Dirty Dusty CPU Insides & Motherboards

[JimmyJ65]

I have a neighbor who has lost two power supplies since early summer 1999. The last one was about a year old. These are the questions:
(1) His CPU has an open expansion slot cover. It sits on the floor in an extremely dusty, dirty environment. Every thing inside is coated with dust and dirt, including the interior of the power supply (power supply fan draws from the open expansion slot and the front bottom of the case). Could such contamination cause a short circuit sufficient to kill the power supply?

(2) Could a faulty motherboard kill the power supply? I can't tell which voltage line first failed (5V, 12V, etc.) But the main voltage input filter circuit capacitors seem to be damaged showing burning and seepage around their bases, and another smaller capacitor literally exploded as I was attempting to get some clue as to what was going on.

I substituted another power supply and turned on the system. There was no evidence of booting (wasn't hooked to a monitor), no floppy or hard drive indicators (lights or noise), cpu and video card fans functioned, however, could not turn system off at power switch. Finally had to turn off power at the power supply, and subsequently, turning the power supply switch back on turned the entire system on with no way to turn it off except with the power supply switch.

I'm going to put in another motherboard and processor and power supply and expect things will be OK.

What thoughts have you folks out there?

 

[lowtech1]

A dusty environment may causes short, but it is very likely that the fan fails due to cloging which over heat the power supply to failure.

 

Dust and high humidity will kill P/S's and Mobo's.

 

[Budman]

Tell him to go buy a can of canned air then open the case up then take it outside & give it a nice Blow job.:Q

Dust builds up & after a while we all need a good blow job.

 

[Booster]

I don't think that dust can do that. I still have an old Pentium II PC lying around, and it's been working for about 5 years in a dusty environment. It's got about an inch thick of dust inside the PSU and the whole moboard is covered with a thick layer of dust. Yet it still worked perfect when I turned it on not long ago. I'm too lazy to clean it. The only downside of dust buildup is that it was originally very quiet (it's an Acer PC) but now it's kinda loud b/c of all the dust in the PSU and CPU fans, I think.

 

[Strych9]

Originally posted by: Booster
I don't think that dust can do that. I still have an old Pentium II PC lying around, and it's been working for about 5 years in a dusty environment. It's got about an inch thick of dust inside the PSU and the whole moboard is covered with a thick layer of dust. Yet it still worked perfect when I turned it on not long ago. I'm too lazy to clean it. The only downside of dust buildup is that it was originally very quiet (it's an Acer PC) but now it's kinda loud b/c of all the dust in the PSU and CPU fans, I think.

 

[FreedomFighter]

Sometimes condinsasation (sp) can cause a short or a faulty power supply.. Or, a surge could cause it.. My brother had his computer on one day and it just shut off all by it's self.. He tried to turn it back on and it did nothing.. I got out the ole Fluke meter and the power supply was dead.. Sometimes the power supply can just be bad.

My suggestion is if your neighbor goes to replace it again, put some money into a nice one..

Hope this helps,
FF

 

[pcman2002b]

If you want to keep the dust from getting in first cover up that slot with a plate or electrical tape (anything). Then inside the case, (there are two ways to do this) on any parts where fans will be pulling air in you can take a coffee filter and cut it to shape around the grill, granted this reduces air flow a lot, coffee filters were never meant to filter air, just water. Instead if you have any money you can go to a hardware store and buy 1/8 inch thick sheets of pourous foam. The air would flow better through this, and it would still catch dust. Then I would do what the other guy said, canned air blow all the crap out and as much as you can out of the power supply.