Putting An End to Dust Inside Computers

If it's any comfort this is the same with wood stoves. Instead of providing a wee space for a filter in front of the fans there is nada, zilch. Meaning that any dust that gets out when re-loading will be nicely distributed throughout the house.

Have to re-load the stove in a half hour. Global Warming? Hah!

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

You could always buy a case/PSU with the fans blowing the RIGHT way - i.e. INTO the case.

IBM PCs were originally designed wrong and everyone copied. If you blew the air the correct way you only need to filter the input of the fans and ZERO dust would get into the case.

It has been fixed. There are computers that do no depend upon cooling air but on heat pipes for cooling of the cpu. But, the PS still needs a fan. Now if use heat pipe cooling for the PS, we could do away with air movement alltogether, seal the thing and do away with the dust.

If you build your own computer using a box called a Shuttle, you can cool your CPU with heat pipes. I have built one and it works just fine.

Check this out:

Al

Most computers are cooled by sucking air into the case. That way, air enters through the multitude of large and small openings and cools all components a little.

Since you always have a slight vacuum inside the case, dust will be sucked in through every little opening. That includes the floppy drive, CD-ROM drive, the gaps around all the connectors, the gaps where the case does not seal perfectly and so on.

If you want to keep you case clean inside, I can really see only three options:

1: Convert your cooling system to a pressurized case and filter the intake fan. Not as easy as it sounds. 2: Place the computer inside a sealed box and ventilate the box sufficiently and filter the air intake. 3: Convert to water cooling with a fanless radiator, such as Zalman's "Reserator" system or similar. This option gives you the added bonus of reducing the noise level dramatically.

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RoRo

You can't have much of a processor if you go totally fanless. I have a fanless case w/ an epia 1ghz via C3 processor that I use as a multimedia player.

I had one, an sn25p; it overheated even though it had six fans and cooked the hard drives. They say you can run two drives, but I guess they were thinking of two low capacity drives. I wonder if shuttle has had a change of management. Their products in 2003 was a lot simpler and more reliable.

I currently have a system built around a nexus breeze. It's a bit big, but a lot quieter than that shuttle sn25p and it doesn't overheat even with three

500G drives.

It is almost trivially easy. Remove the motheboard, cards, and drives from the old system and put them into a new case that is properly designed.

Not true, Athlon 2x here, 4400+ model, cooled with Zalman water tower, completely silent. Even the PSU is fanless.

There is one large 12V 120mm fan, connected to 5V, slowly moving the air around just in case.

All you can hear are hard disks.

SioL

Ach! Way, way too much overkill. Put the computer in an air plenum made from a scavenged cardboard box and duct tape, and put a desk fan just inside with an ordinary $1.19 furnace filter at the inlet, maybe sprayed with Endust. Replace the filter when it starts to look dusty or once a year, whichever comes first. :-)

If you're feeling frisky, you could get some posterboard and make a duct around the desk fan. :-)

Have Fun! Rich

I checked out the link.. Ooooooooo :o It's got an orange fan!!! :) Orange is goooood :) Anyways.. It's interesting to see what it takes for a silent and cool design.. And it has a fan filter!! :) D from BC

Interesting... I might do a fan and flow mod to my case if I think I can do it fast and cheap. Thanks D from BC

I did some reading of the Zalman on

$201.00 US street price... D from BC

I like option1... Maybe I can flip my PSU fan around. Also, my case has a spot for an extra fan. That can pressurize the case. Thanks D from BC

D from BC wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

PC cases are designed to suck in cool air from the front of the tower at the bottom,and draw it across the MB towards the top rear. (they figure you keep the front of your desktop cleaner than the back behind the PC...) Some cases have foam filters,but filters clog,and then the innards begin to overheat.

Remember even a fiberglass filter will put more of a load on the exhaust fan(s),and thus less airflow.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

Brendan Gillatt wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

According to an article I read recently,the fans are SUPPOSED to pull air OUT from inside the case,not push air in. See my other post about airflow across the motherboard.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

For years, until my house burned down, I ran my PC off solar power in the Ozark boonies. Using DC-DC converters that were mounted on a board

*outside* the case. No PS fan. Passive heat, lower power consumption. Course, you can do this when you have AC, use a battery charger to keep a battery up, with the DC-DC converters feeding the motherboad,,, which will keep right on working if the power goes out. It integrates the PS & UPS, and if you've ever hooked up car battery jumper cables the wrong way, and heard the snap, you have some idea of how hot a lightning strike would havta be to effect your system.

So, if you are not pumping air thru the case all the time, dust is no problem. I usta have a tall wood case, like a chimney, with both the PC and PS in it, the natural convection was enough for passive heatsinks to keep the CPU kewl. The floppy and CD drive doors didnt have dust coming in either.

For years, until my house burned down, I ran my PC off solar power in the Ozark boonies. Using DC-DC converters that were mounted on a board

*outside* the case. No PS fan. Passive heat, lower power consumption. Course, you can do this when you have AC, use a battery charger to keep a battery up, with the DC-DC converters feeding the motherboad,,, which will keep right on working if the power goes out. It integrates the PS & UPS, and if you've ever hooked up car battery jumper cables the wrong way, and heard the snap, you have some idea of how hot a lightning strike would havta be to effect your system.

So, if you are not pumping air thru the case all the time, dust is no problem. I usta have a tall wood case, like a chimney, with both the PC and PS in it, the natural convection was enough for passive heatsinks to keep the CPU kewl. The floppy and CD drive doors didnt have dust coming in either.

What balderdash! A heatpipe, acting as a rather efficent thermal conductor, only allows one to transfer thermal energy (heat) from the generation point/area (say the CPU) to some other area; if there are no radiation fins and/or convective air flow (eg: fans), then those heatpipes are useless. Tell you what: want to be green and get cool(ing); use chlorophyll!

[snip]

I was thinking of using a very large filter for the most air flow and least amount of filter changes/cleaning. Maybe a big shop vac filter? :) Arff Arfff.. D from BC

- Actually, not a bad idea. You could get a chrome-plated air cleaner, something like:

and put a fan inside, and keep your case under positive pressure.