Can
Dust Actually Damage My Computer?
http://www.howtogeek.com/126956/can-dust-actually-damage-my-computer/
Thousands of hours per year of fan-driven air movement combined with
electrostatic charges make computers veritable dust magnets. Is all that
dust simply a nuisance or is it actually harmful?
Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser-a
subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-drive grouping of Q&A web sites.
The Question
SuperUser reader Holy Sheet poses a question about dust and computer
hardware:
During the last few days, my screen froze a couple of times. After opening
the chassis I discovered plenty of dust beneath my mother board. I wonder if
that can cause short circuits.
Can neglecting to spring clean your PC damage it? Let’s investigate.
The Answers
SuperUser contribute Daniel R. Hicks offers some assurance and insight on
the matter:
Dust is a problem from the standpoint of blocking fan vents, or, if deep
enough, actually insulating parts, causing overheating, but unless it
contains substantial amounts of corrosive or conductive material (in which
case you shouldn’t be breathing it), it won’t damage the electrical
components (beyond any overheating damage).
What could happen, in some circumstances, is condensation inside the box,
mixing with dust and creating a conductive sludge. This would generally only
occur if you bring the box in from an extremely cold environment (below 0C,
roughly) into a humid indoor environment. The protection from this is to
wrap the box tightly in plastic before bringing it indoors, and leave it
wrapped for a couple of hours, while it has time to warm up.
Fellow contributor EdH offers some field experience to corroborate the
previous assessment:
No way. Unless it over heats. Trust me, I have cleaned server motherboards
deployed in Afghanistan for months with inches of dust caked on, still
running fine. And as long as you keep them cool, they will survive.
Now, optical drives. That’s a different story.
While you’re at very little risk of a dust blanket shorting out your
hardware, heat is the eternal enemy of computers and a good cleaning will
help keep things cool (and extend the life of your computer in the process).
For more information on how to clean your computer and peripherals safely
and effectively, check out the following resources:
1. How To Thoroughly Clean Your Dirty Desktop Computer
http://www.howtogeek.com/72716/how-to-thoroughly-clean-your-dirty-desktop-co
mputer/
If using a screenreader, when arriving at the link above, press the letter
once and the cursor will land at the start of ” How To Thoroughly Clean Your
Dirty Desktop Computer.”
2. Why You Should Never Vacuum Your PC,
http://www.howtogeek.com/57870/ask-how-to-geek-why-you-should-never-vacuum-y
our-pc-converting-books-for-the-kindle-and-controlling-multiple-computers-wi
th-one-keyboard/
If using a screenreader, when arriving at the link above, press the letter
once and the cursor will land at the start of ” Why You Should Never Vacuum
Your PC.”
3.
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