just had an afternoon with nothing to do, so i completely dismantled my inspiron 6000. recently its been overheating a lot, hinges loose etc.
Got to the fan area, cleaned out so much dust! found a wad of pure dust about 2" long and 1/4" thick! Tightened up the hinges and put a fresh install of xp on, runs like a new machine.
Plus, the fans arent always on at full whack, so its a lot quieter. An afternoon well spent if you ask me!
nothing is as bad as seeing a machine that was sitting on 24/7/365 for 8 years. came to me a few years ago. the thing was making a horrible racket in the CPU fan. a cricket got stuck in there one day, and it's body had been moving around in the blades and hitting the gaurd. That creeped me out actually... I don't like having anything to do with bugs...
I also found a large dust wad sitting over a graphics card that when a friend told me his games would always get this pixelation when playing for a bit. The dust was approximately the size of the lower half of the pc. On top of it, everyone in his household smokes (Except him). this was about 5 years ago though, so his pc is not in such a hard environment anymore
I have found a ***-load of dust in a lot of machines before. But I will tell you, it makes a difference. I generally go in about once every month into my machines, and blow out any dust that gathers. Since I overclock my machines, Dust can be the death of my "Experimentation" So I gotta watch and make sure my fans don't get clogged.
im always messing around with my computer so much the case is never closed up it seems.
I've been meaning to blow the dust out of my computer for a few weeks now, thanks for the reminder
I usually do it every other month, as it has a tendency o breed massive rabid dust bunnies the size of Volkswagens if i don't. Ok, im off to do that now.
I've got a Pavilion that wound up at my place for free that I need to do a complete inside and outside job on. It lived in a house on a gravel road its whole life, and its just coated. I just about refused it; its not icky though, just dusty. Really, really dusty.
It'll be my first misadventure with a K6; from what I read, I don't even know why I'm bothering, but oh well.
-- Macinjosh