The Graphics Card That Cleans Itself

Dust inside your graphics card can be a real killer. Not only can built up dust reduce heatsink and fan performance, but continued accumulation over time can lead to a total failure of a part.

MSI claims it can solve this issue. The company's latest graphics cards are starting to sport what it calls "Dust Removal Tech." Clear and simple! Essentially what happens is that when you start up your computer, the graphics card will operate its fans in reverse mode, pulling air away from the heatsink instead of blowing air onto it. This reverse fan movement is suppose to draw out clogged up dust.

Unfortunately, the air and dust gets blown back into your PC. At this point, one will be hoping that any aux fans or the PSU will be able to remove the dust from the system. After 30-seconds, the graphics card will switch to normal mode.

We can see this possibly working if you turn off your computer after each use, but most tend to leave their computers on for long periods of time. Some users never turn off their computers at all.

  • Marco925
    it's a step, i'll give them credit.
    Reply
  • Glad to see this issue start to be addressed. It's very common and a pain for nearly everyone. This really should be applied to laptop fans as well.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    I'm no expert in cooling here, but 30 seconds could be a long time for the Video Card to have it's cooling capabilities reduced... I mean, since you're making the air go out, I'm guessing the airflow won't be enough to keep the card cooled of at startup (100% clocks and mem).

    Anyone knows if my supposition is correct or not? :P

    Anyway, it seems like a nice try to solve that simple irritating little problem :P

    Cheers!
    Reply
  • icemunk
    only if it were that simple..
    Reply
  • kalogagatya
    its a clever idea but not really a necessity.. as long as all the case's intake fans have a filter (which is easily done..) there will be no dust on the graphics card..:)
    Reply
  • segio526
    Dyson needs to design a computer case with quiet cyclone technology. It could have a canister in one of the 5.25 drive bays that gets dumped out every few days...
    Reply
  • therandomuser
    Make it so that the fan will do the cleaning after a long/set amount of time at idle. That will allow people like me who leave their PCs on to have that sweet looking tech.
    Reply
  • JasonAkkerman
    I never turn my PC off. Good idea though.

    Edit:
    Not entirely true. I turn it off to take it apart and clean it with an air compressor.
    Reply
  • YukaI'm no expert in cooling here, but 30 seconds could be a long time for the Video Card to have it's cooling capabilities reduced.Yeah, but I'm sure there's a sensor so that if the core starts being loaded the card will bail out of the reverse mode and switch to normal operation. Or if there isn't some MSI engineers need to grab some frisbees and commit seppuku.
    Reply
  • jojesa
    You might need a lot more than reversing the movement of a fan to remove stuck dust on a PC component.
    Reply