Computer Dust Problems Survey

[kwilliamscameron]

Hi, I am currently taking an Engineering Design and Development class at my high school and my team and I must gather data concerning the problem of computers overheating from internal dust buildup. I would greatly appreciate it if all who read this would take the brief survey at the link below. Thank you!

Computer Overheating Survey

 

[Joe Newbie]

The survey was interesting, but I wish I could have elaborated on some of my responses. For instance, because I built the rig myself I knew dust is an issue in PC's and have dust filters on top of every intake fan, or how my original case fan setup was quite noisy and I spent about 160 bucks buying Noctua after market fans and CPU cooler to keep things quiet. Or how I weekly clean the filters and every 2-3 months use compressed air to blow out dust and a little paper towel, barely moist, to wipe off the metal parts, avoiding electrical components of course but the basement of the case and the top of things like the PSU or the metal optical bay frames or the top of my SSDs need a quick wipedown for really really small bits of dust that still get through filtration.

I also took out all of the hard drive cages to allow better airflow from front of the case to the GPU and mounted the SSD/HDD 1 each, in the optical drive bays with bracket converters. I have 2 intake fans and 1 exhaust fan and I always run the intakes about 20-25% faster than the exhaust to ensure positive air pressure to prevent the intake of dust in the first place.

Yes, I do all those things, but I'm a bit OCD.

 

[C12Friedman]

I gave my input but one thing I might point out is that we tend to stress the importance of maintaining PC's here (even laptops), regular cleanings being a big part of PC maintenance - I'm not sure if that may skew your results but I'd think it's something to be aware of considering the limits of the survey