Hi all I am building a system that will need to be in a dusty environment. It is going to be in a shop were it will be exposed to alot of saw dust in the air. Would it just be a matter of covering the vents through which the air enters the computer with a filter of some kind? I though of making it a sealed box with a water cooling system but I would really like to avoid that. I haven't chosen a system yet but it will be a bare bones low power system. Please give me your thought on this. Thanks

Quite definately use some sort of filter on the intake fans. Paper filters don't work well so I recommend either a screen mesh or fiber filters. You can make them yourself if you like with a Filtrete A/C filter. just cut out some material and place it in front of the intake fans. Will this computer be placed in an non-airconditioned building or something that you think a water cooling solution would be needed? If you use a Core 2 Duo setup, these CPUs run so cool that it shouldn't affect it anyway. Just make sure it has proper airflow. I have built PC's for automotive repair garages and haven't had any cooling issues. You just have to educate the owner how to clean filters.

Thanks. It will be in a shop with out air conditioning. I am going to be building this case myself so that I can incorporate it into the case of the machine the computer will be controlling. I will probably go check out various filters and built the air intake to accommodate it. I have trouble throwing old computer parts away so I was planing on using old parts I have around the house.Thanks again for your input.

Recently did a build for a car shop and used a K&N filter for all intake air into the box. Those things are great, very little airflow restriction, plus it catches even the tiniest pieces of dust if you have it properly oiled. Well worth the 30 dollar investment.

Another good and inexpensive option is to use the dry Swiffer sheets as filters you just have to cut them to size, they let air in and pick up just about everything out of the air.