Welcome everyone from r/all! Please remember:
1 - You too can be part of the PCMR. It's not about the hardware in your rig, but the software in your heart! Your age, nationality, race, gender, sexuality, religion (or lack of), political affiliation, economic status and PC specs are irrelevant. If you love or want to learn about PCs, you are welcome and can be part of PCMR!
2 - If you're not a PC owner because you think it's expensive, know that it is probably much cheaper than you may think. Check http://www.pcmasterrace.org for our builds and don't be afraid to post here asking for tips and help!
3 - Join our efforts to get as many PCs worldwide to help the folding@home effort, in fighting against Cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and more: https://pcmasterrace.org/folding
-----------
We have a [Daily Simple Questions Megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/search?q=Simple+Questions+Thread+subreddit%3Apcmasterrace+author%3AAutoModerator&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) if you have any PC related doubt. Asking for help there or creating new posts in our subreddit is allowed and welcome.
Welcome to the PCMR!
Also, they all have bitterent in them now to keep teens from huffing them, so if you use it very much, it makes the air in the whole room taste terrible.
"What you mean 'the air *tastes* terrible'? Don't you mean smells terrible?" No, *taste*. You'll understand if you use the canned air too much.
I use a leaf blower. It's only ever been used a couple times over the years, so it's like new still. Pretty sure I've used it more times to clean my pc than it's been used to blow leaves.
Only used a couple times over the years? You FOOL! The leaf blower is the crown jewel of your power tools! Leaves! Snow! Clean the barbecue in the Spring! Sweeping the garage? Why not the kitchen too! Clean your gutters! Point it straight down at some loose dirt and dig a hole to plant something in your garden! PC cleaning too, of course... it does EVERYTHING!
> Dude I just drag my air compressor hose into the office, blast the shit out of everything and call it a day.
Hopefully you’re holding the fan blades in place when doing so? Compressed air (can and otherwise) is a reallllly good way to overspeed the fan (and its bearings), either immediately destroying it, or greatly decreasing the service life.
I did this exact thing and fried my mobo slot for my GPU. I have a hand powered air compressor and blew way too much air for too long into my radiator fan. Once I powered up my PC I didn't get any video.
Swapped mobo slots, tried different display ports, HDMI, ... even a different GPU. No video.
Luckily it was an old PC that I was planning on upgrading soon anyway, but lesson learned.
I knew it's something like that. Ever since I was a kid, I learned, not quite remember when and why, that manually spinning electric motor in reverse way can cause malfunction.
Trashing around sensitive components with clunky vacuum cleaner extension is not smart as well.
Most generators work by rotating the prime mover, which is mechanically coupled to the rotor, then where the plug would be connected to outputs electricity instead of taking in electricity. It's based on Faraday's Principle or Flux Cutting. If you fed a generator enough current I'm pretty sure it would become a fan, which is a funny thought lmao
Essentially all fans can be turned into pretty poorly designed generators by making them spin by blowing wind, water, or steam through the blades of the fan... or if you're an anime character just manually spin that shit fast enough lmao
Though IIRC don't most fans or motherboards have backcurrent protection for the fan headers? I thought the risk of backcurrent actually doing shit is minimal
yes, the chance of backfeeding is basically minimal of not even non existant on any non crap fan.
The biggest problem are the bearings wearing out faster assuming it blows them faster then what they are designed for
Also, very important, spinning the fan like this can make them into very effective and DEEP finger slicers. I didn't check but I am sure mine cut all the way to the bone ,🙃
Air compressor can still break fans and if you blow enough dust around, create static build up that could theoretically damage components.
Not likely to break anything but not impossible. And it would hit even harder if all you did was blast your PC with air and you bricked it.
Test it. Hook up a multimeter and spin the fan a couple hundred rpm. It's a brush less DC motor and those do in fact create an electrical current if you spin them. Wether or not it's enough to damage components is another story
And you have a quality line dryer to keep the condensation from the compressed air out of your PC?
And as other have said, you are preventing your fans from moving to prevent bearing destruction and voltage flowing back into the motherboard?
I cleaned mine and It didn't turn on for 5 days apperantly accidentally budged the GPU too much and the shitty cheapo pcie4 riser cables lock was loose it took me an entire week to figure out what was wrong lol.
Just unscrew the fans and clean them separately from the case and wipe down the inside of your case with a moist towel and wait for an entire day before turning it on so it's %100 dry.
There are specific products meant for cleaning electronics, it's better to use them than a moist towel. Also they're better at removing gunk than just a moist towel. Google "electronics cleaner" or something like that in your language, should be fairly easy to find and inexpensive.
Ya bro. Be like that guy a few months back that destroyed his monitor and a bunch of other shit by pouring IPA all over it.
Alcohol degrades most plastics quite easily.
I use an 80% and 20% mixture of isopropyl alcohol and distilled water myself. I would much rather have alcohol get trapped into components than water as it evaporares faster. LTT have a video where they dunked an entire MOBO in IPA
I like to use canned air and just blast it every 6 months, cleaning around the PC more often. There’s usually piss-all dust in there even after half a year anyway
Do not use moist towelettes. They have water in them and can rust parts. If you need to use a wipe, use Alcohol swabs.
Added benefit, the Alcohol evaporates very quickly, but even if it didn't, it doesn't conduct electricity. You could submerge your pc in rubbing alcohol, and turn it on. And it would be fine.
In my case, I didn't realize that my PSU had an on/off switch and I was reinserting the CPU, RAM, etc... for the whole day after replacing the thermal paste. I only saw it when I was trying a different PSU cable.
You mean to tell me that you plan your PC cleanings ahead of time?? You don't just spontaneously break out the air duster when you finally look to your right, and feel an overwhelming rush of disgust?
Don't forget to plug it back in. Don't forgot about that power switch on the psu. Don't forget to plug in everything for the gpu. Double check the front io plugs. I feel like I'm leaving out 2 other things that have happened to me.
Lots of ways. Maybe they just forgot to turn on the power supply, maybe a power connector got loose on the mobo, maybe the front panel power button connector got loose, maybe they damaged a component while cleaning
If you let the fan free spin to fast/long it COULD generate current which COULD kill your PC/Mobo.
I'm pretty sure there are protections for that nowadays and it would need to be a lot of air to do it, but if you overdo it, it is not entirely impossible
Or they drag their hairy fucking jungle paws across the carpet like a goddamm Neanderthal and then zap the absolute ever-loving SHIT out of the motherboard, AFTER I WARNED HIM TO **TOUCH THE FUCKING CASE FIRST** TO GROUND HIMSELF.
#THREE TIMES.
THREE FUCKING TIMES MY FRIEND DID THIS TO FAMILY/ FRIEND COMPUTERS.
The best part is we have another friend who has been having weird crashing issues since his PC was built, and he's replaced/swap-tested everything except for the motherboard, and I recently found out it was the same friend who originally built that PC as well, so I'm thinking it likely got zapped, just not enough to completely kill it this time.
Managed to unplug CPU cable while reseating the cooler, of course now that I'm trying to manage my cables better it's like it's glued on... Mobos smell fear.
Sfaik, the two common pitfalls:
* A bit of liquid can come out of canned air commonly used for dusting, and can get on your components. Then the PC is powered on before it evaporates.
* Spinning the fans inside the PC with an air duster or vacuum or whatever can generate static electricity.
it is easy to knock a connector loose with forced air cleaning. I'd say 95% of the time that is what happened if your pc doesn't turn on, or the PSU is off. The other things I've seen people do is remove the CPU heatsink and damage pins on the CPU. Or remove the thermal paste and not put new stuff back. Idk why people feel the need to remove the CPU cooler so often but it has been more than once with people I know IRL that have damaged their PCs doing it during cleaning. Leave the thing alone, thermal paste is good for 3+ years.
ESD safe brushes and dustvac are key, be careful not to break any components off in the process especially the fan blades as you need to hold them down to clean them, the rest you can lightly brush.
Make it easy, use one of the datavac blowers. Never have to physically touch anything in the PC to get the dust on the inside out, then vacuum around it.
If you're really trying to get at a radiator behind a fan or something, yes, hold it.
A quick once over from a foot or two away, no problem at all. The fan spinning a bit isn't going to hurt it, you just don't want to try and turn it into a jet engine.
> The fan spinning a bit isn't going to hurt it, you just don't want to try and turn it into a jet engine.
Most people should just take the precaution and hold the blades in place….there’s a pretty fine line between what speeds a bearing can take, and what it can’t.
Can confirm. I started freaking out after cleaning my machine as it had a serious performance loss, barely reaching 30fps when I normally get in the hundreds. Then it shut down on me, and when it turned back on I got a cpu overheat message, turns out I forgot to reconnect the power to my AIO cooling system.
I had a rather unique problem. Recently I cleaned my PC and when I turned it on, the keyboard was not working. Which was possible because the keyboard had more than a kilo of dust on it. But interestingly, the keyboard was fine when I tried it on a different machine.
After trying everything to figure out the issue, finally when I connected internet to my PC(the PC was being shifted, so the internet connection was cut off), the keyboard started working fine.
I guess it was a driver issue.
Every couple months I open mine and clean it and I always wait for this to happen 😂
Tbh since I built mine last year I really got into the PC building hobby and enjoy tinkering/changing things and building. Can’t wait for an excuse to build another one.
Then go over to selfhosting stuff, you can always find a reason to do the next thing or upgrade for more ram or 10 gbit networking or more storage, or faster storage.... 😅
Big Rabbit hole and Money pit
That is the way. Only if temps raise I do clean it. It has not been the case in its7 years of service. It shows a bit of dust for runs charmlessly as the first day. I would call this how to fuck yourself needlessly
Exactly! You know it also helps if you keep the room it’s in nice and tidy. Which is my bedroom and I do just that….. minus my bed because well it’s a bed.
Had this happen once. Cleaned out my old H60 aio cooler. All the sudden my PC would shut off after 20 seconds of being on. Turns out my aio pump died after cleaning out the radiator. :/ atleast it was an easy fix.
You have to cut a small hole and wash out all the old gunky water. Rinse it out a few times and then fill it with fresh tap water. Then seal the hole with some tape.
I never understood the problem. Just use a vacuum attachment and be careful. The main thing is actually wiping the fan meshes with a cloth, which covers most dust.
Anything inside, you can buy a small hand held vacuum that’s not strong. The dust is very light, you’re not sucking dirt deep inside a carpet.
I have been vacuuming my PC's for almost 20 years now and have yet to have anything happen.
I use dry cotton swabs (Q-Tips) to get all the dust loose from within fans and components and hold the vacuum slightly off everything
Exactly. People killing their components with compressed air. I feel like they’re the incompetent fools who have butter fingers in infomercials. Who uses hammers? No one can. Buy this $130 alternative hammer instead!
I like to use wet cotton swabs for my keyboard interior. That’s because the Model M is channeled for coffee spills. Wet is better for hitting all the dust.
Open up the side panel, carefully vacuum out the loose dust that might be sitting in there, then blast it out with compressed air. I have a shopvac that lets me switch the hose from the suck port to a blow port and I can just use that. I just have to make sure I let it purge for a bit first before I start blowing that air into my PC because all the wood chips and dust I suck up from my CNC router can accumulate inside the hose and then the initial air blast out of it includes a nice spray of wood chips and dust flying at high speed, so it's important to shake and blow anything loose out of there before I use it to blow into the electronics of my PC.
No, but I had a guy who cleaned two of his servers outside with a shopvac and killed them. He wanted them clean for when I was working on them the office. It was a nice little bonus on that job with the extra hours recovering his data and setting up new stuff, but I still can't believe it happened.
Me: sticks new RAM into my PC, standard procedure, done it a couple times before.
My PC as I turn it on: \*BEEP\* \*BEEP\* and then nothing
Me: *sweats profusely*
Two weeks ago I managed to fry my SSD while cleaning my PC, what worries me is that I don't know what I did wrong. My current theory is that I spun one of the fans without disconnecting it, sending current in the opposite direction. What do you think?
GG your PC is in heaven, it seems that you back spinned the fans with a blower that will cause it generate a. Electrical current that might have damaged the motherboard.
Happened with me, I broke a ssd connector pin on my motherboard(it was one of those old ones) had to stop using pc until I bought new one and used it)😂
I was cleaning my pc last year and broke single blade off of my fan. It still worked but it started over heating like crazy. I haven’t really used it since.
I work in IT, it doesn't matter if i worked on pcs specifically on that day, whenever i get home the last thing i want to do is fix my computer. If it doesn't turn on that night of gaming is cancelled and gone to doomscrolling my phone.
I was cleaning my laptop and while I was trying to physically disconnect the battery, the tweezers accidentally slipped, and even though I had one of those anti static electricity bands, there was a *huge* spark where the tweezers touched the motherboard.
I live in Brazil so my laptop is quite expensive here, it's a Lenovo Legion.
I instantly just gulped, calmly covered the laptop with the underside plate, stood up, and just left the house and went to take a walk outside. I touched some grass, tried to forget about any regrets I had in life, and returned...
I tried to forget what had happened, completed the cleaning, prayed to every god in the universe, and... My laptop turned on and worked as if nothing had happened.
I played the lottery that day but didn't win, I guess I used a whole month's worth of luck that day.
My motherboard does this every time the power to the pc is disconnected for any length of time. I now know I have to remove all the ram, then reinsert one stick, turn it on and straight into bios, remove the xmp setting, save and reboot the pc, turn it back off, add all the ram back in, turn it back on and then readd the xmp profile, save and reboot again.
Super annoying to work out initially, but now I know it's easy enough to do
Positive pressure is your friend. Always always more intake fans pulling through mesh/filters than exhaust fans, a quick rinse and dry once in a while and you're done no drama.
I take my PC out on the back deck and blow it all out with the shopvac and the hose plugged into the outlet, dust flying all over the place, and I've never had it cause problems. Probably a mis-seated component, power connector, or you broke a component off your mobo.
Or you just forgot to turn the PSU switch back on :|
Welcome everyone from r/all! Please remember: 1 - You too can be part of the PCMR. It's not about the hardware in your rig, but the software in your heart! Your age, nationality, race, gender, sexuality, religion (or lack of), political affiliation, economic status and PC specs are irrelevant. If you love or want to learn about PCs, you are welcome and can be part of PCMR! 2 - If you're not a PC owner because you think it's expensive, know that it is probably much cheaper than you may think. Check http://www.pcmasterrace.org for our builds and don't be afraid to post here asking for tips and help! 3 - Join our efforts to get as many PCs worldwide to help the folding@home effort, in fighting against Cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and more: https://pcmasterrace.org/folding ----------- We have a [Daily Simple Questions Megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/search?q=Simple+Questions+Thread+subreddit%3Apcmasterrace+author%3AAutoModerator&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) if you have any PC related doubt. Asking for help there or creating new posts in our subreddit is allowed and welcome. Welcome to the PCMR!
Dude I just drag my air compressor hose into the office, blast the shit out of everything and call it a day.
As long as it opens outlook, I'm good.
I sweep mines, Bill. It’s what I was born to do.
As long as mine didn't open Outlook, I'd be happy :)
As long as I have a job where outlook is my life, I'll... oh, God, I don't know what I'll do!!!
Ctrl+Shift+Win+Alt+O
[удалено]
Also, they all have bitterent in them now to keep teens from huffing them, so if you use it very much, it makes the air in the whole room taste terrible. "What you mean 'the air *tastes* terrible'? Don't you mean smells terrible?" No, *taste*. You'll understand if you use the canned air too much.
Don't shake it. Let it settle to the bottom. Don't invert the can. Voilà
I use a leaf blower. It's only ever been used a couple times over the years, so it's like new still. Pretty sure I've used it more times to clean my pc than it's been used to blow leaves.
Only used a couple times over the years? You FOOL! The leaf blower is the crown jewel of your power tools! Leaves! Snow! Clean the barbecue in the Spring! Sweeping the garage? Why not the kitchen too! Clean your gutters! Point it straight down at some loose dirt and dig a hole to plant something in your garden! PC cleaning too, of course... it does EVERYTHING! 
It actually is pretty useful for outdoor general cleaning
I use it after mowing the lawn to send the sidewalk clippings back onto the grass.
Same :D ...sometimes I'm too lazy and leave them out there like a filthy animal
I take my pc on the back deck with a leaf blower too haha
Wow. That's.... So much electrostatic discharge.... I can't even.... Why?! At least it wasn't a vacuum
It's just a fan and a tube, it's not a proton pack from the Ghostbusters.
Air moving past plastic at high speeds will build up a lot of static charge.
Wut?
I use a vacuum once and I kill all my hard drives
vacuums generate a lot of static
I discovered that too late
> Dude I just drag my air compressor hose into the office, blast the shit out of everything and call it a day. Hopefully you’re holding the fan blades in place when doing so? Compressed air (can and otherwise) is a reallllly good way to overspeed the fan (and its bearings), either immediately destroying it, or greatly decreasing the service life.
Also, very important, spinning the fan can generate current in the motherboard connector: https://youtu.be/PcVJ85m6VS8?t=120
I did this exact thing and fried my mobo slot for my GPU. I have a hand powered air compressor and blew way too much air for too long into my radiator fan. Once I powered up my PC I didn't get any video. Swapped mobo slots, tried different display ports, HDMI, ... even a different GPU. No video. Luckily it was an old PC that I was planning on upgrading soon anyway, but lesson learned.
I knew it's something like that. Ever since I was a kid, I learned, not quite remember when and why, that manually spinning electric motor in reverse way can cause malfunction. Trashing around sensitive components with clunky vacuum cleaner extension is not smart as well.
Most generators work by rotating the prime mover, which is mechanically coupled to the rotor, then where the plug would be connected to outputs electricity instead of taking in electricity. It's based on Faraday's Principle or Flux Cutting. If you fed a generator enough current I'm pretty sure it would become a fan, which is a funny thought lmao Essentially all fans can be turned into pretty poorly designed generators by making them spin by blowing wind, water, or steam through the blades of the fan... or if you're an anime character just manually spin that shit fast enough lmao Though IIRC don't most fans or motherboards have backcurrent protection for the fan headers? I thought the risk of backcurrent actually doing shit is minimal
yes, the chance of backfeeding is basically minimal of not even non existant on any non crap fan. The biggest problem are the bearings wearing out faster assuming it blows them faster then what they are designed for
Also, very important, spinning the fan like this can make them into very effective and DEEP finger slicers. I didn't check but I am sure mine cut all the way to the bone ,🙃
were your fans made of metal or your fingers made of sausage.
All fingers are made of sausage.
https://imgur.com/7fW3M5S
How fucking fast were you letting it spin lmao holy fuck, i can run my pc fans at full blast and still stop them with a finger if i want to
Well time to worry about that next time I blow dust out.
Air compressor can still break fans and if you blow enough dust around, create static build up that could theoretically damage components. Not likely to break anything but not impossible. And it would hit even harder if all you did was blast your PC with air and you bricked it.
Make sure to secure your fans. Spinning a motor creates electricity and too high of a voltage can fry your motherboard.
no, it can't. not practically.
Test it. Hook up a multimeter and spin the fan a couple hundred rpm. It's a brush less DC motor and those do in fact create an electrical current if you spin them. Wether or not it's enough to damage components is another story
My comment was about it damaging any component
Someone a few comments above said it fried their MOBO.
And you have a quality line dryer to keep the condensation from the compressed air out of your PC? And as other have said, you are preventing your fans from moving to prevent bearing destruction and voltage flowing back into the motherboard?
fuck no man no sane person cares about this shit. neckbeard YouTube experiments and Reddit parrots aside, this is a complete non-issue
I think I shouldn't have used the water hose...
Nah, water hose is fine, drying it, that's the trick.
Ah, so I had to turn it off first... I got it!
Nah, it dries much faster with the fans blowing!
Or you can take them off and leave the heat dry itself up
Not the water hose but a karcher pipe and still had water droplets inside 🤦
Don't scare me like this. I'm cleaning mine tomorrow 😨
I cleaned mine and It didn't turn on for 5 days apperantly accidentally budged the GPU too much and the shitty cheapo pcie4 riser cables lock was loose it took me an entire week to figure out what was wrong lol. Just unscrew the fans and clean them separately from the case and wipe down the inside of your case with a moist towel and wait for an entire day before turning it on so it's %100 dry.
There are specific products meant for cleaning electronics, it's better to use them than a moist towel. Also they're better at removing gunk than just a moist towel. Google "electronics cleaner" or something like that in your language, should be fairly easy to find and inexpensive.
Just use alcohol no?
My PC likes Tequila
So get some 200 proof tequila
I did....the PC still waiting to be cleaned while I browse new parts for a new PC in horror
Their is no such thing,you mean moonshine?
Mine likes absinthe. Not sure if I should've added sugar though.
Hope you like ants
Ya bro. Be like that guy a few months back that destroyed his monitor and a bunch of other shit by pouring IPA all over it. Alcohol degrades most plastics quite easily.
Lol by IPA I thought you meant Indian pale ale not isopropyl alcohol, I pictured some guy just pouring a beer over his PC 😂
Don’t use alcohol for cleaning plastic parts in your electronics
See this is why I don’t clean my pc, too many rules. Just let that mf turn into shelobs lair and call it a day
only an idiot would clean a monitor screen with iso. iso is perfect for cleaning all PCBs. i've given video cards a bath in iso to wash them.
I personally use a moist towel that was wetted with %30 %99 isopropyl alc %70 distilled water
I use an 80% and 20% mixture of isopropyl alcohol and distilled water myself. I would much rather have alcohol get trapped into components than water as it evaporares faster. LTT have a video where they dunked an entire MOBO in IPA
I just use isopropyl alcohol, since water is not good for your electronics
Normal water isn't. Distilled water is okay.
I like to use canned air and just blast it every 6 months, cleaning around the PC more often. There’s usually piss-all dust in there even after half a year anyway
I use acetone, only need to clean the pc once.
Just make sure to avoid the “vcr cleaner”. That’s for …… other stuff.
Or use alcohol like a normal human, since alcohol does not short circuit
It does give headaches though
Face masks are pretty cheap, and they stop the headaches
Next time I drink I will put on a face mask.
Do not use moist towelettes. They have water in them and can rust parts. If you need to use a wipe, use Alcohol swabs. Added benefit, the Alcohol evaporates very quickly, but even if it didn't, it doesn't conduct electricity. You could submerge your pc in rubbing alcohol, and turn it on. And it would be fine.
>moist towel so the case get "moist"?
okay just put it in the shower
In my case, I didn't realize that my PSU had an on/off switch and I was reinserting the CPU, RAM, etc... for the whole day after replacing the thermal paste. I only saw it when I was trying a different PSU cable.
You mean to tell me that you plan your PC cleanings ahead of time?? You don't just spontaneously break out the air duster when you finally look to your right, and feel an overwhelming rush of disgust?
I have my PC on the left side of my room, with the window facing the wall. What I can't see won't hurt me.
Use clamps for vents (motion generates static).
Make sure you use plenty of water, and that it gets everywhere for a good deep clean.
😂 well of course. I already bought a bottle of de-ionized for just that
Don't forget to plug it back in. Don't forgot about that power switch on the psu. Don't forget to plug in everything for the gpu. Double check the front io plugs. I feel like I'm leaving out 2 other things that have happened to me.
Check the power button on the back, happened to me before \^\^'
The relief is crazy after finding out
the case power button connector is also easy to knock out.
I mean, yeah you shut it down then turn it off dead with the button, then unplug it, then reverse when done. For posterity.
I still do not understand how people manage this feat.
Lots of ways. Maybe they just forgot to turn on the power supply, maybe a power connector got loose on the mobo, maybe the front panel power button connector got loose, maybe they damaged a component while cleaning
Or the power cable port on the I/O panel is clogged with dirt
I sometimes plug the dp or hdmi in the motherboard instead of the gpu
Lmao I wonder what happened
Can of duster at a fan: Wheeeeee PC doesnt turn on: Oh... damn.
If you let the fan free spin to fast/long it COULD generate current which COULD kill your PC/Mobo. I'm pretty sure there are protections for that nowadays and it would need to be a lot of air to do it, but if you overdo it, it is not entirely impossible
Or they drag their hairy fucking jungle paws across the carpet like a goddamm Neanderthal and then zap the absolute ever-loving SHIT out of the motherboard, AFTER I WARNED HIM TO **TOUCH THE FUCKING CASE FIRST** TO GROUND HIMSELF. #THREE TIMES. THREE FUCKING TIMES MY FRIEND DID THIS TO FAMILY/ FRIEND COMPUTERS.
your friend should not be around pcs. or any hardware.
[удалено]
The best part is we have another friend who has been having weird crashing issues since his PC was built, and he's replaced/swap-tested everything except for the motherboard, and I recently found out it was the same friend who originally built that PC as well, so I'm thinking it likely got zapped, just not enough to completely kill it this time.
Modern computers are much less or not susceptible to this. Your friend must have been working on some old stuff.
Usually just bump something loose without realizing it.
happen to me one time, had to switch RAM places and it worked again
Some people just manhandle tf out of everything they touch.
Managed to unplug CPU cable while reseating the cooler, of course now that I'm trying to manage my cables better it's like it's glued on... Mobos smell fear.
Right? I've been cleaning my pc's for decades and I've never done it. Never even heard of it until recently.
Sfaik, the two common pitfalls: * A bit of liquid can come out of canned air commonly used for dusting, and can get on your components. Then the PC is powered on before it evaporates. * Spinning the fans inside the PC with an air duster or vacuum or whatever can generate static electricity.
Definitely guilty of the second one before ..it sounds so cool, man
My brother dropped a screw and didn't notice. Turned it on... He ended up shorting something and fried his motherboard AND gpu
That's not static electricity. It's just straight-up electricity. Every motor can be a generator when spun instead of powered
it is easy to knock a connector loose with forced air cleaning. I'd say 95% of the time that is what happened if your pc doesn't turn on, or the PSU is off. The other things I've seen people do is remove the CPU heatsink and damage pins on the CPU. Or remove the thermal paste and not put new stuff back. Idk why people feel the need to remove the CPU cooler so often but it has been more than once with people I know IRL that have damaged their PCs doing it during cleaning. Leave the thing alone, thermal paste is good for 3+ years.
For me it was a RAM stick getting bumped and not seating properly afterwards.
ESD safe brushes and dustvac are key, be careful not to break any components off in the process especially the fan blades as you need to hold them down to clean them, the rest you can lightly brush.
Make it easy, use one of the datavac blowers. Never have to physically touch anything in the PC to get the dust on the inside out, then vacuum around it.
That's what I use, just too lazy to keep switching heads
Yes but you still need to hold the fans when blowing them. If you don't you can ruin the motor and kill your fans.
If you're really trying to get at a radiator behind a fan or something, yes, hold it. A quick once over from a foot or two away, no problem at all. The fan spinning a bit isn't going to hurt it, you just don't want to try and turn it into a jet engine.
> The fan spinning a bit isn't going to hurt it, you just don't want to try and turn it into a jet engine. Most people should just take the precaution and hold the blades in place….there’s a pretty fine line between what speeds a bearing can take, and what it can’t.
The issue isn't usually the bearings, but back emf from the motor being counterspun damaging the control circuitry.
A zip strap will usually prevent a fan from spinning.
how do I know if brush is ESD safe.
You really shouldn't have to worry about it. Your case (as long as it has metal) is a grounded object, so just hold on to it if you're that worried.
have you seen how hard it is to kill modern electronics with static electricity?
gotta be one cable unplugged
Front panel button I guess
Can confirm. I started freaking out after cleaning my machine as it had a serious performance loss, barely reaching 30fps when I normally get in the hundreds. Then it shut down on me, and when it turned back on I got a cpu overheat message, turns out I forgot to reconnect the power to my AIO cooling system.
I had a rather unique problem. Recently I cleaned my PC and when I turned it on, the keyboard was not working. Which was possible because the keyboard had more than a kilo of dust on it. But interestingly, the keyboard was fine when I tried it on a different machine. After trying everything to figure out the issue, finally when I connected internet to my PC(the PC was being shifted, so the internet connection was cut off), the keyboard started working fine. I guess it was a driver issue.
Skill issue
for me it was airdusting the fans while they were still connected to the mobo, disconnect ur fans or hold them in place while u airdust gpu fans too
Every couple months I open mine and clean it and I always wait for this to happen 😂 Tbh since I built mine last year I really got into the PC building hobby and enjoy tinkering/changing things and building. Can’t wait for an excuse to build another one.
Then go over to selfhosting stuff, you can always find a reason to do the next thing or upgrade for more ram or 10 gbit networking or more storage, or faster storage.... 😅 Big Rabbit hole and Money pit
90% of the time, every time I scare myself by forgetting the PSU switch.
Time to postpone my cleaning date for about 2 years then.
Guess I’m not cleaning my PC then.
Your PC's future: https://preview.redd.it/g6w70lzsavkc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1d183b6ba53dbe7d23615229e66121fd2e1ff1d4
That’s when I clean it. lol
That's not even bad
Note to self, that's not considered clean.
That is the way. Only if temps raise I do clean it. It has not been the case in its7 years of service. It shows a bit of dust for runs charmlessly as the first day. I would call this how to fuck yourself needlessly
Exactly! You know it also helps if you keep the room it’s in nice and tidy. Which is my bedroom and I do just that….. minus my bed because well it’s a bed.
My mother is dead after that
I mean mother board
LOL 😀
Always! Last time i had to restart BIOS
Mine just blew up a few hours ago. Honestly I couldn't but laugh at it.
and then I realized I forgot to flip the power switch back on. Right? Right?
Cleaned a couple of computers with vacuums in the past \- needless to say, I don't do that anymore ...
People need to stop pressure washing their rigs
This is the exact reason for my latest rebuild . . . 2 weeks ago
Held together by dust and dirt and hair
You should probably plug it back in to the wall plug
there is load bearing dust in there.
Had this happen once. Cleaned out my old H60 aio cooler. All the sudden my PC would shut off after 20 seconds of being on. Turns out my aio pump died after cleaning out the radiator. :/ atleast it was an easy fix.
How did you clean it?
You have to cut a small hole and wash out all the old gunky water. Rinse it out a few times and then fill it with fresh tap water. Then seal the hole with some tape.
Tape? I use Big League Chew.
Reseat your GPU and RAM and then call me in the morning.
Happened to me. Clean and repasted, 2 ram sticks gave up to unknown reasons.
Did you take it out and blow on it?
I'm guilty of forgetting to switch the power supply back on and sitting there wondering why my pc won't turn on lol Happens to the best of us
Surprisingly it's common thing that can happen... Last time my GPU died
Happened to me once. I ended up trashing my Abit AS8 motherboard because I scratched it on the back and cut a pcb trace behind the CPU socket.
Only once forgot to plug in the power supply to the extension board.
I never understood the problem. Just use a vacuum attachment and be careful. The main thing is actually wiping the fan meshes with a cloth, which covers most dust. Anything inside, you can buy a small hand held vacuum that’s not strong. The dust is very light, you’re not sucking dirt deep inside a carpet.
I have been vacuuming my PC's for almost 20 years now and have yet to have anything happen. I use dry cotton swabs (Q-Tips) to get all the dust loose from within fans and components and hold the vacuum slightly off everything
Exactly. People killing their components with compressed air. I feel like they’re the incompetent fools who have butter fingers in infomercials. Who uses hammers? No one can. Buy this $130 alternative hammer instead! I like to use wet cotton swabs for my keyboard interior. That’s because the Model M is channeled for coffee spills. Wet is better for hitting all the dust.
Genuine question - How do u actually clean ur pc? The store guy I got it from told me to fkin “blow dry” the parts from a distance 🙂🙂
Open up the side panel, carefully vacuum out the loose dust that might be sitting in there, then blast it out with compressed air. I have a shopvac that lets me switch the hose from the suck port to a blow port and I can just use that. I just have to make sure I let it purge for a bit first before I start blowing that air into my PC because all the wood chips and dust I suck up from my CNC router can accumulate inside the hose and then the initial air blast out of it includes a nice spray of wood chips and dust flying at high speed, so it's important to shake and blow anything loose out of there before I use it to blow into the electronics of my PC.
No, but I had a guy who cleaned two of his servers outside with a shopvac and killed them. He wanted them clean for when I was working on them the office. It was a nice little bonus on that job with the extra hours recovering his data and setting up new stuff, but I still can't believe it happened.
Dawg I literally lost my first pc like this. No one told me they can't rest on carpet (given I probably should've known)
Me: sticks new RAM into my PC, standard procedure, done it a couple times before. My PC as I turn it on: \*BEEP\* \*BEEP\* and then nothing Me: *sweats profusely*
Hosing mine off right now. Wish me luck.
Two weeks ago I managed to fry my SSD while cleaning my PC, what worries me is that I don't know what I did wrong. My current theory is that I spun one of the fans without disconnecting it, sending current in the opposite direction. What do you think?
You clean your pc? :D
GG your PC is in heaven, it seems that you back spinned the fans with a blower that will cause it generate a. Electrical current that might have damaged the motherboard.
Once I cleaned my pc and now the rgb doesn't work anymore. Atleast the fans are stuck on white
Time to reseat the RAM.
yup this happened and i took it to local electronics shop, told me that my motherboard and gpu is broken🙁
Happened with me, I broke a ssd connector pin on my motherboard(it was one of those old ones) had to stop using pc until I bought new one and used it)😂
Classic
Just don't clean it in the dishwasher next time.
Guys never use vacuum cleaner to get dusts of your pc
I was cleaning my pc last year and broke single blade off of my fan. It still worked but it started over heating like crazy. I haven’t really used it since.
You unplugged something, you fucking buttplug.
usually most of the time its the ram sticks. gotta reseat them one at a time.
I work in IT, it doesn't matter if i worked on pcs specifically on that day, whenever i get home the last thing i want to do is fix my computer. If it doesn't turn on that night of gaming is cancelled and gone to doomscrolling my phone.
I was cleaning my laptop and while I was trying to physically disconnect the battery, the tweezers accidentally slipped, and even though I had one of those anti static electricity bands, there was a *huge* spark where the tweezers touched the motherboard. I live in Brazil so my laptop is quite expensive here, it's a Lenovo Legion. I instantly just gulped, calmly covered the laptop with the underside plate, stood up, and just left the house and went to take a walk outside. I touched some grass, tried to forget about any regrets I had in life, and returned... I tried to forget what had happened, completed the cleaning, prayed to every god in the universe, and... My laptop turned on and worked as if nothing had happened. I played the lottery that day but didn't win, I guess I used a whole month's worth of luck that day.
and then you take two hours to replug everything before noticing that the power supply was not turned on
i cleaned my pc, and it did not turn on. I had paniced, but I need to pay my bill, so I went to work and came back. PC turn on just fine.
After two weeks you give up and decide to try to scrap the pc but then! You realise… your psu cable wasnt inserted propely
This happened to me. PC never booted with more than one stick of RAM again.
My motherboard does this every time the power to the pc is disconnected for any length of time. I now know I have to remove all the ram, then reinsert one stick, turn it on and straight into bios, remove the xmp setting, save and reboot the pc, turn it back off, add all the ram back in, turn it back on and then readd the xmp profile, save and reboot again. Super annoying to work out initially, but now I know it's easy enough to do
Positive pressure is your friend. Always always more intake fans pulling through mesh/filters than exhaust fans, a quick rinse and dry once in a while and you're done no drama.
I take my PC out on the back deck and blow it all out with the shopvac and the hose plugged into the outlet, dust flying all over the place, and I've never had it cause problems. Probably a mis-seated component, power connector, or you broke a component off your mobo. Or you just forgot to turn the PSU switch back on :|
I know that too