Who needs dust filters anyway?

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Mon May 12, 2008 6:13 am

I swear to God, I've seen worse.

I work in a manufacturing plant, and I'm kind of the unofficial IT consultant. When I replaced our plant manager's computer (his office is in the plant area) I was shocked to see the amount of dust and dirt all over the thing. I got a small plastic ruler and measured over 2" of dust/dirt in the bottom. It even looked like there was some topsoil in there!!!

I took it outside on a windy day to clean it out and when the wind gusted through the case (both side panels were off by then) it created a massive cloud that covered my coworker and I. It was pretty gross.

spungfoo · Post by **spungfoo** » Thu May 15, 2008 9:35 pm

Thanks for the laugh, it reminds me when I was transferring a hard drive out of friend's old computer into the new one that I built for him. The funk was so thick I couldn't even see any of the components, and worse it reeked of cat pee. And he wondered why his comp was crapping out on him...

widowmaker · Post by **widowmaker** » Fri May 16, 2008 7:48 pm

Easier just to throw the whole thing away and buy new parts. An upgrade/garbage collection is definately in order. Socket A's and floppy disk drives ffs!

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Sat May 17, 2008 1:02 am

I've seen many similar examples to this disaster.....which is likely to happen in most work-place situations more quickly than at home. My part-time IT job has be repairing computers from an automotive dealership. The computers from the shop areas start looking like the photo in a couple of years.

My dusty house isn't nearly so bad, but I incorporate filter solutions in most everything I build.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Sat May 17, 2008 8:22 am

As bad as those look, thats pretty normal for most buisness computers. Most buisness's dont have their IT department clean computers, and the people using them sure as hell never clean them either. No one even thinks about it until the system overheats/stops working. And even then half the time they just junk it and buy a new one when all it needs is to be vacuumed out.

Worst computer case i ever saw come in to the repair shop (back when i did that sort of work), was the computer case had a bee's nest built inside it, with cockroaches inside the PSU. And the dust/hair buildup was at least twice as bad as any of those pictures.