Computer cleanliness

On 6/12/08 10:17 AM, "chuck goolsbee" <chucklistforest.net> wrote:

> Seriously though dirt and dust are the *primary* accelerators of
> computer failure, since they trap heat and force everything to work
> harder to do the same job. We are in the business of uptime for
> servers so our datacenter is kept scrupulously clean. While my wife
> would never characterize me as a clean freak, my staff certainly
> does, especially when it comes to the datacenter. Our cooling system
> does extensive air filtration, and filters are changed often. We
> sweep and clean the floor twice daily. The doorways into the
> datacenter have dust traps that pull dirt off your shoes as you walk
> in. We do not allow paper or cardboard in the actual datacenters. No
> food or drink either, and CERTAINLY NO CATS!

Having had a tour of d.f.'s server rooms, all Chuck is missing are the bunny
suits.

--
John C. Welch

I must admit, I have cats that like to sit on my desk from time to time, and though I'm careful to (and a little obsesed with) keep the surface clean, I was startled to discover the amount of dust and fuzz that had collected at the air intake of my G5 iMac -- I had never really noticed it before, because the design hides it behind the base. (I only came across it when I was moving it to another location to accomodate the new iMac that replaced it.)

BRIAN/brianredjacketpress.com

chuck goolsbee wrote:
>>> I've seen it before if the machine is dirty inside.
>>> Have any pets?
>>>
>>
>> Well, I do have eight cats.
>
> When I saw the question, my initial thought was "of course the fans
> are working harder, the machine is older and likely dirtier." This
> has nothing to do with software revisions, or disk health, it is
> about trapped heat and obstructed airflow. Now that I hear you have
> eight cats, I KNOW that is your problem! You might need a new
> computer, ...or eight fewer cats! ;)
>
>
> Seriously though dirt and dust are the *primary* accelerators of
> computer failure, since they trap heat and force everything to work
> harder to do the same job.

[snip]

> Computers like it CLEAN, and COOL. Keep the cats away from them.

I recently ran into a situation where a Dell system used for accounting would lock up at night. Plus the backup that was supposed to run at night wasn't most nights. I was about to give up and then it would not stay on more than a few minutes. System is 3 year old or older. There's a local guy who does great repair work so I said let him look at it. Turned out the heat sinks had so much dust that the CPU was overheating almost instantly. As to the previous issues it suddenly made sense. The backup process was likely the most CPU intensive thing this computer did and thus would almost always over heat it.

Keep them computers clean. Life will be better.

And while most folks think it's counter intuitive, computers on hard floors gather much more dust and fluff than computers on carpet. On carpet the dust and fluff sticks everywhere. On a hard floor it drifts around until something snags it. Like a computer intake cooling fans. So if you are in a hard floor environment it may be clean due to your computers vacuuming up the dirt.

David

We have boxes and bags for environments: underwater boxes to operate
very delicate cameras in; sterile boxes to do tissue culture
experiments; black bags or boxes to keep the light off film, if you
remember what that is.

Dust free, cool boxes cannot be hard to design. Hands can put discs
in / out; change connections; force shutdowns: through sleeves
with elastic closures. They would take time to perfect, but would
last a long time while protecting the machinery from Large Dogs ~
Small Dogs and Cats being protected subjects.

Even a very simple box used as a dust cover may help to start. A
finned aluminium lid would be one improvement; a clear plastic door,
with seal, another. It's presence would inspire improvements...

George

On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 12:08 PM, George Wade <georgewadeshaw.ca> wrote:
> We have boxes and bags for environments: underwater boxes to operate
> very delicate cameras in; sterile boxes to do tissue culture
> experiments; black bags or boxes to keep the light off film, if you
> remember what that is.
>
> Dust free, cool boxes cannot be hard to design. Hands can put discs
> in / out; change connections; force shutdowns: through sleeves
> with elastic closures. They would take time to perfect, but would
> last a long time while protecting the machinery from Large Dogs ~
> Small Dogs and Cats being protected subjects.
>
> Even a very simple box used as a dust cover may help to start. A
> finned aluminium lid would be one improvement; a clear plastic door,
> with seal, another. It's presence would inspire improvements...

The basic problem with this is that airflow for cooling is a must,
even water cooling requires airflow across the radiator(s). It's not
simple enough to just close it off, you have to have air circulation,
which brings in dust and animal hair and... well I'll just stop there.
Now relegating cooling to the exterior box might have it's benefits
but, even with fins, you need a way of getting heat from the computer
to the exterior of the box. Now you have an exterior box you have to
buy and keep running and clean so you don't have to keep your computer
clean and running. Just the same problem one step removed.

--
Michael

On 6/12/2008 12:08 PM, "David Ross" wrote:
> I recently ran into a situation where a Dell system used for accounting would
> lock up at night. Plus the backup that was supposed to run at night wasn't
> most nights. I was about to give up and then it would not stay on more than a
> few minutes. System is 3 year old or older. There's a local guy who does great
> repair work so I said let him look at it. Turned out the heat sinks had so
> much dust that the CPU was overheating almost instantly. As to the previous
> issues it suddenly made sense. The backup process was likely the most CPU
> intensive thing this computer did and thus would almost always over heat it.

My Mac Pro was having problems with onscreen artifacts and odd lines across
the screen, as well as occasional lock-ups; turns out dust had clogged the
video card's fan intake -- the card was suffocating:

<http://www.macworld.com/article/133219/2008/04/dustkills.html>

(There's a nice photo there, too.)

Turns out many people have had the same problem, plus there's apparently a
known heat problem with this particular card. But the moral of the story is
to periodically check your fans and vents to make sure they aren't clogged.

On Thu, 12 Jun 2008, chuck goolsbee wrote:

Computers like it CLEAN, and COOL. Keep the cats away from them.

Among other things.

My favorite example was the family where the daughter took her iMac G5 to college, and it started crashing all the time: random shutdowns, signs of overheating, application crashes, et cetera.

They had done some research, and heard about the fact that some iMac G5s of this vintage developed bad power supplies over time, and wanted to get their power supply replaced.

Fine, no problem, let's take a look.

So, of course, step one is to take off the back panel and see if there is any dust, hair, fur, etc clogged up inside.

And the thing looks like the inside of a bong. A heavily used bong.

Caked on yellow gunk on everything, strong marijuana odor, and so on.

Amazingly, the iMac still boots. And the desktop picture is, wouldn't you know it, a picture of a joint in someone's hand, held between the knees -- no face or anything identifiable, but unquestionably a joint.

So how does one approach such a situation delicately?

Me: "Sir, I don't suppose there are any smokers in the family, are there?"

Him: "Certainly not!"

Me: "Maybe a roommate at the college is a smoker?"

Him: "Absolutely not!"

Me: "I see. It's just that, this computer looks like it may belong to a smoker, or a smoker spent a lot of time around it."

(That, and there's a picture of what appears to be your daughter or one of her friends lighting a joint right here on the desktop! But somehow he managed to studiously ignore this minor piece of evidence.)

Him: "That isn't possible. The power supply failed, now fix it."

At this point, not wanting to come out and accuse one or both of him being a liar and his daughter being a pothead, I agreed to check it in to replace *only* the power supply, but if anything else was broken, it would be out of their pocket.

And wouldn't you know it, but it still didn't work right with a new power supply, but I'll just leave the story at that.... :-)

-- Chris Devers

On Jun 12, 2008, at 12:08 PM, David Ross wrote:

> And while most folks think it's counter intuitive, computers on hard
> floors gather much more dust and fluff than computers on carpet. On
> carpet the dust and fluff sticks everywhere. On a hard floor it
> drifts around until something snags it. Like a computer intake
> cooling fans. So if you are in a hard floor environment it may be
> clean due to your computers vacuuming up the dirt.

I compromise: carpet, but a roughly machine-sized board under
computer. Given modern manufacture, I don't like the heat+carpet
equation.

   --John

One good way to monitor the situation is via the free dashboard widget
iStat Pro <http://islayer.com/index.php?op=item&id=7> which, among
other things, can display temperatures from internal sensors and fan
speeds. By getting familiar with the normal situation (on my Power Mac
G%, 3 of the fans run at 500-600 rpm while 2 others run at 1000 rpm
and one at 1500 rpm), I can tell when problem situations are occurring.

Alan Forkosh Oakland, CA
aforkoshmac.com

On 13-Jun-08, at 3:25 AM, Michael Krzyzek wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 12:08 PM, George Wade <georgewadeshaw.ca>
> wrote:
>> We have boxes and bags for environments: underwater boxes...
>> It's presence would inspire improvements...
>
> The basic problem with this is that airflow for cooling is a must,
> even water cooling requires airflow across the radiator(s)....

> Just the same problem one step removed.

Exactly -- the same problem, one step removed: where you can see it
& get at it easily.

George