Dirt Bag

[john_hartman]

No this isn't a rant about a pain-in-the-ass client...
Has anyone used these PC tower and LCD monitor dust covers? Good or bad? Any over heating issues? http://dirtbag.biz/

[sneakers]

John
My shop is not the neatest place arount. I am a woodturner so I have dust and shavings in places I didn't know I had. I purchased the "dirt Bags" for my tower and monitor. I believe they work real well. No dust and no heat problems. I feel they work as claimed.
Gary

[cnc_works]

My addition to this forum entry is definitely more of a confession than advice on how to do it...but.

I've been in the computer business more than twenty years and seen pretty amazing conditions of dusty computers still doing their thing. Two I will mention. One is a friend/client who has a curved molding shop who brought in his HP computer for some software work. I opened it up and the sawdust was banked from the bottom of the case up to about the middle of the motherboard. I cleaned it and told him he should maybe blow it out a little more often. The second was another normally running computer, I forget the history, but when I opened it up there was a clump of like excelsior or shavings about three inches around in one corner. I picked it up, pulled it apart to find three one inch long dessicated baby mice in the center of the nest.

On a personal level (now the confession), I've run cnc's and computers in the shop for about 13 years (now run a design and two controller computers) and usually by the time I get around to cleaning the boxes a cloud of dust explodes from them and I think "I shouldn't wait this long". Never lost a computer.

The normal cause of death in a dusty computer is air blockage keeping the cpu from cooling and/or dust blocking air flow through the power supply. My theory is that household or office dust has much finer particulates (and is sometimes glued together with cigarette smoke) so a greater cause of overheating.

Anyway, my experience has led me to a lazy cleaning regimen with no apparent bad consequences. That being said...get out there and clean'm guys.

Donn

[magic]

I just drill a 2 inch hole in the bottom of the case.

[john_hartman]

Donn, it sounds like as long as you clean/blow out the pc tower regularly then the dust really isn't affecting or hurting anything. So in your professional opinion are these dust covers not necessary?

[cnc_works]

I like your idea Magic, and a lot cheaper than a class 5 clean room.

John, I've looked at options, but because I've never been bitten in the posterior because of my maintenance habits, I guess I've nothing pushing me to spend money and put another layer of anything between me and my computers.

I've dealt with computers in which the power supply died from overheating due to dust blockage, ditto from the cpu cooling fins being blocked. From home and office. Welding shops are bad because of the oil in the air. I can't say it hasn't happened from wood dust, just that I haven't seen it. Keep'm blown out from time to time - probably oftener that seldomer - but that's my experience.

Donn

Your mileage may vary.

[dlcw]

John,

When I first looked at the Dirt Bag for my computer, I almost choked at the price of it. Like Donn said, if you simply blow the dust out once and a while everything should be fine.

I worked in the computer industry as a programming/consultant for about 18 years. I've worked with computers in super clean areas and super dusty/dirty areas (GM assembly plants) and didn't notice a failure rate any different between the two environments provided they did their routine maintenance and just cleaned them.

I am as guilty as everyone else in getting around to cleaning and finding a truck load of dust and think to myself, I need to do this more often.

But, "why do today what you can put off till tomorrow"... :-)

Cheese cloth works just as well as a Dirt Bag and costs a whole lot less.

Don
Diamond Lake Custom Woodworks, LLC
www.diamondlakewoodworks.com (http://www.diamondlakewoodworks.com)

[myxpykalix]

"why do today what you can put off till tomorrow"... :-)

words to live by....at least that's my motto!

[beacon14]

I keep the side panels off of my computers and blow the innards out every few days or whenever they seem to need it. I do the same for my office computers but tend to only to blow them out when the power supply overheats and stops working. The office computers usually stay dirtier than the shop computers since they are on the floor and get blown out less often.

[benchmench]

Any experience with CD/DVD drives or keyboards not working due to dust?

[jerry_stanek]

I ended up buying a roll up flexible keyboard that is easy to clean. Something like this.

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=flexible+keyboard&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=6658121900308964173&ei=gU8-Sr3_C4TCtweRmvgc&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct =result&resnum=10#ps-sellers (http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=flexible+keyboard&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=6658121900308964173&ei=gU8-Sr3_C4TCtweRmvgc&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct =result&resnum=10#ps-sellers)