Spring cleaning time again

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[City Builder]

Well, it was spring cleaning time again.

I've been lax in the amount of time between shutting down the computer and blowing out all the dust and grime.  But yesterday I noticed that my CPU was running at idle up around 118°f.  So I shut it down, took it out into the backyard, fired up the air compressor and took 30 minutes to blow out all the dust and grime that had accumulated "everywhere" in the box.  There were huge plumes of dust going tens of feet into the air.

Now while I live in a dusty area, it's not a rural area that I live in, but rather a proper city.  But after 8 to more months the amount of dirt and dust that accumlates in a computer can be substantial.

So where my cpu was running around 118°f prior to the cleaning, it is now running at only 82°f at idle.  Obviously a substantial drop in heat at or around 36°f difference.

If you've not cleaned out your computer lately, or ever for that matter, you may want to unplug it all and blow it all out.  I honestly suggest that you don't bother with those expensive cans of compressed air, instead if you aren't lucky enough to own your own compressor, take it down to your local gas station where you might have to pay a quarter to operate the tire air filler and use that to blow out the dust if possible, some of them are capable of blowing air when they are not hooked up to a tire, others are not.

This time I was truly astonished at how much dirt and dust came out of the computer.  I also took the time to replace an exhaust fan that has issues with starting up properly, often times I would have to give it a couple dozen or more spins by hand to get it spinning (and sucky sucky, it was a very expensive fan that I had replaced less than a year ago to get more air flow), so now I've replaced it with just a regular case exhaust fan that was only about $14.00 at the local best buy and it seems to do a more than adequate job since the CPU is staying so much cooler now too.

There are actually many computer owners that don't realize that they need to do some basic maintenance on their computers like blowing out the dust to keep it running cool, and it's not surprising.  So if you are one of them that has never cleaned out the inside of your computer case you may want to give it a go.  If your own possibility is to use the expensive cans of compressed air, then that will have to do, I just find that they are tremendously expensive for what they are, and they run out of pressure after only a few seconds of being used because they seem to freeze up and one needs to let them warm up before they can be used again.  But they will do in a pinch if need be.

Samantha and I agreed several years ago that owning a very small air compressor is sort of like a tool that one must own if they do much computering, so we splurged and spent about $100 on a smaller model air compressor, so now not only can we pump up our tires if they get low, but we can also really blow out the dust that accumulates in all of our computers.  When I started on the cleaning project last night, I started with a can of compressed air since I had one laying around that I have been using to blow the crumbs out of my keyboard from time to time, and while it moves a bit of dust around, it has nowhere near the volume of air flow to really get the dust out of all the areas it accumulates in a computer like in the CPU heatsink, and in the Power supply (wow was that full of dust and hair bunnies) and the video card too.  Wow, the video cards fan was stuffed up with plenty of dust bunnies and hair bunnies clogging it up pretty good, it now runs about 40 to 50°f cooler at idle as well now that it can actually move some air through it with it's fan.  Anyway, while the canned air will do for the CPU heatsink which is the arguably the most crucial place to clean, if you know somebody with an air compressor or can use your local gas stations I highly suggest that you do as you will get far more dust out of the computer using that, than the cans of compressed air.

Honestly, I still am tasting the bitter taste of the dirt and dust in my mouth from all the dust that was blowing around last night during cleanup time.  In fact I'm actually still coughing a little bit too from the dust I inhaled.

Good luck and happy computing.

[Bluetop]

I don't know if it's a big deal or not but compressed air naturally forms water. And I NEVER drain my compressors and I don't think anyone else does, either  . Might wanna watch that. As for me I run an "open" computer. And not as much dust gets in there.

On a side note when my 8800 card went out after less than two years I was pretty hot about it. And after I went to EVGA website forums everyone kept talking about cooking the damn thing for 10 minutes at 400 degrees and I'll be damned if that didn't fix it. The aliasing does not work anymore but I still get good frames.

[City Builder]

That's interesting.  I'd be guessing but what is it about cooking the card for 10 minutes that makes it work again?  I'd guess that the solder points are weak on the card and heating it up to 400 degrees allows the solder points to re melt and make a connection again, maybe.

I've got 2 8800's sitting around that I don't use anymore since Crowebird convinced me to upgrade to the Nvidia 275GTX which I did earlier this year, or maybe it was late last year.

I saw a case that I want that really is an open case, it's just a sort of framework structure and the mainboard sits out in the open as well as everything else.  The thing that stopped me from buying it last time I was at a frys electronics store was a review that said it's not as convenient as it might seem and that there was one part (a large clear bar) that had to be unscrewed and removed everytime that you wanted to work on the PC to add or replace items.  Still it was a wild "case"(i use the term case loosely since it wasn't really a case in the traditional sense at all) and just had one huge fan about 10 inches or so on the very top that would blow air down on the mainboard.

I suppose if I ever get around to building a new computer I might go for it since I don't usually need to change out components after it's been built on any regular basis anyway.

[TomNobles]

I live in the woods in Washington, just across the river from Portland, and my machine is always dusty. I'm always changing things so I'll stich with my cheap case and a mother board that I love.    Just waiting for the price to drop on Intel's new i7 hex and 4 sticks of 8GB mem. Oh yes, and two vid cards. Probably have to wait for Santa.   

Asrock  P45X3 Motherboard with Fast Boot.

[crowebird]

Ah spring cleaning, it is probably time I opened up my case.  It has been a few months.
As far as cooking the 8800, thats what owners of the xbox360 would do when it RROD' on them.  I think the trick was to wrap it in a lot of towels while on to force it to overheat.  Remelting the soldering sounds like the best reasoning to me CB.

The open case is pretty cool, but Im not sure I would be comfortable with my computer so nude.

[City Builder]

Yah, one of the problems with the open case, is that if it's not done right (the installation of all the components) then it would look messy as nobody's business.  I'm not a neat wire router, so it would likely look terribly messy sitting on my desk.

Heck I can barely stuff all the wires into my case right now and since I modded in a fan to the case side door, it's kind of imperative that I make sure none of the wires get into the fan like they did the very first time.  Gave me quite the jump the firs time it happened and it was a huge grinding noise at like 3AM and had me just about jump all the way out of my seat and pull the plug out of the power supply to quickly shut it down.

I'm sure liking that the computer is running cooler now, that dang 275 GTX video card doesn't seem to like to be run up above 80°c and will crash teh display driver for some reason, so having to run the evga precision software to keep it cooler but now don't need to run it at 75% to keep it from getting too hot.  Last time that I'll buy a card from "Fox" whomever the heck they are.  However, it was the only card in the shop when I went looking.

[crowebird]

Really it falters at 80c?  It is suppose to be able to handle in excess of 100 and I believe was desiged to handle extended use at 80.
I have never had problems with it at 80, but at the same time, I usually crank up the fan to 70% when I am playing an intense game, just to keep the temps in the lower 70s.

[Bluetop]

I use the term "open" loosely. This was the first computer I ever built and it was a success. But my 5000 Black Edition runs super duper hot and I bought a HUGE fan that I had to cut a hole in my side to get it in there. Eventually I just wound up leaving the side off entirely. The difference in operating temperature is profound. I can usually tell how hot my machine is running by putting my hand near the case.

My computer is an ugly ugly ugly wreck. I have no front panel switch so I have a cheap power switch that lays out the side  ( I use my keyboard to turn on anyway). But it's a lean, mean operation. There are only games on it and only 20 some-odd default Windows XP programs load on startup which is very fast, including shutdown. But yeah, it looks like something the cat dragged in. Pretty soon I will attempt a 6 core AMD machine with ATI stuff on it. I will never forgive Geforce for the 8800 lemon.

[crowebird]

Pretty soon I will attempt a 6 core AMD machine with ATI stuff on it. I will never forgive Geforce for the 8800 lemon.

I am upset by this quote.  I cannot forgive you for chosing both AMD and ATI in one sentence.
lol, but to each his own...

I use to be both AMD and ATI (years and years ago), but since making the switch to Intel I have never once thought about AMD, and my nvidia cards have
always been solid. (For me ASUS and eVga have never let me down).

[City Builder]

Well, seeing as how tomorrow is my birthday, Samantha and I are going to drive about 120 miles to the nearest Frys Electronics, I've been hinting around all day today that it's about time for me to get another computer.

So, since the last computer (the one that I'm currently using) is a pre built Gateway, I'm going to build this next one if I can get a mainboard, cpu and heatsink and fan and memory and case for under $1,000

I'd like to stick with AMD but I don't have a clue what is considered to be a near top of the line CPU anymore, I gave up caring a few years ago when I started to buy last gen hardware, however if'n I'm going to go to the trouble of building my own again, I should at least try to get somewhere remotely close to the top tier if possible.

Im just lost as to where to even start to look.  I suppose I could simply wait until we get to the Frys store tomorrow and see what the most expensive CPU is and take one step down from that, but I'd kind of like to go in at least slightly prepared.

I figure that I'll need to get, mainboard, cpu, cpu heatsink and fan, memory and new case.  I'm going to reuse my Thermaltake 750w PSU, my 275GTX and my hard drives of which WD is sending me a new Raptor since my last Raptor died and was still 2 years left on the warranty, my label flash DVD drive, keyboard and monitors.  I hope I can get a somewhat decent CPU, memory, case etc for under 1k.