The Dust Was Keeping The Computer Working

[Harper]

Just had a computer come in. Covered with dust. I have cleaned it out, tried to get it to run again. DEAD.

Motherboard desided that it was not going to work any more.

It was like the dust was the only thing that was keeping the computer together.

Any one else have some thing like this happen to them?

 

[KSoD]

Strangely yes. It was a old PII Pro that my sister had. After about 8 years of use i had finally been there one day and decided to fix it up for her. Opened it up and sure enough, after cleaning dead as a door knob.

Ended up building her a P4 system which was state of the art at the time. Funny thing is i dont think that PC has been cleaned since i built it. It is now in the hands of the grandparents....

 

[Thilly]

I have a friend that asked me to take a look at his pc since it also stopped working after he cleaned it out. I noticed he has his vacuum out when I got there... =[ I asked where his compressed air is, and he said "Nah I just used my vacuum, worked really well."

 

[hikaricloud]

It has something to do with the electrical contacts. I've seen it happen plenty of times.

Was it regular dust, or smoker's dust? Because smoker's dust is the worst when it comes to the electrical contact.

 

[KSoD]

It was regular dust for me. Sister never smoked in her life.

I wont even tell you what the heatsink looked like. To bad i didnt have a digital camera back then...

 

[hikaricloud]

Yeah, I've seen a few dusty heatsinks...smoker's dust is the worst though, it has a really distinct disgusting smell. Whenever I'm around someone that smells like that, it kinda sickens me, lol.

One thing I always wanted to do at the shop for those people that never crack open their cases (everyone we built computers for), I wanted to install fan filters.

 

[Ste]

Yea thats sad, just gotta keep dust from pilling up. Use compressed air every few months..

 

[carnageX]

Ugh, I hate smoker's dust computers... It sticks to all the components, and is browned and smells horrid. I hate when I have to work on a PC that a chain smoker uses/never cleans...

 

[Harper]

What annoyies me about this that in the end my client's client (yes, it's not his computer, it belongs to another person) just decided to get another computer elsewhere. I did not realize that simple dust out of a PC (normally i charge $40) was going to turn into this.

Ugh, I hate smoker's dust computers... It sticks to all the components, and is browned and smells horrid. I hate when I have to work on a PC that a chain smoker uses/never cleans...

Yes. Same here. i got one client claims he never smokes around his computer, however every time I hope it up, there is nothing but that yukky brown muck all over the place

 

[Slaymate]

I just had a pc brought to me yesterday and it booted to Windows and I started removing spyware. It got close to quitting time so I stopped and blew out the dust and brought it home. Tried to start it up but I was greeted with beeps. The memory went bad, I put in a couple of old sticks and now it's working again