In Pictures: 40 Of The Dirtiest PCs We've Ever Seen

[Guest]

Ever have a system that mysteriously started crashing, and you only figured out why it was choking after popping the cover and cleaning up copious amounts of dirt and grime? Yeah, well, these 40 systems are way past the point of canned air-cleaning.

In Pictures: 40 Of The Dirtiest PCs We've Ever Seen : Read more

 

[dogman_1234]

Excellent. I was wondering when Tom's would do an article on this. Good job.

 

[pcgamer2097]

lol you guys should see the inside of my old pentium 4 rig

 

[jimmysmitty]

Since I work at a computer shop in the tech room, none of these are suprising. I have even seen computers with what seems to be little cities growing in them.

 

[Efrayim]

Notice that none of these look like gaming machines... We PC gamers take care our our Stuff!

 

[neoverdugo]

My god!! Where the hell those people put their desktops? In a desert storm? Mud puddles??

 

[dinlalaith]

1) At least the fans are doing their jobs
2) People need to clean their disgusting houses more often
3) HOW DOES SOMEONE WITH A MODULAR PSU NOT KNOW HOW TO CLEAN THE CASE!?(#6)

 

[dragonsqrrl]

lolz... taking a peak inside the average users computer is always an adventure, dare I say it's strikingly similar to opening up a box of chocolates. You guys should've seen the inside of my roommates tower. No dust filters and it hadn't been opened once in basically 5 years of continuous operation (probably sitting idle about 98% of the time).

Sounded like a vacuum was constantly running, and I honestly don't know how that Prescott never managed to burn the whole place down. I couldn't help but laugh when he started complaining about the noise. Had my first look at the internal components which hadn't been gazed upon by human eyes since the case was closed at the factory. Sadly, she was past her prime...

 

[cpy]

When will you fix your images? I mean i cant open multiple images, and to see one i have to click like 999x to click through useless garbage.
Also when there are image quality comparisons you have no chance in f***ing hell to open 2 images to actually compare side by side.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

i wish i still had a pic of the cockroach infested pc i was fixing, opened up the cover and cockroaches spilled out over the desk and floor. Also just this week found a mouse shorted out over a printer's power supply.....ewww. you definitely see some interesting things.

 

[Darkerson]

Some people just dont know how to take care of their stuff, or just dont care. Personally, I go all OCD if there is even a small amount of dust in the inside of my case. Id probably have an aneurysm if I opened my case and saw something similar to these horror stories...

 

[fatkid35]

smokers and cat owners have pc's that look like that. my buddy brought me a pc to fix his mom had. she smoked alot. inside was fuzzy yellow and smelled like an ashtray. gack!

 

[dirtmountain]

I've seen worse.

 

[Guest]

So to answer the people who've insinuated stuff about the average user's cleanliness, consider:
- most people keep their PCs on the floor, which is usually carpeted
- many people have pets
- the insides of PCs are perfectly suited for collecting dust

The only way I've been able to avoid this type of buildup on a PC that I knew I wasn't going to be able to access frequently was... pantyhose. Yes. Get the biggest ones you can find, tie knots in the legs and cut off the legs below the knots, then just stretch the waistband around the front of the PC. It works like a charm.

 

[jlefebre6001]

the worst ones are the ones from people that smoke. normally i'll just use an air compressor, but if they smoke i have to scrape everything out. dont smoke kids.

 

[pricoky]

My God! I'm from Romania, a relatively poor country, and I also do a little computer maintenance. Now I've seen dirty desktops but these are just hilarious dirty. What a hell guys, it seems that you don't really appreciate what you have and you should never complain that your PC is running slow! LEARN TO CLEAN!

 

[Guest]

I should have taken a pic of a computer I had in my basement that a rat decided to die inside of. I threw the whole thing out.

 

[techcurious]

Some of the comments under the pictures are so, so very corny. Others are ignorant. Igor, apparently you have not worked with computer hardware much. In Picture 32, you say "This computer was apparently assembled by someone that did not care all that much. "Screws? I'll show you screwed!" ". Apparently you think that that CPU fan is falling off. But in fact, that is the way that fan is designed. The fan is glued or molded onto the frame/holder just below it in that offset way. It was done to give easier access to the screws holding the frame to the heatsink. You can actually see 2 of the screws in the picture! In picture 29, there is no indication at all that that card is a graphics card. In fact, It's highly unlikely that someone would stick a PCI graphics card on a Motherboard equipped with a PCI Express slot and onboard graphics too. Yes, you can make out the onboard graphics VGA connector. I agree that picture 35 is not that dirty. Then why include it? Because 39 is not as round a number as 40? But then pictures 38, 39 and 40 are of the same PC! So your article should actually be 38 Of The Dirtiest PCs We've Ever Seen.. (if not less) ... Cheat and you will be caught!

 

[Guest]

number 32 *IS* screwed on, just with small screws inside the fan ring. it's off center so that the main screws holding the sink to the motherboard can be accessed easily

 

[synphul]

Some of these are outright nightmares. As a smoker, my case has never looked so hideous. I know people have their reasons for disliking smokers, but I resent the comments by those stating the worst cases must be from smokers. Correction, the worst cases are those that have been neglected by laziness or people who are just pigs. I've never had to 'scrape' out the interior of my case and I'll bet my system is far cleaner than many nonsmokers. As for #2, I don't even have words for that. It never even occurred to me to use my keyboard for an ashtray lol. Still worth a laugh even though these are sad sad cases.

 

[SteelCity1981]

lol picture 20 reminds me of my friends basement pc.

 

[SteelCity1981]

LOL @ the comment below on picture 29. "This fertile soil is perfect for growing things. It seems the graphics card is almost ready for harvest!"

 

[x3style]

This is probably the worst of them all. Why would a spider spin this huge web if there are no bugs to catch?

I'm pretty sure if it had Windows there where a lot of bugs to catch )

 

[wribbs]

This is awesome but I can't tolerate the 40 slides of low-res pics.

 

[Guest]

Good examples how nasty a lot of people are. Most people bathe and dress nice, and you would NEVER believe they lived in total squaller because they are too lazy to clean. The WORSE you see is smokers. The fans and coolers get choked with smoke particles; there is fungus that likes to eat it and it will grow and turn the whole interior of the PC into a funky, nasty biomass.