CraiGDaniel
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Serious PC neglection
- Thread starter CraiGDaniel
- Start date
S
Simmy
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I think I'm slightly OCD when it comes to cleanliness and especially clean computers. That video was very, very satisfying to watch 
StableSolutions
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@James, That's just nasty...
I agree, smokers are the worst. We had an all in one elonex a few years back adn we had to completely strip it down in order to replace the psu. It was disgusting!! I watched the OP's video and to be honest I wasn't that shocked, I've seen worse. Bar the smokers, we had one 10 year old unit that had been in a manufacturing environment and it was filled with black dust from the CAM environment it controlled. Was amazed the thing functioned (well it didn't by that point 
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coffee
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Pretty amazing alright. I have ran into those. Normally, I will take those and bag em, put some bug killer in it to make sure I kill all the roaches and then later spray it out.
When you work out of the home it is pretty important to make sure there are no bugs inside. Otherwise your gonna start seeing roaches and stuff in your home! Thats my biggest fear working on computers.
When you work out of the home it is pretty important to make sure there are no bugs inside. Otherwise your gonna start seeing roaches and stuff in your home! Thats my biggest fear working on computers.
Steve202
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Whenever I get a PC thats really dirty, I'm tempted to take it to the purple shirt place and see what they say 
CraiGDaniel
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Luckily there's a compressor at work so I just set the machine on the back steps and cranked that sucker to 120 PSI and blasted away, had to recharge the tank twice to get it all clean though
The problem with tar is that it can get really stuck on there sometimes. In this case it probably would've taken a case of cans to get it all clean.
Not really an option for mobile techs, but those of you with a shop should really look into a small compressor. A small 3-5 gallon one should only set you back around 100-150 dollars and they have so much more cleaning power than vacuums, electric dusters, or cans of air since they can put out so much higher air pressure. Air compressors are real noisy though, so keep that in mind.
EDIT: I got pics of a machine that was badly infected with bugs of the more physical variety, but I can't seem to find them right now. If I do I'll put them up.
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16k_zx81
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Eew... thats nasty!
It reminds me of a job I did at a "3d printing" outfit last year.
Phenomenally interesting place; they make 3d objects using printers that form them from scratch, layer by layer.
In their main production room there was an old DOS machine that looked pretty much like this - very dusty environment - and the machine had about 1" of plastic dust all over everything.
ME: "How long's it been since this was cleaned"?
Them: "We blow it out about every two weeks"
ME:
Interestingly this thing had been running the show for about 5 years and had never skipped a beat.
ME: "Thats amazing. Do you have a backup machine handy in case this one dies"?
Them: "No. Come to think of it, we probably should"
I mean it was FILTHY.
It amazes me how some ridiculously neglected machines can keep on ticking on like this. Possibly one of the factors with this unit was that it was running at low load (not sucking much power or generating much heat). Still a huge luck factor for them though, esp as they didnt have a backup. Blew me away.
An aside:
For anyone interested, (the tech at this place blew my mind from a pure geekiness factor) - check out:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=3D printing
It reminds me of a job I did at a "3d printing" outfit last year.
Phenomenally interesting place; they make 3d objects using printers that form them from scratch, layer by layer.
In their main production room there was an old DOS machine that looked pretty much like this - very dusty environment - and the machine had about 1" of plastic dust all over everything.
ME: "How long's it been since this was cleaned"?
Them: "We blow it out about every two weeks"
ME:
Interestingly this thing had been running the show for about 5 years and had never skipped a beat.
ME: "Thats amazing. Do you have a backup machine handy in case this one dies"?
Them: "No. Come to think of it, we probably should"
I mean it was FILTHY.
It amazes me how some ridiculously neglected machines can keep on ticking on like this. Possibly one of the factors with this unit was that it was running at low load (not sucking much power or generating much heat). Still a huge luck factor for them though, esp as they didnt have a backup. Blew me away.
An aside:
For anyone interested, (the tech at this place blew my mind from a pure geekiness factor) - check out:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=3D printing
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TimM
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I've had one that was very similar to that. It was a small Dell server (Poweredge 700 I think). And it was absolutely choked with fine, light grey dust. It lived in the office of a small business. The owner was a really nice Indian gentleman who had been burning incense in a metal tray on top of the server... so the dust was the ash from years of burnt incense. I did it on site - I was really only adding more RAM - and used about 3 cans of air even though I brushed out a lot of the dust first with a large paint brush.
The worst one I've seen was in a house full of cats and heavy smokers. Everything was coated in a greasy mat of tar impregnated cat hair that mostly wouldn't blow out. Needed to peel, scrape and scrub it with isopropyl alcohol. Had to take it back to the workshop, and it made the whole place smell like an ashtray full of butts and used kitty litter.
The worst one I've seen was in a house full of cats and heavy smokers. Everything was coated in a greasy mat of tar impregnated cat hair that mostly wouldn't blow out. Needed to peel, scrape and scrub it with isopropyl alcohol. Had to take it back to the workshop, and it made the whole place smell like an ashtray full of butts and used kitty litter.
PC-MOT
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It makes me thank god I gave up smoking 5 or 6 yrs ago, imagine what the users lungs must look like bearing in mind the pc prob only gets 15 or 20 % of the smoke he does........yuck.
In two and a half years I can only think of one instance where that may have happened. It was an older Shuttle and I had just finished doing a tune-up on it and decided to dust it out. It was only moderately dusty but afterwards it would no longer post. Tried reseating the RAM, adding video card, resetting CMOS, nothing. I wouldn't really attribute it the compressor specifically though, if a cap or something was that flakey, then a can of air could've just as easily done it in.
When using a compressor, don't hold the nozzle right next to the board, just spray it from about a foot or two away. I only hold it right next to stuff like heatsinks. Really clogged heatsinks is where that high PSI is great, cans of air just can't put out enough pressure, long enough to clean heatsinks.
PCX
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We blow out just about ever desktop that comes into our shop and probably one every month or so looks like this. I remember one of the worst ones (not counting cigarette tarred ones) had balls of dust the size of tennis balls just blowing right out of the machine. They must have had animals to form those things. Anyways, there is no way that I would be blowing these machines out with cans. I learned to invest in a compressor a long time ago. I think a small compressor would even be feasible for a mobile tech. Just plug it into a cigarette power converter.
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