Dust Problem...

Anti-Trend

Anti-Trend

Nonconformist Geek
Attached is a pic of ones of the workstations from my work. As I move the systems from our old facilities to our new one, I'm cleaning them up before redeploying them. My company manufactures furniture frames. As you can see, quite a bit of sawdust from the plant makes it into the offices, and eventually gets sucked into the PCs.

This picture wouldn't be too amazing, except this is approximately one week of dust buildup...
 

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It would be quite a challenge to solve this problem! I'm not sure what you could do other than maintain it regularly or maybe some filters could help?
 
Your best bet is to get some Filter Channels like they have in the HP ML Servers, they are just plastic channels which direct the air flow, this would limit your problem to just the components such as the CPU. HSF..

Your other option is just to Only run 1 fan (your HSF fan), and not have an intake or exhaust fan, as long as they're not in boiling hot Ambient temperatures of 40C or over you'll be fine.

Personally, for that amount of dust i would get some CPU air channels pre made to your spec, you might even be able to find some around the net.

They literally cover the whole of the outside of the fan and only direct air flow through the tunnels of plastic, then your case can receive air specifically through the Ambient openings of the case.

You'd still get a considerable amount of dust build up due to the saw dust - this is inevitable! however you can slow the build up down considerably.

Your other option, also is to get some Acoustic matting (i know you wouldn't be using this to silence the computers, but you could cover the panels / all parts of the case you can in it, as Acoustic matting doesn't attract dust, like side panels do.

As for the hard drive, what you could do is buy each hard drive a internal hard drive enclosure like a Hard Drive Cooler - like the Zalman HDD Cooling Enclosures - it doesn't have any fans and would eliminate dust build up.

Rounded IDE Cables would possibly be another option as obviously the case air flow would allow for alot less dust to be attracted.

Hope this helps :)
 
Thanks for your advice ProcalX, but your suggestions can't be applied in this situation. To illustrate, we had a server which had .05micron filters on every intake, but it still filled up with dust just as quickly as the workstations. Why? Because the sawdust is powder fine, like flour. It passes right through any reasonable filter and settles where it may. Fortunately, our new facilities have a vacuum system which is roughly 100x more powerful than our previous one, so dust should be considerably less of a problem. For now we just have to dust them regularly and replace fans when they fail. :(
 
Fred said:
Along the lines of dusty computers... I thought I should go ahead and share these pictures.
Click to expand...
Heh, nice link! Very appropriate for this topic, since my company also does woodworking, via CNC routers

A side note: Those old HP Vectras are nearly indestructible. They use passive cooling whenever possible, so dust buildup isn't as detrimental!
 
Anti-Trend said:
A side note: Those old HP Vectras are nearly indestructible. They use passive cooling whenever possible, so dust buildup isn't as detrimental!
Click to expand...

See, now there's your solution.. just get some of those and never clean them :p
 
Anti-Trend said:
Heh, nice link! Very appropriate for this topic, since my company also does woodworking, via CNC routers

A side note: Those old HP Vectras are nearly indestructible. They use passive cooling whenever possible, so dust buildup isn't as detrimental!
Click to expand...

The engineering company i worked for made CNC Machines - HAAS AUTOMATION
 
yeah sniper passive would be better, but by judging on the case and stuff inside it doesn't look like there's money for that
 
Anti-Trend said:
Thanks for your advice ProcalX, but your suggestions can't be applied in this situation. To illustrate, we had a server which had .05micron filters on every intake, but it still filled up with dust just as quickly as the workstations. Why? Because the sawdust is powder fine, like flour. It passes right through any reasonable filter and settles where it may. Fortunately, our new facilities have a vacuum system which is roughly 100x more powerful than our previous one, so dust should be considerably less of a problem. For now we just have to dust them regularly and replace fans when they fail. :(
Click to expand...

so ummm..... how are your lungs? Has OSHA visited your office lately?
 
ninja fetus said:
yeah sniper passive would be better, but by judging on the case and stuff inside it doesn't look like there's money for that
Click to expand...
Quite right. I didn't actually build these workstations so much as refurbish them, so there wasn't a huge budget involved. As a matter of fact, the system pictured is one of the few systems that still has its stock Maxtor HDD. Still, not many places I've worked have baseline systems which consist of Thoroughbred 2400+ w/ 512mb RAM. Pretty good for plain old office PCs! At the last place I worked, I had a Dell Optiplex with a 400MHz Celeron and 128mb SDRAM. :(
 
When i last opened my case I decided to give the fan a big blow. Bit of a mistake really as I was coughing up dust for the next hour or so but i guess it was worth it because my fan doesn't seem to be buzzing now :D
 
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