raymac46 Posted June 3, 2017 Share Posted June 3, 2017 My main desktop that runs Windows 10 has been making quite a racket when it boots up and my wife started complaining. So it was time for some action. I took off the side panels and headed out to the front porch with the box. After some inspection I found it pretty dusty - in fact the CPU cooler fins were caked with dust. I tried a can of compressed air and that dusted off the interior but wouldn't touch the CPU cooler. So I brought out he heavy artillery - a leaf blower. After a blow out with this unit things looked pretty clean. So I reassembled the unit and on boot it seems a lot quieter. Cooler too - the CPU is running around 35 C. The leaf blower - my latest IT tool. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted June 3, 2017 Share Posted June 3, 2017 Heh! I have a compressor in my shop (it belongs to my brother). I used that for cleaning purposes. However, at those rare times when my brother actually takes possession of his compressor, I have been known to use the leaf blower method. Those silly compressed air keyboard cleaners are just a waste of money, in my opinion. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted June 3, 2017 Share Posted June 3, 2017 That's actually a pretty good idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 I prefer to vacuum. You never know where the dust will end up with a blower. Which reminds me, mine is well overdue for a clean inside. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted June 5, 2017 Author Share Posted June 5, 2017 Still getting a bit of graunching and groaning when the beast starts up - then stuff warms up, the power supply fan controller takes over and things quiet down. I think I'll eventually have to replace the power supply as I've done so in the past in cases like this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zlim Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 You never know where the dust will end up with a blower. I actually clean the computers outside so the dust isn't in the house. I rescued a computer that was about to be thrown out from a friend who was a chain smoker, had a dog and kept the computer on the floor. I didn't even bring it in the house. It stayed in the garage until I could clean it out. I set it on my husband's Work Mate table in the driveway and worked on it. It was thoroughly disgusting inside. After replacing the power supply, that computer, Dimension 2400, is still being used off the internet. My husband used it on the internet until XP was no longer patched. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted June 5, 2017 Author Share Posted June 5, 2017 Oh yeah I didn't bring the leaf blower inside. That was definitely a driveway project. My brother-in-law had one of those Dimension 2400s. Pretty good machine if I recall. I remember cleaning a lot of crapware off it from time to time. He and his family moved on to Apple and now iPhones. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 You never know where the dust will end up with a blower. I actually clean the computers outside so the dust isn't in the house. I meant that the blower may push dust into parts of the computer that shouldn't have dust. I do vacuuming outdoors. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted June 9, 2017 Author Share Posted June 9, 2017 Well I have replaced my old Cooler Master power supply with a 600 W EVGA BQ model. That seems to have quieted things down a lot. The BQ is one of EVGA's "value" brands but it has pretty good reviews. I didn't see the point of paying a lot more to fix up a 5 year old desktop. The BQ is semi modular - the main ATX and cpu cables are hard wired and the SATA and video card connections are modular. Considering the fact that the old PSU had all kinds of unnecessary cables wired in, my case is a lot less cluttered now. A bonus. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted June 9, 2017 Author Share Posted June 9, 2017 My stock Acer Veriton M M6610G desktop is at heart an out and out commercial machine - integrated graphics and all. As such it did not come with any case fans beyond the basic CPU cooler. When I put in a discrete graphics card I was concerned about heat - especially since the power supply draws its air internally, So I installed an Antec Tri-Cool system fan and hooked it up to the motherboard's fan header. This particular PC case accepts a 92 mm fan and Antec was the only brand I could find that fit. The Antec Tri-Cool has a control switch that runs the fan at low medium or high speeds but that is only useful when you run the fan off a Molex connector full speed. If you hook it up to the motherboard's system fan controller you need to switch the fan to high. That gives enough voltage to get the fan spinning and then the controller can slow it down as needed. Well I had the fan set on low so there wasn't enough juice to get the fan started. As a result I haven't been getting any cooling at all from it. Now that I switched over to high speed the controller took over and is running the fan at low speed anyway. But at least it's running. You learn something new every day. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted June 9, 2017 Share Posted June 9, 2017 Nice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 Modular PSUs are the cat's meow. Makes for a pretty setup... 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 Nice, liquid cooling. I do not even have liquid cooling on my main rig.. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 Yup. And that thing really works, too. I game that cpu in heavy way when I play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games in maximum vid settings. I can't get the temp on that processor higher than about 110F. My other machine with a really nice vertical double fan cooler would run up to 145-155F at times. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 Well something isn't right then. My main rig never goes above 110F no matter what I am doing. I do have a large heatsink with dual 120mm and some 200mm fans in my case though but still. Of course, it has a lot to do with the case that it's in. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 I've found that some of the after-market mods that I use when playing STALKER are not necessarily coded too well. They work, but they use excessive cpu cycles at times. The current mod that I'm using, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Chernobyl, which also happens to be the absolute BEST total rework of the vanilla games that I've ever run across (Mod of the Year on moddb - 2015), is extremely well-behaved on my system; low cpu usage, moderate RAM usage, plays well with vid card, etc. Also, my older machine (ericsbane06) was only a quad core processor. This newer machine with the water cooling is a 6-core AMD. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 Cool 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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