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smurfin' French people.






j/k

Man, if you guys think that is bad, I need to start carrying a camera around. I just de-commissioned a server last week that had been running non-stop since '99. I opened it up to clean it out for desktop duty and had to roll it outside to clean it out. I spent 3 hours taking the entire machine apart, mother board and all. Crap, there was a 1/4" mat UNDER the motherboard. CPU heatsinks were full of dust, 4" of dust on the foor of the case, motherboard had good 1/2" coating sticking to it. But, the thing still works great.

I'll chime in on this one. I used to work for a local computer repair shop for a while. We worked on anything, but we mostly saw Macs, Compaqs and HP's.  (Our shop was the only Apple/Compaq/HP certified repair shop in town - so we got a lot of business that way)

One day, this guy brings in a working IBM system that must have been 20 years old. He wanted to know if he could upgrade the memory in it.

This machine was truly odd. No one in the shop even recognized the bus standard it used, and it had two very (VERY) old MFM hard disks attached to an unbelievably long board. Quite frankly, I had never seen anything like it. The chips were encased in aluminum, and almost looked military. The boards were also unusual. They weren't printed wiring boards, but encased copper wire in epoxy. (this method is still used for harsh environment applications - they are nearly impregnable to almost everything)

Interestingly enough, it appeared to be running some form of Unix - but no one (including the new owner) knew the root login. Unfortunately, it was totally non-upgradeable - and since we couldn't find a spare MFM drive controller, we couldn't boot from another system to change the password. As a result, this old tank went in the bin. We never even figured out how much ram it had.

Before we could get that far, though - we had to open it up. Every square inch of the machine was filled with dust. Not just a coating - it was completely filled with it. The stuff came out in chunks. With the top off, it looked like one solid mass of dust - not a single nook or cranny was bare. On a dare, I took it outside with the air compressor, and created a mushroom cloud. Apparently, the machine had run almost continuously, with no cleaning, for years and years. It was a server, so I doubt anyone even noticed it.

Even more amazingly, the machine had several 120VAC fans - and they still worked, even encased in dust and dirt - although they didn't succeed in pushing much air.

BTW- the danger of dust is two-fold.

First, dust acts as a wicking agent for moisture (typically in the form of condensation, but a bit of loose coke or tea will do too). By keeping moisture from evaporating quickly, it allows rust to setup. Remember, if you keep a PC too close to an A/C vent in humid climes, condensation WILL form. Machines housed in mobile homes (especially in the south) suffer this a lot. Although a bit different, in that rust usually isn't the killer, the wicking action of dust is also responsible for killing fans. The dust wicks so much grime, that it creates a sticky goo - which makes the fan rotor work harder, and wear out faster.

Second, dust is an incredible insulator - it's very low density traps a large amount of still air. IOW - a good, fine layer of dust is just like the good, fine layer of pink insulation in your attic. Yes, a CPU or chipset coated in dust CAN overheat simply due to be coated with enough dust. The heat builds up slowly, but steadily.

Regards,
Seth