Hoover your heatsinks

Do you have a PVR? You might want to consider hoovering the inside
occasionally. I had to fix my Humax over the weekend and took the
opportunity whilst it wasn't working to open it up and hoover out the
heatsinks and case which had a light sprinking of dust.

PVRs don't seem to be anything like as bad as PCs for just (for one thing
they use specialist chips which require less heatsinking) but it's worth
doing this occasionally if only to stop the fan getting faster and louder
over time.

BTW, some top-end Dell PCs are terrible for accumulating dust, as I
discovered when mine got noisy and I opened it up. A quick hoover later and
it's back to cool and quiet.

Paul DS.

Laptops are far worse for this problem as you tend to have them in
environments where dust lurks.
A word of warning though, You can damage chips with ordinary hoovers. I
think its a static charge hazard.

Brian

--
Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
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"Paul D.Smith" wrote in message
...
Do you have a PVR? You might want to consider hoovering the inside
occasionally. I had to fix my Humax over the weekend and took the
opportunity whilst it wasn't working to open it up and hoover out the
heatsinks and case which had a light sprinking of dust.

PVRs don't seem to be anything like as bad as PCs for just (for one thing
they use specialist chips which require less heatsinking) but it's worth
doing this occasionally if only to stop the fan getting faster and louder
over time.

BTW, some top-end Dell PCs are terrible for accumulating dust, as I
discovered when mine got noisy and I opened it up. A quick hoover later
and it's back to cool and quiet.

Paul DS.

Brian Gaff wrote:
Laptops are far worse for this problem as you tend to have them in
environments where dust lurks.
A word of warning though, You can damage chips with ordinary hoovers. I
think its a static charge hazard.

Correct. What I tend to use is a natural fibre clean paint brush, old
clothes and a windy day outside to take the nasties away (on to next
doors washing line....)

--
Adrian C

"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
m...
Laptops are far worse for this problem as you tend to have them in
environments where dust lurks.
A word of warning though, You can damage chips with ordinary hoovers. I
think its a static charge hazard.

Brian

Good point about the laptops. A quick "suck through the vents" is a good
idea.

As to static, never been a problem although I do tend to touch the metal
case as I start as a matter of course.

Paul DS.

Paul D.Smith wrote:
As to static, never been a problem although I do tend to touch the metal
case as I start as a matter of course.

Google "vaccum cleaner static motherboard".

This is not the 'touch the metal case' religious observance :-(

--
Adrian C

Adrian C wrote:
Paul D.Smith wrote:
As to static, never been a problem although I do tend to touch the
metal case as I start as a matter of course.

Google "vaccum cleaner static motherboard".

This is not the 'touch the metal case' religious observance :-(


Mind you if I could spel vacuum...

--
Adrian C

"Adrian C" wrote in message
...
Adrian C wrote:
Paul D.Smith wrote:
As to static, never been a problem although I do tend to touch the metal
case as I start as a matter of course.

Google "vaccum cleaner static motherboard".

This is not the 'touch the metal case' religious observance :-(


Mind you if I could spel vacuum...

--
Adrian C

Very interesting. Guess I've been lucky all these years.

Paul DS.

Java Jive wrote:
Yes, dust accumulation in PCs is terrible. As for using a vacuum
cleaner that's fine, but some care is needed. The main hazard is to
put things like the cover screws well out of harms way, and to hold
the cleaner tool at both the handle and the business end to avoid the
suction causing it to knock and jar components.


I work from home so my PC is on most of the time. I have a Cooler
Master case with a side intake +tube for the processor fan + an in+out
12cm fans, and a PSU with 12cm fan. I noticed recently that in the
winter the dog lies in front of the air flow based heating vent and
deflects the warm air into the PC which then speeds up its fan to
abnormally high.

After noticing this and shouting at the dog (bad owner I know) I started
using the Asus PC probe thingy that monitors temperature and found it
was mostly in the red (past 45 on the MB and 55 on the Proc). Hoovering
+ blowing (+ sneezing) brought it down to 34/40. It crept up to the
45/55 again within a month and needed hoovered (Dysoned?) again.

My Ferguson PVR (FPVRT1) has no fan nor heatsinks and an efficient PSU
design (where most of the heat is generated), it has worked fine for
about 5 years with moderate use. I am pretty sure HDDs do not need heat
sinks, and it is likely to make them worse and absorb more heat from
badly design electronics. If you see heat sinks in there anywhere it is
inefficient, although I must admit my PVR does some some PCB based heat
sinks (wide copper patches) on some linear regulators so it could be
better with switched mode regulators instead.

--
Tony

On 05/01/2010 16:38, Java Jive wrote:

In an admittedly brief search, I wasn't able to find
a single actual person who thought they'd damaged a computer by
vacuuming inside it.

Neither will you find someone who had immediately damaged a motherboard
or memory chip by skin contact unless in a really stupid situation
(nylon carpet). However, sometime ago (in the '486 era) a friend of mine
ran a door-to-door computer sales operation and made my hair stand on
end (never mind the static) by the way he handled a lot of damm
expensive things.

His excuse though was 'little time available to do things properly' and
by the time said items started showing cumulative effects of ESD the
warranty problem were the customers, not his. Happily, he now sells
wooden flooring.

Me. I own stuff. I want it to stay running.

--
Adrian C

Java Jive wrote:

Seems excessively cautious to me. I have a freeware app called
Motherboard Monitor for which I've created my own (because, alas, it's
no longer supported) config files for all my PCs. The CPU alarm
temperature is set to 70C, but I don't really fret until it goes over
80C!

snip

Try Speedfan. This box BTW is sitting with its fans on minimum and
showing 32C. Chosen for cool and quiet....

Seems to me the fanless PVR should have much less problem with dust as
it isn't sucking it up all the time.

Andy