Computer Corner

September 2010
Get the Grunge Out!

I’ve had a lot of computers through the years, and we have quite a few at SikhNet too. Every computer (unless its brand new) can benefit from a little regular physical housekeeping. You see, a PC's constantly whirring fans draw in a huge volume of air. Even in a seemingly clean home or office environment, the amount of dust and dirt that can build up inside a PC's case is nothing short of astonishing. This layer of dust literally acts like a sweater on your PC's delicate electronics, preventing them from getting rid of their heat, and heat is the enemy of all electronics.

I’m sure your computer probably looks clean from the outside, but you can't tell from a casual inspection if it really is OK, or if it is slowly cooking itself to death on the inside. At best, excess heat will shorten the life of a PC; if allowed to worsen, it may cause erratic behavior, data errors, lockups, spontaneous reboots, and other intermittent problems; and in the worst cases your computer will stop working completely.

So you see it's not a matter of being fastidious to clean out your computer from time to time: There are real, tangible benefits in terms of increased longevity and reliability. Still, few people I know bother to do it. Perhaps you never thought of it, or perhaps you think it’s an arduous, complex task, requiring exotic gear and specialized knowledge, or that you might break something. Actually it's not hard to do at all.

Whenever I work on someone’s computer, I always turn it off, open it up and look inside. And more often than not, it looks something like this:

Yuck! In this month’s column, let me let me show you just how easy it can be to clean even a seriously dirty system. I promise it will be a snap for you to clean your own PC, and have a cooler-running, longer-lasting computer.

Okay, let's look inside
First shut down your computer and unplug the power cable from the wall socket. The next step is to open the case to actually look inside the PC. Different PC case designs open in different ways, but it's usually a fingers-only exercise with newer PCs, and at worst, may require removal of a couple of screws. It's not hard at all. Most newer PCs require no tools. Instead, finger-operated clips and large thumbscrews make access a snap. In most vertical "tower" or "mini-tower" case designs, the left side of the case (as seen when you face the PC from the front) is designed for easy removal. Work in a well-lighted area. It's easier if you lay the computer down on the floor on its right side, so the left side is up.

There's no single standard way of removing a PC's side panel. Often it is held on by small teeth that engage L-shaped slots along the body of the PC: You slide the side panel straight back a short distance, then lift away from the PC body. In other designs, you pull the panel straight back all the way. Other panels are hinged from an edge, or pull straight out, and so on. Just work carefully, and in good lighting, and you should be able to see how your side panel comes off. You may need to remove a screw or two. If so, set them aside and don't lose them

Where's the dirt?
In most systems, the worst dust is on the fans and around the CPU. The power supply has its own cooling fan; it draws some air from inside the case through these slots cut into the front edge of the power supply housing. As you can see, dirt and dust accumulate here.

If the air entering the power supply was a source of dust, what about where air entered the system as a whole? In this system, the intake air holes are on the front of the case. They look clean from the outside, but that can be deceptive because those air intakes are not the true metal front of the PC, but rather are part of the mostly decorative plastic "bezel." Looking at the bezel may or may not tell you what you need to know about the true front of the case. So: It's smart to pop the bezel off to see what's going on underneath.

Here's why it's a good idea to remove the bezel: Although the bezel's own air-intake holes were clean, look what was accumulating underneath! This is a close-up of a disk drive; other areas under the bezel were just as dirty!

Wow. It looks like the floppy drive is growing a sweater!

Okay, let’s clean it up
Yes, you can use a vacuum to clean out your computer, and I highly suggest that you do that before you use a can of ‘compressed air’ to blow out the dust. You can use that ‘canned air’ to finish the job, but start with the vacuum.

You may have a small ‘dustbuster’ style vacuum, but you can use a full size vacuum cleaner to do the job. Just use the skinny ‘crevice tool’ or a small brush attachment. Carefully vacuum out as much dirt as you can reach. Be gentle and work slowly. Usually the dust will be sucked up without hardly having to touch the parts inside the case.

When you've gotten most of the dust and dirt vacuumed out, you can use "Dust-Off" or a similar "air-in-a-can" product. These inexpensive products can help your cleaning immensely by providing highly controllable, highly directional, very intense bursts of dry, filtered air. The cans usually come with a long plastic nozzle that's ideal for working inside crevices and hard-to-reach places. Many brands of "air in a can" are available. You can get it at Wal-Mart or almost any office-supply store or Radio Shack.

As you blow the dust out of the various crevices and fans, use a cotton swab to prevent fan blades from spinning freely as you blast them with compressed air. This prevents the fan from spinning like a pinwheel, and possibly damaging the bearings or motor.

Once you've worked around the inside of the case, work around the exterior: Use cotton swabs to clean the fans from the outside; and also to hold the fan blades in place as you blast the fans clear with compressed air (see the picture.)

Work carefully and with a bright light when cleaning the power supply: Insert the spray tube deep into the power supply housing to clean the interior components as best you can; but use care not to knock anything loose as you maneuver the tube. And watch out Blowing out a dirty PC will expel a surprising amount of debris, so you may wish to have your vacuum handy to clean up any mess. Next, work around the exterior of the PC, cleaning as before. 

 
Yes, it's a little gross, but this kind of dirt and dust is far better in the trash than in your system!

When your computer is all cleaned up put back the bezel, they usually just snap back on, and lastly replace the side panel. You may have to engage the little tabs and slots and then slide it forward into place and put pack the screws if there were any.

Done!
The system looks clean, well on the outside it may have looked okay when we started, but now it really is clean, and it will run cooler and more reliably than before and last longer too.

If you’ve read this far, here’s a treat for you, Ditto.
Have you ever copied an image or some text to the ‘clipboard’ (i.e., using Copy or Ctrl-C) and then gone to paste it into another document only to find that you copied something over it and what you end up pasting is not what you expected?

Ditto is an extension to the standard windows clipboard. It saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time.

Ditto sits in your system tray and allows you to save any type of information that can be put on the clipboard, text, images, html, pretty much anything. Just pop it up and select any entry by double clicking on it, hitting the enter key or dragging and dropping from Ditto into your target document. If you use more than one computer, it does something even cooler. It encrypts and saves everything you copy to the clipboard to a private space on a server ‘in the cloud’ keeping all your clipboards in sync so you can even copy on one computer and then paste on another! Too cool.

I love it and have gotten used to having “Wahe Guru Ji ka Khalsa, Wahe Guru Ji ki Fateh!” and everything else I use and re-use right at hand with no typing necessary. Yes, as you can see, I used it to write this article. Do take the time to let me know if this column is useful to you, and also, please keep sending me your suggestions for column topics, along with your own tips or cool downloads, so I can share them with the Sangat. Just email them to me at guruka@sikhnet.com

Thanks!  - Guruka Singh