The effect of dust on temperature!

pangit · Post by **pangit** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 9:36 pm

A few months ago I moved house and the new one is in a very dusty environment, not really sure why but my wife is always complaining about the amount of cleaning she has to do! I have been keeping an eye on my PC and noticed dust building up inside, particularly on the main heatsink. And my temperatures were gradually going up, so I had to keep turning up the fan speeds on my Rheobus.

I finally decided to clean it out last week, so I gave it a good vacuum inside, removing the fan off the SLK-800A and sucking off all the dust in between the fins. Wow, it was really mucky. Unfortunately I forgot to take some photos before I cleaned it, but it looked something like this one here

(credit to kloppe, borrowed from this post). Actually not quite as bad, but not far off!

Once I'd booted it back up and let it settle down to normal operating temperature, the CPU had gone from 52C to 38C!! And I was able to reduce my fans back down to 5V!

What a difference a bit of dust makes.

All that in 3 months! Time to get an air filter I think...........

wumpus · Post by **wumpus** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 9:40 pm

Gotta be location specific. I have never, ever seen that much dust buildup in any of my PCs.

But yeah, if in 3 months

your HSF looked like the one in those pictures, I'd be a believer in filtering too..

pangit · Post by **pangit** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 4:23 am

Definitely. And I dread to think of what I'm breathing into my lungs every day!

Nowhere_man · Post by **Nowhere_man** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 6:35 am

If you've got that "blown in" celulose insulation in the attic the dust problem will never end as long as it's there.

Forced air HVAC is another problem area.

So since I have both the above the fun never ends.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 11:40 am

Do you have any intake fans? I heard those cause a lot of dust buildup, and saw how dusty a PC like that can get(though it is much older than what I use, and was never vacumed) so I don't consider using them. I also suspect that a CPU fan blowing at the heatsink also causes a lot more dust buildup there.

pangit · Post by **pangit** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 2:43 pm

No, I have no intake fans at all, it's just a dusty house! But I definitely need a filter so I might need one when I put a filter on if it restricts airflow too much.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 3:54 pm

I just remembered, I find that when vacuuming, putting a house fan to a PC helps shake the hard to get at dust around. It's probably unneccessary, but I do that because I'm a little apprehensive about vacuuming too strongly and closely since I broke the heatsink on my CPU vacuuming.

Belgarion · Post by **Belgarion** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 4:19 pm

It sounds like you might need to have your ducts cleaned (assuming you have a standard ducted HVAC system). If so, look around for a duct cleaning outfit that uses a cleaner with a rotating brush on a wand (along with a vacuum to collect what the brush knock loose). The ones that just use a vacuum don't clean very well.

The big question is where the dust is coming from. If your HVAC system is picking up dust from an attic (for example), then you might look into whether the ductwork can be better sealed to reduce dust infiltration. Also, check the furnace filter. If that much is coming out of the ducts, then the filter must be filthy.

Dos_Junkie · Post by **Dos_Junkie** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 8:49 am

mine never get that dirty. WOW! that poor zalman fan.

like a friggen mat of crap on it. After 7 months mine only had the usual dust bunny in the casefan cage and a small layer of the fine stuff on my vid card.

The effect of dust on temperature!

The effect of dust on temperature!

Re: The effect of dust on temperature!