Staring into the Abyss: Dust Horrors

[Revolution 11]

From my experience over the weekend, I realized that dust has a tremendous impact on temperatures (case, CPU, GPU). Now most people here will say "D'oh" but hear my story first and decide how crazy it is. And please share your own story, we would like to hear it.

Characters [Names Redacted]:
Revolution 11 = Me
Sym = Brother
Jarhead = Cousin

Part One: "What's a PCI-E slot?"
My brother Sym and I went to my cousin Jarhead's house for a family party/dinner. We eventually end up watching my cousin play League of Legends. Sym notices that the back of the PC case (recessed into a desk cavity) was producing a lot of hot air. The PC is a Gateway $1000+ case from 2009.

I ignored him and asked Jarhead about which new GPU he was considering to upgrade from his GTX 260. He said he had no idea and was unsure about upgrading in the first place. I asked why and he replied that he didn't know what exactly was a PCI-E slot and where it would be.

Normally, I would not freak out about this, but I said that surely he has seen some type of slot in the motherboard. Jarhead shrugged and said that he has only opened his case once in his life.

Warning bells screamed in my head. I exclaimed, "How have you been cleaning the PC every few months as you said you were doing a few years ago"?

He replied in a sheepish way, "Oh, I just clean the top and back sides of the case".

Sym started laughing at this, but I could only smack my head in disbelief. I started imagining the horrors inside Jarhead's case.

Sym and I both decided that we would have to do some emergency surgery on his case. I downloaded RealTemp and checked the temperatures before we opened his case........

To Be Continued

 

[aigomorla]

Oh boy... another Computer Fixing thread..

lol

Can ur black hole of dust be greater then mine?

 

[Revolution 11]

Part Two: "You are going to clean that inside?"
RealTemp shows the idle temp to be 67-70 degrees Celsius. Everyone starts freaking out, Sym and I because of the high temperature, Jarhead because we are freaking out.

We turn off the PC, disconnect the cables (there is dust even on the used ports), and open the side.

Sadly, I did not have a camera but the situation was bad. Almost on Aigomoria's Case of Doom but the dust was larger in size.

This is a older ATX case, the power supply is on top, with the fan pointed downwards towards the motherboard. Overall layout is very cramped, it is impossible to reach the RAM without removing the GPU. The CPU cooler is actually quite large, bigger than a Hyper 212 Evo, but the fan is on the top of the heatsink, sucking air from the case side panel into the heatsink. There is a shroud/funnel which directs air from the side panel vent into the CPU heatsink. The cooler fan was carving canyons into the dust which was forming a sediment layer on the inside of the funnel. A single case fan was venting air outwards.

No one knew where to start. All the parts were radiating heat. I decided to give a quick lecture on the various parts so Jarhead would know what a PCI-E slot is.

Then, Jarhead suggested we clean this monster inside. I said, "You're going to clean that inside?"

Sym quickly said he did not want to die young in a cloud of toxic dust. We ended just wiping the side panel vent and the very top edge of the fan shroud.

Restarting the PC was a bit surreal. Sym could actually hear the fans inside the case and feel the intake of air. Turns out that extreme dust is a excellent sound-proofing material.

RealTemp showed idle temperatures of......

To Be Continued

 

[Revolution 11]

Part Three: Fifteen Degrees!
50 degrees Celsius! Wiping that single side vent and the very edge of the shroud dropped idle temperatures by 15 degrees. Load temperatures during Planetside 2 were 57 degrees.

I was shocked. We did not clean any substantial part of the case, except for the side vent. Every fin in the GPU and CPU heatsinks were certainly clogged. There is still a thick layer of dust on the bottom of the case and the GPU backplate.

Needless to say, there was a lot of laughing, mostly at Jarhead's expense. "15 degrees" is becoming a insult phrase among Sym and me for ridiculous situations.

Jarhead will eventually clean his PC, and I will post in a followup post what idle temps he can get. Sym is now doubly focused on cooling, airflow, and dust for his upcoming build.

What kind of temperature/performance/power improvements have you gotten from cleaning dust? Was it as extreme as our 15 degree drop for wiping a vent?