Sleep vs Shutdown???

[PP Mguire]

I doubt I am as thorough as you guys. I don't take out the GPU, but take out the whole case and anything that is extra to reach every crevice and make sure I airdust the heatsink for the CPU.

Glad I ain't the only one with dust issues, just paranoid that one day it will get clogged up one one of the hottest days during the summer. Doesn't help that the room its in also is the hottest in the room =/

Ah well, least I got into the habit of airing it out ^_^

When I do my cleaning every 6 months I have a shop vac and bristle end specifically for it with a bottle of rubbing alcohol and Q-tips for the fans. My hardware looks literally brand new when I clean lol. When I had a water loop I flush my system too and dip the rads in hot soapy water so the caked on dust gets cleaned off and let it all air dry for a day. For the H50 I simply dip it in the soapy water and use a hair dryer to dry it off before using it again. Since I technically never had a warranty on my TT PSU I take it apart and clean it too. I had to resort to using the reverse blow on my shop vac to clean the HX850 I had our carpet vac sucking all the air out the other end to catch the dust and create a high pressure tunnel to get the dirt out. Since we usually have a dog and Mariah has long hair I have to deal with that too which can be a real pain when hair gets wrapped in fans.

 

[Joe C]

I've heard the using a vacuum was bad juju because it can cause a static charge. I blow my pc's out with the air compressor in the garage, about every 6-9 weeks, possibly longer if I can help it but they are in dire need of cleaning when I do

 

[PP Mguire]

Been using various vacs for about 12 years now without an issue. It comes down to common sense when doing it. It's about like people saying you absolutely must use a static band when handling new hardware. I've never done that either.

The deal about the static is people think due to the high pressure or air it can cause static discharges from the plastic tip but I use a long bristle end and apparently it's worked for all these years. My cleaning periods also avoid winter seasons to reduce any actual possible chances.

 

[TCP_ip]

If it's a new system I recommend shutting it down and restarting it every night for the first month. This is actually harder on the system and you want to do it under the first year of warranty.