Re: Central Vac overload

["Robert Green" <robert_green1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Bob F" <bobnospam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:hp0ref$k2v$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Robert Green wrote:
>
> >
> > I've burned up enough gear accidentally (a few AMD CPUs, a few Fujitsu
> > tablet PCs, a Sony receiver and many, many many more) that I am now
> > hard over in the other direction, adding cooling fans to stereos and
> > equipment racks to make sure everything gets good airflow.  I believe
> > heat really hastens the aging process and fans help reverse it.
>
> Just make sure you clean the heat sinks and fans occasionally, or
eventually, > dust will plug them and they will overheat. I just had a video
board start to
> create visual artifacts, and then crash my computer. I blew out the board
fan > with compressed air, and all the problems went away.

You're lucky you caught it before it fried.  A full "dust cap" is a fine
heat retainer and could have easily cooked your VPU.  Smart PC'ers use
programs like Motherboard Monitor that will tell them when their fan speeds
have dropped enough to indicate that they are getting clogged.

I do a lot of PC repair.  I have a rough rule of thumb.  In a normal
environment, it's probably OK to let fans go unchecked for 24 months.
Subtract 1 year if the equipment's on the floor.  Subtract 2 months for each
shorthair dog or car in the house, 4 months for every longhair.  Subtract 1
month for fans under 80 centimeters and another month for those under 40.

One neighbor with 5 longhairs and a floor tower with a teeny video card fan
needed monthly cleaning so we added some more fans and covered the front
intake with air conditioner filter material held in place by a little
magnetic frame.  Now she just vacuums the front and the machine can go
almost a year without a blow-out.  (For anyone considering this, the clips
on the cheap case face were so weak they broke during the procedure but we
replaced them with some neo mags and hot melt glue so snapping the face off
to vacuum the filter was even easier.  Most case faces can't withstand
frequent removal without those damn little tab clips breaking.)

I *would* post a picture of a super small video card sleeve bearing cooling
fan and finned heat sink mount I removed from the 5 cat machine because I
had never seen anything so completely caked in dust.  The fan spun, but
moved no air.  I replaced it with a much larger ball bearing fan simply
because it was less prone to clogging and the space permitted it.  However,
I see the picture police are on patrol, enforcing "laws" created when bits
were moved around via acoustic modem.  Like so many rules of that era it has
been completely outmoded by technical advances.  Anyone who says that
posting a link is as easy as posting a picture with a message isn't being
honest.  Personally I'd rather see a relevant picture *with* the message
rather than clicking on a link to who knows where.

One reason we got the central vac is that we like to air cool in the summer
with a big attic fan and that brings in an awful lot of dust and pollen.
Switching from A/C to "free air" cooling cured my wife's allergy.  Turns out
that being cloistered inside superclean, highly filtered office and A/C
house hyper-sensitized her to pollen.  She used to sneeze up to nine times
when she left an A/C'ed building and stepped out into the late spring air,
which *is* mostly pollen.  Our standing joke is "we don't go around trying
to mate with trees, so why are they trying to have sex with our noses?"

--
Bobby G.