determined it is beyond normal help, and in all seriousness should be at a recycling center, and not your repair shop, and where everyone involved knows painfully well that this is a kludge to squeeze a few more hours out of it, and nothing else.
Ram slots are even more sensitive. Before cleaning, remove the cpu from the socket. Leave the board plugged in, but turned off. Cross your fingers, and pray to whatever deity you feel most appropriate. If you have to clean the ram slot, it is almost assuredly a lost cause anyway.
I have actually revived many machines this way, which is quite surprising. Many more than were killed by the attempt. Again, not recommended. Only for ex
Here is what I have done with excellent results:
My NAS had a small fan, blowing warm air outside it. I remount the fan so that it blows fresh air inside the NAS and I added a custom external filter on the intake. The filter doesn't limit the flow (big accordion shape and stockings-like fabric). I plugged some holes to optimize the flow.
The NAS is sitting on the floor under the stairs, a rather dusty environnement...
After two years I inspected the NAS, here are the results:
- No dust soots the NAS, on some parts there is only a very thin grey layer of the finest particles that goes through the filter. It is much thinner than a coat of paint, nothing to worry about for the years to come.
- Filter is easy to clean, no need to open anything.
Also the NAS is actualy cooler, the hard drives report 35C instead of 37C, this is a side effect of the reverse flow which is more turbulent and effective for going everywhere to cool the parts.