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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: Suggestions / Feedback
Thread: Spring Cleaning Time for you guys down under in the Northern Hemisphere |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 5
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Rickjb
Veteran Cruncher Australia Joined: Sep 17, 2006 Post Count: 666 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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This goes for everybody, but especially for those of you in the northern hemisphere, where summer is about to begin: How long is it since you gave your computer's fans and heatsink fins a good clean?
----------------------------------------If you are Grid Computing, your CPU will run hotter than it would if it was idle between your keystokes and mouse clicks. If you are running it 24/7, it will have extra time to accumulate fluff and dust on the fan blades and heatsink fins. Running hot can in the short term cause your system to be unstable and crash, and shorten its life in the longer term. So, shut it down, switch it off at the wall socket and the power supply, and attack it with screwdriver, toothbrush, paintbrush, etc. I'd like to receive much more frequent e-mailed (little) newsletters from WCG. They could contain not only reports on the progress of the projects, but tips like the above, and perhaps some interesting issues from the fora. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Rickjb at May 26, 2007 5:22:40 PM] |
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KLiK
Master Cruncher Croatia Joined: Nov 13, 2006 Post Count: 3108 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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before anyone should do that, just measure the temp. of your proc...you have nice programs all over the internet, so check them out!
----------------------------------------if it's too hot: go to cleaning... if it's not: just don't bother...chances are big that you mess up sthg if you don't know what are you doing! |
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olympic
Senior Cruncher Joined: Jun 12, 2005 Post Count: 156 Status: Offline |
A vacuum cleaner with various attachments works well for computer dust bunnies!
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Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
Never did this until opening the then 5 year old main desktop last year and unmounting the fans and polish them and brush, blow and vacuum all inner surfaces. Amazing thing was, that according Speedfan the main ventilator went from top 3500 rpm to 3750. Same a few weeks ago, after cleaning, top went from 3600 back to 'good as new' 3750. More amazing, even at same speeds, the fans seems more silent due less air flow resistance.
----------------------------------------Agree with expert opinion that unless you know what you are doing, dont touch the CPU, dont remove the heat-sink unless you know how to re-apply the thermal paste and in what quantities or you might end up paying a few hundred Euro getting the pro to replace and re-seat it for you. Of course, we all have a most friendly technoboffin in our acquaintance circles or at the office who's well willing to help one out with the hardware decontamination. 
WCG
Please help to make the Forums an enjoyable experience for All! |
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Rickjb
Veteran Cruncher Australia Joined: Sep 17, 2006 Post Count: 666 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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... from rickjb, original poster:
I didn't suggest pulling the CPU HEATSINK off, and I don't recommend it. But you probably WILL have to pull THE FAN off to clean the heatsink fins underneath. And if you're going on vacation and planning to leave your computer crunching (I do), checking the CPU temp now may not tell you that the fan will clog in a week's time ... BTW, I run a huge Zalman cylindrical copper CPU heatsink which has very open fins that don't clog, and I recommend this, but I still need to check case & m'board fans. |
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