Serious problems after cleaning dust from PC case.

[arnas.zoluba]

Hello everyone,
I ran into a big problem recently.

Yesterday I decided to clean up my PC case from all the dust that settled there for quite some time. And I might have screwed something up... Let's go step-by-step:

1. I turned off my PC, brought it to a well-ventilated place and opened the case. Easy enough.
2. I used cleaning cloth to wipe the dust out of the fans of my GPU CPU and PSU.
NOTE: I did not remove any components, 'cause I was pretty paranoid I might screw something up as my knowledge about the innards of a PC is not excellent.
4. I used compressed air can to blow the dust from everywhere I could see any.
NOTE: I did touch some components with my hand (I'm not sure if it's anything good or bad as I found very little information about physical contact with human skin and computer components).
5. Final checks and everything seems to be fine.
6. Closed the case and ran the PC.

Now this is where it started getting messy.
Everything seemed to work fine. So I launched Skyrim to see if there are any problems with a GPU. I believe there was. After roaming around the forest for 1-2 minutes the screen started glitching and stuttering until eventually it got completely cover by light blue coloured stripes and the game crashed. The desktop started glithing too so I restarted the computer in confusion. After restating I ran Skyrim again and as soon as the screen started glitching I turned it off. The desktop seemed fine. I watched some youtube videos, it was smooth as always. I tried opening paint 3D just to see if this is GPU that's messing up. And yeah, after playing around for a bit Paint 3D crashed as well.

Today I turned on my PC and though I would start a game with lower requirements, so I started Half Life 2. But before that I ran GPU-Z to see some details. Everyhing seemed nice, but the GPU was at about 50 degrees while idle. Seemed quite much . Back to the game: after playing for 5 mins the screen scrashed. PC turned off and everytime I try to launch it - same thing happens. ASUS logo, Windows logo with loading circles and then blank. Nothing but black screen.

I'm stumped... I'm not very financially stable at the moment and this PC was the best thing I had to this day. Replacing the GPU would cost me hundreds so I just want to figure out if there's anything that can be done.

System specs were (I don't really remember well):
CPU: Intel core i7
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 200 series
RAM: 8GB
64-bit operating system
Windows 10 OS

Final moments:
https://ibb.co/hon7v6
https://ibb.co/fp7khm

Thanks in advance...

 

[BadAsAl]

If it were me I would remove the GPU and RAM and clean the contacts on all of them. Also I'd check the slots each go into and blow some air in there. It is possible that some of the dust being blown around might have got into the slots.
Also, clean the GPU fan again while it is out of the PC. Maybe dust got in there and the fan isn't spinning as it should and overheating.

 

[Louise Porkolt]

Hi there,
your GPU is probably overheating... you cleaned you motherboard but not the GPU-card !

try removing your GPU from the case (touching the motherboard has nothing significant for the PC itself but if you touch a component like a capacitor (not the flux-capacitor from back to the future) you can get zapped from the remaining voltage. Usually 2 things are written on them: capacity in Microfarad or µF and voltage which it loads and depending on the voltage you can get some burnmarks)

usually the GPU can be removed with 1 screw and a plastic lock on the bottom where the card meets the socket... maybe check youtube first how to remove a GPU from a computer or so...

then once it's out blow air in the oposite direction as the normal airflow of the card goes...
BE SURE to block the fan with a stick or toothpick so it doesn't turn with the speed of the air ! (a fan can act as a generator sending voltage into the card and ruining the card even more)

if all the dust is out reinstall the card back and try your games again !

could be that your card is allready damaged from the heat it allready generated before !

good luck and let us know if this helped !

cheers, Louise...

 

[Louise Porkolt]

If it were me I would remove the GPU and RAM and clean the contacts on all of them. Also I'd check the slots each go into and blow some air in there. It is possible that some of the dust being blown around might have got into the slots.
Also, clean the GPU fan again while it is out of the PC. Maybe dust got in there and the fan isn't spinning as it should and overheating.

the dust accumulated during months is not the same as the dust from cleaning out the PC !
I guess the PC was cleaned but not the GPU-card-airflow as you mentioned in the end !!

cheers, Louise...

 

[Louise Porkolt]

Not cleaning a PC is the primary reason why I see many video-cards end up in the "recycle park" (ready to be reduced to fine scrap to have the precious metals removed !)

 

[arnas.zoluba]

Thank you for your rapid suggestions!
I'll be sure to try out your suggestions soon, hopefully today. It's just I'm really worried because the pc won't display anything at all on startup. Hope it's as simple as just dust ruining my gpu and not like I accidently fried the whole motherboard or something.
I'll be sure to report as soon as something happens.
Cheers, everyone!

 

[neatfeatguy]

Simplest thing would be to keep the side case cover off and see if the fan on the GPU is spinning.

Depending on the make of the card, some cards are designed with default settings to not have the fan(s) on the GPU to run until it hits a certain temp so you may need to run a program that'll work the GPU some.

You mentioned you wiped off fans with a cloth and sprayed things out with canned air. Did you spray the canned air directly into the fan on the GPU? If you did, did you just let the fan spin freely or did you hold the fan in place with one hand and spray it out with the canned air in the other hand?

Fans are designed to spin up to certain RPMs, if you force them to run faster then they are designed for, you could certainly damage the fan if you blew it out with canned air and let it spin freely. Just something to think about it.

 

[arnas.zoluba]

I did as instructed.
I took out the GPU (with the help of a thread on this site) and RAM.
I blew some air into their slots.
I cleaned up the GPU and it's fans.
Put them both right in, they snapped real nicely.
Turned the computer on and...
Same results.
Asus logo, windows logo, blackness.
I'll check out if the fans on GPU are spinning when it's on, if not... Well, I guess the GPU somehow died...
And to answer neatfeatguy - i did hold the fans while cleaning them. I read quite a few forums about this beforehand.

 

[neatfeatguy]

I did as instructed.
I took out the GPU (with the help of a thread on this site) and RAM.
I blew some air into their slots.
I cleaned up the GPU and it's fans.
Put them both right in, they snapped real nicely.
Turned the computer on and...
Same results.
Asus logo, windows logo, blackness.
I'll check out if the fans on GPU are spinning when it's on, if not... Well, I guess the GPU somehow died...
And to answer neatfeatguy - i did hold the fans while cleaning them. I read quite a few forums about this beforehand.

Good to hear. One thing I'm not so sure about, though I never looked into myself, would be using a cloth to wipe down fans. My fear would be the static charge that could build up on the cloth - like I said, I never looked into it so I'm not sure if this would be a problem or not.

I've personally used a soft bristled toothbrush before to clean that stuck on dust on fans or I've used a cotton swab before without issues....guess I never thought about using a cloth.

Hopefully you can pinpoint the problem and get it fixed. Working on these things is certainly easier if you have spare working hardware to test with.

 

[arnas.zoluba]

Now I somehow managed to get the "Automatic repair" message from windows when trying to access BIOS. Should I mess around in here?
P. S. I did manage to access BIOS and the interface looked pretty weird with glitchy green patterns in the background.