Dust and its Issues

[aerudo]

I'm about to build a new computer when the parts arrive tomorrow and Friday, and my main concern is dust. I just wrote a long article about my thoughts on the matter at my site www.aberudo.com, so swing by there if you want the full rant (no, I don't make any money there, nor do I benefit from your visit in any way, I just don't feel like I should copy and paste the whole thing here in its entirety), but suffice it to say that I'll have an HAF 922 case and I'm picking the computer up off the floor this time around.

I'm hoping that move will drastically reduce the amount of dust entering the system, but short of opening up the computer once a month, blowing everything out outside with compressed air, and cleaning the fans off with cotton swabs, is there any really great way to keep my system relatively dust free?

I feel like prevention is 9/10ths of the battle here, rather than maintenance.

I'm going to put some trust in the filter on the intake fan, but I'd like to fortify that if at all possible ... and letting dust gather/settle on the top is a concern as well.

Thoughts? Ideas?

I can't make a full cabinet for the computer with an industrial sized air filter on the side of it yet, but that'll come when I have a house of my own a few years down the road.

Abe
http://www.aberudo.com

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Dust filters was one of the reasons I chose the Antec 1200 over the HAF 932. Yet I still go in and clean the ah heck out.

I suck dusk off filters using this about once every two weeks:

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xgk/R-100638364/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

And then blow air off the components inside with this every 6 weeks or so.

That's on top of using a forced air heating / cooling system for the house w/ filters on all the intake's.

 

[aerudo]

Recently I read a bunch of articles on cleaning computers. That all sounds pretty standard. I guess what I need to do is take the computer outside to blow it off with canned air once every month or two.

What I can't do is clean out the inside of the power supply. That's what just failed on my desktop of like 4 years, which prompted this push for a new computer. Hopefully being more proactive in regularly cleanings nothing will get too bad in there?

Is using a swiffer dust mop a bad idea? It's my understanding that it attracts dust particles through some use of static cling, which means static electricity, which means I shouldn't probably be brushing it over my components right?

 

[Deleted member 217926]

No, no brushing of internal components with something that has a static charge unless you like buying new parts.

I also have the Antec 1200 and the fan filters are quite effective. I blow them off with compressed air about once a week vacuum them once a month or so and blow out the inside of the case about every two months.

As long as you are somewhat proactive in cleaning your computer you should have no problems with dust. Keeping the case off of the floor is also helpful.