Extended Warranties and Dusting

[mkomarinski-GqRSzq0LZOzYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org (Mark Komarinski)]

On 11/14/2010 09:41 AM, Mark Woodward wrote:
> Then there's the question of dusting. Is it even worth dusting?
> ?Dustoff? or similar hydrocarbon sprays are bad for the environment. If
> you had raw compressed air, that would be better.

Most of the compressed air cans don't have anything too nasty in them 
(aside from the fact there's little oxygen and the resulting suffocation 
risk if emptying an entire can in a small enclosed space).

> Maybe a vacuum? The
> next question is how often would you need to dust and what is the total
> combined time? How much is your time worth?

Using compressed air is a lot better than using a vacuum, at least in my 
experience.  There's a few things you can do to prevent dust from 
building up depending on what the environment is like near your computer.

You can get a standalone room filter (the HEPA filters) that keep all 
the air clean in the area.  This will cut down on the dust floating 
about the room and gets sucked into your PC.

The other thing you can do is change the airflow.  I used to work for a 
company that designed industrial PCs to be put on shop floors and the 
like and thermal and dust was always an issue.  Most normal PCs blow air 
out a few different locations (rear, power supply, etc).  This reduces 
the pressure inside the chassis and air and dust can come in from any 
crack in the chassis.  By changing the location of the case fans from 
the back blowing out to the front blowing in, the chassis now has higher 
pressure and the air then is getting blown out all the cracks.  The good 
thing about this is air is coming in from only one place - the fans in 
the front.  Put some filters over the fans at that point and you'll 
reduce the amount of dust that makes it into the chassis.

> I don't know. Maybe I'll vacuum out the dust in this card next year. If
> I remember. If I even have the computer next year. I could be due for an
> upgrade......

My primary server is in my basement and aside from some cobwebs it's 
held up pretty well.  I'll hit it with some compressed air if I'm there 
do do any kind of physical maintenance on it.

-Mark