Dust in Air Cooled system

[Tamblot]

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Hi everyone, my concern here is how to minimize the entry of dust inside the chassis if air cooling is being used.

Currently i have two 4" fans both @ 240V AC 140mA. I noticed that when i set both as exhaust, all the air is being sucked out of the chassis leaving minimal air flow inside.

I'm planning to make one as exhaust and the other one as intake but my concern is the dust. Lisod kaayo limpyo sa CPU heatsink and the rest of the board.

Any suggestions?

[blade4638]

@Tamblot: imho, you can't have them all- great airflow, less dust, less noise - at the same time. you choose 1 over the others. i used to have either pieces of scotch brite pads (average), stiffeners (good), or fiberfill (best) in front of my intake fans to trap dust while keeping a decent amount of incoming air. fwiw, my intake fans were all tt smartfan2's at full speed. i had to wash/replace the filter materials every month (stiffener and scotch brite) or every 2 months (fiberfill). another good material i haven't tried is silkscreen (used in silkscreen painting).

[jhnpl]

when dusts are all over your PC..just bring it to a gasoline station and blow some pressurize air on it..just be cautious in doing it.

i usually do it pero sa nice day car wash ra ko pahangin....timingon lang nako palimpyo sa sakayanan.

[Tamblot]

@blade4638: i tried stockings once though it traps ample dust but my fans seems to choke.

Can you give me an idea of whats this fiberfill is? where can i buy it?

@jhnpl: I do the same for preventive maintenance. I use the electric blower though. but the dust on the cpu heatsink cant sometimes be removed by simply blowing it up. It really needs cleaning.

Considering the size of my fans - 4 inches, i can only place it on the sides. This makes the incoming air blow directly to the cpu.

[blade4638]

@Tamblot:
yup, stockings also work great; only the smallest dust particles can find their way inside your pc.

fiberfill is what they use to trap dust from air coming into an air-conditioning unit's intake (so dust doesn't get circulated around the room). you can get this at ace hardware (sm) or handyman (jy square) at around 40 - 50 pesos. they let a fair amount of air through and is an excellent dust trap. i used to use 2 layers of these in front of my intake fans; they do a great job and as testament to this, i clean the insides of my pc once in 6 - 8 months, but i change filters every 2 months or so on average because the amount of trapped dust is too much it reduces airflow even more. sometimes, if my case/proc temps are 2 - 3 deg above their "normal" temps (via mbm readings), its filter-changing time na.

[Tamblot]

@blade: if you compare the flow of unfiltered and filtered air using fiberfill, by what percent is it reduced?

[BayouPinoy]

I'd be concerned about "blowing" air through the system to "remove" dust as it might just "wedge" dust, etc. in places where it will create problems. If the cooling fans are removed and air is blown through it, might help abit, but definitely, I wouldn't blow air into the case. Would not recommend taking apart the PSU unless you know what you are doing. A vacuum cleaner is really the ideal tool for this application. Using scotch brite and other similar filters is also common practice and does help minimize internal dust build-up. The filters need to be cleaned or replaced regularly though.

[Tamblot]

good suggestion bayoupinoy, i sometimes do that also. My electric blower has a reversal switch for air flow. Sometimes i do vacuum cleaning but then again, CPU heatsink is a hard-to-clean area considering that there is a fan over it. If i blow or vacuum clean it, im afraid the CPU fan would break due to the high air pressure.

[brown_dog]

@blade4638: i tried stockings once though it traps ample dust but my fans seems to choke.

My filter stokings seems working fine, what are you using in sticking ur filter to the fan?

[koto]

i bought 2 80mm filter for p400 each in ARCtech it really help minimizing the dust inside my case