[Ygrec23]

Like everyone, you've heard (at length) about the dangers of viruses, malware and trojans, and taken all kinds of precautions. You've been advised about the kinds of crashes that can occur if you don't defrag your hard drive from time to time, and you defrag assiduously. You've been told about all those suspicious emails that are phishing for your banking and credit card information and zap them as soon as they hit your inbox.

But I'll bet that few of you have heard about dust. Yeah, dust.

I hadn't. So Friday afternoon while blithely typing away the Blue Screen of Death appeared on my monitor (first time in 25 years). And then everything went blank. Black and dead. Couldn't reboot. Couldn't do anything.

Found a guy Saturday morning willing to work weekends for no extra pay. Gave him my tower. Heard from him two hours later. My CPU had burned out, which in turn had fried my motherboard. Because I hadn't cleaned the innards of my machine since I bought it, three and a half years ago. As you might imagine, a dead CPU and motherboard means having to buy a new machine. Luckily I'd bought a spare for Mrs. Ygrec, who insisted, though she never thereafter even learned how to turn it on.

Dust can and will collect inside your desktop or laptop, around your CPU and the little fan that desperately tries to keep things cool. But CPU's run hot, and if you don't help them get rid of the heat, they'll blow up. To keep yourself safe, all you have to do is have one of those little cans of compressed air handy, open your box or laptop, spray the CPU and fan, and you're done! I actually had the compressed air cans, but I didn't clean my box!

If you DON'T do that, you can get into my kind of mess. Although there was a spare handy, it's a 32-bit machine, compared to my 64-bit, which causes all kinds of trouble. And you still have to pay someone to transfer your stuff to the other machine. Unless you're a techie, which I'm not. And after you transfer the stuff you have to spend about a week setting everything up again.

Not pleasant. Buy the compressed air. Clean your machine several times a year. Be safe.

[ECHOES]

Thanks! Sorry to hear about your computer though. I'm glad you're back online!
And a hair dryer on 'cool' setting works well too.

[roads]

Really sorry that happened to you!
Thanks for passing the word on.
Very painful experience.

Roadrunner

[Aslan]

My dell laptop burnt out, just shy of 2 years. Good info

[opopo]

Computers should be opened up and dusted out with cans of air (yes, there are such things, don't blow on them with your own hot air) at least biannually or else they will burn out from overheating. Be very careful and take note of this.

[Feiticeira]

Thank you for the reminder. I've been avoiding messing with my tower at all because I'm a bit paranoid without any grounding straps. Static electricity is rampant this time of year, but I guess I can still clean out my fans. Thanks for the post!

[lynn P.]

Thanks so much for this tip and how important proper cleaning is Ygrec. Can we buy this where we buy computers. It would be nice if the computer people would tell us about this - but I suppose they want us to buy from then again and again lol.

[Ygrec23]

Originally Posted by lynn P.

Thanks so much for this tip and how important proper cleaning is Ygrec. Can we buy this where we buy computers. It would be nice if the computer people would tell us about this - but I suppose they want us to buy from then again and again lol.

You can buy canned compressed air at any office depot or staples, or any computer store for that matter. I guess they'd have it at Walmart and probably Target too.

However, one of the other posters had a great idea, use a hair dryer with the heat turned off (if that can be done, which I don't know).

I still can't believe no one blared this out on any of the websites I frequent. I even carefully make rescue disks and backups and all that stuff. It's not fun. Take care!

Thanks for the tip! This never even occurred to me. You just might have saved my computer! Thanks for sharing, Ygrec.

[sabby]

One thing you want to be careful about when cleaning your own computer innards is to blow "outward" around the motherboard and such. Even while using compressed air and/or a blowdryer, dust can be blown onto the tiny connections and screw them up as well. There are very sensitive parts in your computer that need to be treated carefully.

[notz]

I have two dates on my calendar, 6 months apart where I am reminded to do the following things without delay...no slacking allowed:

• change smoke detector batteries even if I think they're "still good"

• change oil in car - probably should do it more frequently, but I can only do so much, ya know!?

• blow compressed air on computer guts

Thanks Ygrec, you're a good friend to bring this up.

[googley]

How do I get into my laptop to do this? (I have a dell inspiron)

[Ygrec23]

Originally Posted by googley

How do I get into my laptop to do this? (I have a dell inspiron)

Either the printed material that came with your machine should tell you, or you should be able to find out on the Dell website. Take care!

[notz]

Googley, another thought...

There are multiple ways to do calendaring. It depends on many things; what operating system you're using, what mail software you have on your system and what your primary email address is and if you want to be able to access it from anywhere.

If you can tell me some of these, maybe I can help you narrow it down. I'm using Outlook now and I'll probably be using Google Calendar before long.

PM me.

[di meliora]

For the fastidious, a flame-thrower or sandblaster do a very thorough job of cleaning a computer.

[googley]

Notz: I was totally wondering how to get into my lap top to clean it. Not set up a six month calender, lol. Thanks for the offer!

((((((Notz)))))))))

[notz]

Googley!

[lizardlady]

Thanks for the reminder ygrec. One of my previous computers got toasted this way.