I like to dismantle mine and give it a good cleaning about every 6 months

After todays I believe Im gonna hit it like every 3 months.  Wasnt to bad with only a few dust bunnies hoppin' around inside but it made a world of difference on how quiet the machine got after firing it back up.

About messed up though trying to get the CPU heat sink and fan back on.  Screw driver slipped and raked across the board  , thank goodness I didnt hurt it.


Anyway, winters coming, and between the dust in the PCB's and humidity, better do it now and get ahead of the static games hurting it.

I like (the other) Craig's approach better.  Just buy a new kick-butt machine.

I take mine out to the garage every few months and hit it really good with the air compressor. I don't take the heat sink and fan off because I just don't like messing around with the CPU.

It's amazing what comes out of the fans and power supply.

When I build the recording room we were talking about in the other thread, I was thinking of putting the DAW outside of the room and using a wireless keyboard, mouse, and a junction in the wall for everything else I'll need.

Besides keeping it totally silent in the room, it should stay a lot cleaner ... dust is mostly made up of dead skin. Icky. :)

craigb


I like (the other) Craig's approach better.  Just buy a new kick-butt machine.

My old box needs cleaning. I'm having trouble discerning which is the magic dust and which is just static fuzz.

Crg

craigb


I like (the other) Craig's approach better.  Just buy a new kick-butt machine.

My old box needs cleaning. I'm having trouble discerning which is the magic dust and which is just static fuzz.

Most people smoke the magic dust.


just sayin'

You shouldn't take the heat sink/fan off nor remove the CPU. Not much is gonna get in there anyway and unless you are properly removing and replacing the thermal paste you are gonna degrade the sink/fans ability to cool the processor. Also those components tend to be the more finicky parts to dink around with which can lead to stuff like screwdrivers gouging into to things that won't like it as you said. 

Just blast the fan with compressed air and that'll take care of that. Sure remove cards and whatnot but even then the contacts are in place so not much is going to get in there. You can get those little computer micro vacs to get most of that crap out and then loosen up the rest with compressed air (then vacuum that crud out). If you start doing it every few months you shouldn't even need to pull anything apart. Also if it's getting that dusty consider an air cleaner in your computer room and some dust blocking mesh for your case vents. 

But yeah... thermal paste dude. Once you pull the sink of you gotta completely remove and replace it. 

Beepster,

Some CPU heat sinks have removable fans without having to remove the heatsink from the CPU. 

I have said heat sink.

FYI.

Ah yes. My Noctua does as well (two fans on the sides actually) but probably still best to leave the CPU in place especially with pin style (which after reading his specs is not an issue but still might expose the contacts to damage or other stuff like finger poop).

IDK... I read that as him taking the whole thing apart. I'm a little spaced at the moment so I might be conjuring up non issues in my freaky deaky noodle.

Well the heat sink is about the size of a grape fruit.  Easily unclips.  The fins will get plugged with real fine dust so its a necessity in my book. As for the fan it just has 4 small tab locks that it slides right out of.  I think it actually took longer to pull the side panel that had 1 thumb screw off than it did to remove it all including the video card and 4 sticks of memory.  

I would use air to help but my past experience (On postal equipment has taught me NOT to do it). Ive seen it trash hard drives and other drives and not much ya can do when that baby powder sized dust get in it.

LOL Just caught the vac thing,

Yeh I have a nice connection and attachments for my monster shop vac.  That and a nice soft brush did it good.

Yes I tore it all the way down.  Nothing like reseating all the cards to get a good connection established again as well IMO