Many readers will have battled ant infestations in their yard or home – but these tiny insects can take over our PCs, too. Redditor Thejus Parol recently noticed that his graphics card temperatures had been rising inexplicably, and it didn’t take long to find a likely culprit – ants (h/t PCGamesN). According to Parol’s initial investigations, the ants had been “eating the thermal pads and thermal paste” in his GTX 1060 GPU inside his PC. This would account for degraded thermal performance if done to a drastic extent, but even though the visual evidence does suggest some damage to the thermal pads, it doesn’t sound entirely plausible that the ants had that much of an impact. Let’s take a closer look.
Some blame climate change, but whatever the cause, destructive and stinging fire ants are moving north. The worker ants of this invasive species are quite tiny, and like other ants, they appear to be attracted to electric fields. Thus, a warm humming PC with its nooks and crannies and multiple powered components might prove to be an irresistible target for investigation, or even colonizing.
Ants are eating my gpu from r/pcmasterrace
Though his system and GPU fans were still running as expected, Parol’s eye was caught by ants marching across the top of the PC case and inside, over the graphics card. Determined to see what was attracting the ants, the Redditor partially disassembled the PC and GPU and found that the suspected Solenopsis invicta were consuming thermal pads and thermal paste. You can see damage to the pads clearly in the second image in the above album.
A thorough system cleanup with IPA (ethyl alcohol) and a fresh thermal paste application seemed to get things back to normal for Parol. Further precautions were taken by spraying the desk and surrounding area with insect repellant. However, “another set of ants appeared in the exact same place, doing the exact same thing, eating my GPU alive,” noted the anguished PC enthusiast. Other Redditors have been quick to help identify the issue, highlight possible solutions, and share their own stories of PC ant attacks.
I have also experienced fire ants in a laptop, which took quite some time to clear. As well as the potential for these insects to sting and infest places like food cupboards (especially where sweets are stored), ants can damage electronics – causing short circuits and even starting fires.
Moving on to whether the ants are “eating” things like thermal pads or paste – this appears to be highly unlikely, but there have been scattered results of this occurring in the past. Nevertheless, in a PC full of hard metal, plastic, and other inedible components, the ants could also be pulling the relatively soft thermal pad and paste material to pieces as they scout the area.
Searching the depths of the internet reveals that this is far from the first time that ants have invaded PCs or Macs. Moreover, similar suspicions regarding ants eating thermal pads or paste have been raised previously. Below you can see another example, this one from a video posted three years ago about a similar problem.
My CPU/GPU got infested by ants when I was gone for a month. I played games and ran benchmarks so they would come out cos of heat. Also left my pc running overnight but they still inside. Help from r/pcmasterrace
As is often the case for PC ownership, doing some research, being determined, and being vigilant is the best course of action when facing an issue, and this applies to those who think ants might be looking to make a home in their machines. If ants affect other things in and around your home, it might be best to call a professional exterminator. Others might prevail against the army of ants by targeting suspected nests with over-the-counter ant poison, traps, and other domestic anti-ant tactics.
