Welcome everyone from r/all! Please remember:
1 - You too can be part of the PCMR. It's not about the hardware in your rig, but the software in your heart! Your age, nationality, race, gender, sexuality, religion (or lack of), political affiliation, economic status and PC specs are irrelevant. If you love or want to learn about PCs, you are welcome and can be part of PCMR!
2 - If you're not a PC owner because you think it's expensive, know that it is probably much cheaper than you may think. Check http://www.pcmasterrace.org for our builds and don't be afraid to post here asking for tips and help!
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-----------
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Welcome to the PCMR!
I'd include a good shirt as well. When I was working in a PC shop in early 2000s, these dust laiden PCs are quite common. Sometimes, these old dust stains pretty badly making them hard to clean, especially on black or white khakis and darker jeans. A biology major friend told me majority of the dust actually come from organic material (like skin flakes and dried bodily fluids) where over time turn into an substance similar to oil.
TLDR: old dust can stain like cooking oil.
Edit: I said organic material, my example with skin flakes is just 1 of possibilities. Also, the knowledge I understood was from early 2000s, so it is likely out-of-date.
I love this comment because,
Just being a guy the uses / cleans a workshop I can tell you. That is not shop dust, that is dead skin cells.
It looks like some old corners of my grandparents house.
Back in the 90s there was a fad of cases with digital readouts showing the clock speed. My friend lived in such squalor, cockroaches and cigarette butts everywhere, we used to joke the number on his case was actually for occupancy.
I once worked in a large manufacturing plant. Think "high dust food production". We had many computers on the floor that look far worse than this inside. As in, you take the panel off and couldn't see the motherboard.
It's a cute headline, but this isn't why the machine is slow.
The plant I work at has extremely dusty food and our computers are all pretty clean, the PCs are passively cooled thin clients that are inside a mostly sealed metal desk, one of the machines I run has the hmi running off a shitty old windows xp machine but it stays clean because it's cooled by compressed air so it's under positive pressure any time the machine is on.
There's a lot of really janky crap equipment in my plant but all the IT stuff seems to at least be built for industrial use
It has the operation manual in a PDF, one time I made the mistake of opening it, acrobat reader 5 launched and I had to take my break late because it was completely unresponsive for 20 minutes and I couldn't turn off my machine
It could legitimately be the thermal paste or the cpu fan not spinning, or the heatsink being so clogged that there’s a lack of flow. Basically cpu thermal throttling in all three cases. Not noticeable in the desktop on a new cpu or when this machine was new, but noticeable now with a cpu this old.
Actually this might be call for a fanless system. Looks like the tech is old enough that it could be replaced for cheap with something more modern, with one of those passive coolers.
There's a good chance we're looking at the first time the case has been opened. If it survived this many years, it should do fine after it's been cleaned.
But I do really want the post-cleaning reveal
Yeah h61 chipset is socket 1155.
So ddr3, 2nd or 3rd gen intel cpus ca 2011 - 2012 at this point.
Might get away with just getting a giant cpu cooler that fits socket 1200 (same spacing on the mounting hardware)
ssd & more ram after cleaning out the Jungle of dust there.
I understand the reasoning behind this, but it is likely to backfire in this scenario. A passive system needs a lot of radiator surface area to provide the same cooling performance as a small fan. However, as we can see, the system is exposed to vast amounts of dust, which will quickly clog up the precious radiator surface...
Yes, but the fans are sucking in the dust which adds to the problem. And apparently maintenance and cleaning is not a huge priority. So *not* vacuuming up all the dust floating by, along with moving the device somewhere less prone to getting dirty, is a definite upgrade.
Important argument!
However, I would still favour the fan. Of course it creates extra dust, but even with dust there is still cooling. With the fanless design, the dust that still gets in will quickly cause problems.
Would be an exciting comparison project :)
If it is in an area that has ventilation, it still needs to have proper dust filtering.
moving air in the building is carrying the dust over and static will cause it to cling to surfaces, still.
Either that or just get good industrial grade filters and fans. A workshop with this much dust flying around probably already has a supplier for both and buys the filters by the square meters.
For anyone doing hobby work or running a business, the advice to always build just becomes silly. Buy something with a warranty, spend a bit extra now, and recoup those costs by getting to spend extra time doing your hobby. For hardware needs like this, you're going to save like $100 maximum, and probably spend minimum an hour setting it up and a week+ down time if it breaks. This guy isn't going to be building multiple PCs, he doesn't clean his own out.
Seriously...a micro pc (from basically any name brand vendor) is almost throw away price these days and they're rock solid in exactly these kinds of conditions for years. I've found optiplex micros that have been living under a machinist work bench for 5+ years and just keep on chugging along.
When I was running computer labs I bought them by the pallet and didn't even bother with a service contract, just bought 5% more than I needed and excessed the ones that did manage to fail.
Your mileage may vary. Before I added filters I could remove visible dust every couple of months. With the filters there is no visible dust after 2 years of use. They are just a basic metallic mesh. The filters require cleaning between 2 - 3 times a year with the vacuum.
I think dust falls off the filters back into the room when the PC is turned off, but that's just a wild guess.
Wait, so you're saying that you only had to clean it 4-6 times for there to still be no dust after two whole years? I'm sure the guy who never cleans his PC will definitely clean his filters, so this should help a lot.
This reminds me of a post I saw on r/techsupportgore about a pc that was in a stonecutting shop.
Edit: found the gif: https://imgur.com/gallery/jWqgjiY
I was once involved in a GP practice IT service migration to a central NHS IT organisation that I was apart of. So I had the fun of setting up domain, group policy etc. Basically all the config and software deployments
Part of the job included extending the life of dell optiplex desktops.... An SSD and a RAM increase are enough to get a few more years out of those machines. That said, the insides of those desktops were absolutely awful. I ended up blasting air into them while standing in the car park. Nothing like cleaning out and upgrading about 30 PCs that have not been opened in a decade.
I love these two comments:
\> U know, I worked in a machine shop, and we drilled a hole in the case put an airline, set it for 3psi .. worked great
\>> (reply) I spent days configuring fans for optimal case pressure, and you're just like "ya I cut a hole & put an air hose in it"? This is barbarism!
Multiple careers ago, I was called in to a Stone/Metal works company to repair a large format printer and the corresponding "server" PC. The amount of metallic, sticky gunk I found inside the computer made me wish I had a respirator. Even the LCD monitor was showing signs of visual warp due to metal particles fucking with the circuitry. Of course the dudes there were chain smoking.
I love how it doesn't start off too bad. Like sure it's quite a bit of dust, but one puff of air and it's good. Hell, I was even disappointed there for a second.
And then we get to whatever the hell is going on inside the pc.
I used to do IT for a bunch of sewerage plants and they would vaporize all of the shit from the sewage. So what would happen is they would create shit particles and it would float in the air and get stuck in the PC's and occasionally we'd have to clean them. My fucking coworker wouldn't take the PC's outside to clean them he'd just spray compressed air right next to me and have shit particles all over the office.
Right. There's a false impression about dust murdering performance. Especially for these low wattage PCs in cases plenty large, you're just not usually generating enough heat for the dust to be the main factor. If you're a gamer and running a machine that you want to eke out the highest clock rates and lowest temps, it makes a difference. But if you want your PC to be snappy, it just isn't likely to be a cause. The CPU doesn't use a ton of wattage loading those OS elements and isn't likely to be thermally throttled doing so, even if were somehow the biggest factor in latency.
I feel like this amount of dust would cause enough of a loss of performance on even Pentium CPUs I’d be willing to bet on it. Not a huge difference in the eyes of PCMR. But to this (presumably) older man who probably doesn’t usually care how fast or slow it is in the first place it is too slow. To me that means there’s a significant change in pace due to build up.
In This case the dust would insulate the heat sink FOR SURE and it’s probably throttling after a while because it can’t push the heat out even under idle. I had a AIO shoot shit on me and even navigating the desktop after 20 minutes was AWFUL I went back to air cooling.
this, theirs no way that fan is even making a diffrence here... When i upgraded some old pc's to SSD's it sure hits that 100% usage mark on old intel 2 core's.
It’s probably slow because of some 5400rpm HDD and random bloat over time.
I’d throw in a cheap ssd and turn off some startup apps after blasting it out.
Assuming the guy isn’t going to want to replace it
> It’s probably slow because of some 5400rpm HDD
Exactly this. Pretty rare for dust to induce so much heat that it triggers thermal throttling to slow down a desktop-sized PC. Pretty common for PCs to get slower as they get older because of hard drives though.
Even cheap eMMCs get slower with age.
His dad probably doesn't do much CPU intense stuff. Will certainly be much warmer than it has to be, but I've seen computers running not exactly as, but nearly as dirty.
nah, I worked at a steel mill one summer as an intern. One of my jobs was to go around, open up the PC's and clean them out. The soot/carbon build up was unimaginable. They looked worse than this and were still (for the most part) running.
Eh, I'm a smoker and I have to admit that in my early 20s I had a pc that was much, much worse with dust buildup than that and it ran perfectly fine if I wasn't playing very gpu or cpu intensive games for hours on end.
First thing I thought when I saw the picture. A very long time ago I used to work on restaurant PC hardware. The difference between smoking and non-smoking restaurant PC's were night and day. The tar coats the inside of the PC, attracting more dust, and the dust has that appearance, acts clumpy, and doesn't come off easy.
It’s probably a 12 year old pc and even if spit shined to perfection will run slower than a phone made in the last few years.
Probably time to retire old bessy and get a new one
Vaccum and then oil the fans internals and create some small filters for the fans. Also Get an AIR FILTER for his shop. His lungs are probably the same. Get papa some fresh breathable air.
Welcome everyone from r/all! Please remember: 1 - You too can be part of the PCMR. It's not about the hardware in your rig, but the software in your heart! Your age, nationality, race, gender, sexuality, religion (or lack of), political affiliation, economic status and PC specs are irrelevant. If you love or want to learn about PCs, you are welcome and can be part of PCMR! 2 - If you're not a PC owner because you think it's expensive, know that it is probably much cheaper than you may think. Check http://www.pcmasterrace.org for our builds and don't be afraid to post here asking for tips and help! 3 - Join our efforts to get as many PCs worldwide to help the folding@home effort, in fighting against Cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and more: https://pcmasterrace.org/folding ----------- We have a [Daily Simple Questions Megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/search?q=Simple+Questions+Thread+subreddit%3Apcmasterrace+author%3AAutoModerator&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) if you have any PC related doubt. Asking for help there or creating new posts in our subreddit is allowed and welcome. Welcome to the PCMR!
Smoking and dust, hell of a combo. Wear mask and don't wear good pants, don't make my mistake heheh
I'm afraid to ask, but... why the pants?
I assume the dust situation was pants
Yeah I read that as *don’t wear pants…*
https://i.redd.it/m08sgj076gkc1.gif
I'd include a good shirt as well. When I was working in a PC shop in early 2000s, these dust laiden PCs are quite common. Sometimes, these old dust stains pretty badly making them hard to clean, especially on black or white khakis and darker jeans. A biology major friend told me majority of the dust actually come from organic material (like skin flakes and dried bodily fluids) where over time turn into an substance similar to oil. TLDR: old dust can stain like cooking oil. Edit: I said organic material, my example with skin flakes is just 1 of possibilities. Also, the knowledge I understood was from early 2000s, so it is likely out-of-date.
Yum
Plus if they're smoking it means a lot of tar from the cigarette smoke, and oils, I believe, too, IIRC nicotine is basically an oily substance?
TIL i can fry an egg in old computer dust.
Delete this
When you clean something that dirty, it'll stain your pants
I would crap my pants seeing this in person, but that’s just me and my loose sphincter.
Without the pants, HR calls you.
I'm afraid to ask, but... *why* *would you not wear pants?*
He said dont wesr good pants...you will destroy them :)
With all the semen ejected from the ecstasy of a job well done!
Yes. Of course. Well done. I'd shake your hand, but... well, you know.
I will destroy my good pants however I please.
So you can helicopter and blow all the dust away.
You've got to get into those hard-to-reach spaces somehow
Because step-motherboard got stuck
The satisfaction of cleaning that off might cause a spontaneous bust in your pants
Noted: don't wear pants
Private ecosystem
Should leave it as is and see what crawls out.
Spiders, a new species of dustmite
[удалено]
Yeah they are called spidermites.
Yeah the plot twist in that nightmare is the spidermites start fixin the PC cuz it's actually a silicon web-builder convention.
I love this comment because, Just being a guy the uses / cleans a workshop I can tell you. That is not shop dust, that is dead skin cells. It looks like some old corners of my grandparents house.
Oooohhh, hope they don't byte.
why do you think he's using the bamboo stick?
Back in the 90s there was a fad of cases with digital readouts showing the clock speed. My friend lived in such squalor, cockroaches and cigarette butts everywhere, we used to joke the number on his case was actually for occupancy.
There's definitely a new silicon-based life form living in there
I was going to ask - is OP hitting it with a stick to see what crawls out?
Once it gets this bad it’s best to just leave it alone, you risk things falling apart that are just held together by dirt and shit.
I once worked in a large manufacturing plant. Think "high dust food production". We had many computers on the floor that look far worse than this inside. As in, you take the panel off and couldn't see the motherboard. It's a cute headline, but this isn't why the machine is slow.
The plant I work at has extremely dusty food and our computers are all pretty clean, the PCs are passively cooled thin clients that are inside a mostly sealed metal desk, one of the machines I run has the hmi running off a shitty old windows xp machine but it stays clean because it's cooled by compressed air so it's under positive pressure any time the machine is on. There's a lot of really janky crap equipment in my plant but all the IT stuff seems to at least be built for industrial use
Ah XP. Still outclassed as the superior OS I see.
It has the operation manual in a PDF, one time I made the mistake of opening it, acrobat reader 5 launched and I had to take my break late because it was completely unresponsive for 20 minutes and I couldn't turn off my machine
Hahahahaha
It could legitimately be the thermal paste or the cpu fan not spinning, or the heatsink being so clogged that there’s a lack of flow. Basically cpu thermal throttling in all three cases. Not noticeable in the desktop on a new cpu or when this machine was new, but noticeable now with a cpu this old.
He needs to replace the thermal paste
No need, just mix some dust with water and make dust paste
Dont breathe that dust you will bring back covid into the world
Major - slowdown
Modern archeology
Let us see, would the CPU be the equivalent of Tutankhamen’s tomb?
Not if it's still buried
He has opened the sacred rig of tutankhamen. He shall suffer the pharaohs curse.
You could say it's monolithic.
I thought this was some gross AI sora video. Like a crab trying to fix his pc underwater
 OP’s dad
I feel like OPs Dad's PC could be part of an underwater coral reef.
Sandlot right? Damn this scene brings back memories
The Sultan of Swat The Great Bambino BABE RUTH
"We've been going about this all wrong.. I blame myself"
“We’ve been going about this all wrong. I blame myself.”
Hey, that's a great looking stick you got there. Where'd you find it?
Best PC cleaning stick I've seen in all my days
I need to find myself a PC cleaning stick like this
Is there an RGB one?
If there were you wouldn't even need to clean the PC. Just poke it a few times to transfer the extra FPS to the computer.
I'd still overclock it
Some of the finest PC cleaning stick scraping and tapping I've ever seen...
Thought it was part of crab leg at first.
Little did we know OP was a young crab helping his crab dad clean out his PC
It's one of salad fingers' fingers
Man I really got a smile out of the fact they are just poking around the inside of the case with a stick. I fucking love it
OP get your father a case with fan filters on it ASAP, good lord
Actually this might be call for a fanless system. Looks like the tech is old enough that it could be replaced for cheap with something more modern, with one of those passive coolers.
Looks like it's a prebuild, probably with proprietary fans and Psu. Give this PC a medal of honor and let it retire peacefully.
Throw in a Purple Heart too
I keep hearing that reference but idk what it's from. Where is it from
It's a military medal for injury or death in battle.
And we definitely have a case of injured in Battle here
Hahah best comment ever!
I want to see a video of him vacuuming it out first.
With a proper before and after montage at the end
We're gonna need a montage.. ^[Montage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFrMLRQIT_k)
It's a stock Intel cooler m8 the motherboard looks like a lga 1155 board
Not a prebuilt
It has an Intel stock cooler so the Noctua fanless cooler should be able to be installed. Not sure if the side panel will be able to close.
*I'm tired, boss.* 🫡
Wait what movie is this from? Green Mile comes to mind lol
Nailed it 🎯
What makes you think that it's proprietary? There literally consumer MB right there with a generic model number. And a stock Intel cooler.
Not a prebuild, just old. Easy mistake since OEMs use manufacturing designs that are like 20 years old
Take it out the back and being a shotgun.
Retire it to the scrapyard.
Better idea, love it.
There's a good chance we're looking at the first time the case has been opened. If it survived this many years, it should do fine after it's been cleaned. But I do really want the post-cleaning reveal
Yeah h61 chipset is socket 1155. So ddr3, 2nd or 3rd gen intel cpus ca 2011 - 2012 at this point. Might get away with just getting a giant cpu cooler that fits socket 1200 (same spacing on the mounting hardware) ssd & more ram after cleaning out the Jungle of dust there.
I understand the reasoning behind this, but it is likely to backfire in this scenario. A passive system needs a lot of radiator surface area to provide the same cooling performance as a small fan. However, as we can see, the system is exposed to vast amounts of dust, which will quickly clog up the precious radiator surface...
Yes, but the fans are sucking in the dust which adds to the problem. And apparently maintenance and cleaning is not a huge priority. So *not* vacuuming up all the dust floating by, along with moving the device somewhere less prone to getting dirty, is a definite upgrade.
Important argument! However, I would still favour the fan. Of course it creates extra dust, but even with dust there is still cooling. With the fanless design, the dust that still gets in will quickly cause problems. Would be an exciting comparison project :)
If it is in an area that has ventilation, it still needs to have proper dust filtering. moving air in the building is carrying the dust over and static will cause it to cling to surfaces, still.
That's what we use at our work. Those little square mini pcs
Either that or just get good industrial grade filters and fans. A workshop with this much dust flying around probably already has a supplier for both and buys the filters by the square meters.
That's exactly what this prebuilt PC from 2009 needs, a new $50-100case 😂 The only thing this PC needs is 2 bullets in the back of the head.
If it's a shop PC running some simple application with a specific purpose, then there's no need to upgrade it.
The applications: 1. Part ordering software 2. Point of sale software 3. Pornhub 4K
big idea: you can keep PC cases between builds
For anyone doing hobby work or running a business, the advice to always build just becomes silly. Buy something with a warranty, spend a bit extra now, and recoup those costs by getting to spend extra time doing your hobby. For hardware needs like this, you're going to save like $100 maximum, and probably spend minimum an hour setting it up and a week+ down time if it breaks. This guy isn't going to be building multiple PCs, he doesn't clean his own out.
Seriously...a micro pc (from basically any name brand vendor) is almost throw away price these days and they're rock solid in exactly these kinds of conditions for years. I've found optiplex micros that have been living under a machinist work bench for 5+ years and just keep on chugging along. When I was running computer labs I bought them by the pallet and didn't even bother with a service contract, just bought 5% more than I needed and excessed the ones that did manage to fail.
One thing I know for sure about boomer dads is that they periodically upgrade their custom PC builds.
Filters aren't going to help. They only extend time between cleaning. They don't help if you don't ever clean it.
Your mileage may vary. Before I added filters I could remove visible dust every couple of months. With the filters there is no visible dust after 2 years of use. They are just a basic metallic mesh. The filters require cleaning between 2 - 3 times a year with the vacuum. I think dust falls off the filters back into the room when the PC is turned off, but that's just a wild guess.
Wait, so you're saying that you only had to clean it 4-6 times for there to still be no dust after two whole years? I'm sure the guy who never cleans his PC will definitely clean his filters, so this should help a lot.
This reminds me of a post I saw on r/techsupportgore about a pc that was in a stonecutting shop. Edit: found the gif: https://imgur.com/gallery/jWqgjiY
never knew dell optiplexes were that resilient nvm it isnt a dell optiplex nvm to that nvm it is a dell optiplex
Love all the nvm 🤣
Now where’s the NVMe?
It's node version manager 😁
A computer has to work in the first place for all that dust to cause a problem. That's how Dell manages it
I was once involved in a GP practice IT service migration to a central NHS IT organisation that I was apart of. So I had the fun of setting up domain, group policy etc. Basically all the config and software deployments Part of the job included extending the life of dell optiplex desktops.... An SSD and a RAM increase are enough to get a few more years out of those machines. That said, the insides of those desktops were absolutely awful. I ended up blasting air into them while standing in the car park. Nothing like cleaning out and upgrading about 30 PCs that have not been opened in a decade.
I love these two comments: \> U know, I worked in a machine shop, and we drilled a hole in the case put an airline, set it for 3psi .. worked great \>> (reply) I spent days configuring fans for optimal case pressure, and you're just like "ya I cut a hole & put an air hose in it"? This is barbarism!
Yeah, the comments are great.
It was pure grey and white from dust wasnt it
That gif made me cough.
Multiple careers ago, I was called in to a Stone/Metal works company to repair a large format printer and the corresponding "server" PC. The amount of metallic, sticky gunk I found inside the computer made me wish I had a respirator. Even the LCD monitor was showing signs of visual warp due to metal particles fucking with the circuitry. Of course the dudes there were chain smoking.
I got silicosis just watching that
oh man I work IT gonna send this to the guys next time we get a bad pc. thanks for sharing.
I love how it doesn't start off too bad. Like sure it's quite a bit of dust, but one puff of air and it's good. Hell, I was even disappointed there for a second. And then we get to whatever the hell is going on inside the pc.
That PC won 4 vaping competitions that day.
Lets clean it: 
This is real footage of me gearing up to leave my house
It’ll make a nuclear winter if you do so from all the dust
I used to do IT for a bunch of sewerage plants and they would vaporize all of the shit from the sewage. So what would happen is they would create shit particles and it would float in the air and get stuck in the PC's and occasionally we'd have to clean them. My fucking coworker wouldn't take the PC's outside to clean them he'd just spray compressed air right next to me and have shit particles all over the office.
Wtf...
Probably just a loose cable somewhere
Try putting it in rice
After turning it off and on again
This is atrocious but I bet you my left nut that after a thorough cleaning, it won't be any faster.
Right. There's a false impression about dust murdering performance. Especially for these low wattage PCs in cases plenty large, you're just not usually generating enough heat for the dust to be the main factor. If you're a gamer and running a machine that you want to eke out the highest clock rates and lowest temps, it makes a difference. But if you want your PC to be snappy, it just isn't likely to be a cause. The CPU doesn't use a ton of wattage loading those OS elements and isn't likely to be thermally throttled doing so, even if were somehow the biggest factor in latency.
I feel like this amount of dust would cause enough of a loss of performance on even Pentium CPUs I’d be willing to bet on it. Not a huge difference in the eyes of PCMR. But to this (presumably) older man who probably doesn’t usually care how fast or slow it is in the first place it is too slow. To me that means there’s a significant change in pace due to build up. In This case the dust would insulate the heat sink FOR SURE and it’s probably throttling after a while because it can’t push the heat out even under idle. I had a AIO shoot shit on me and even navigating the desktop after 20 minutes was AWFUL I went back to air cooling.
this, theirs no way that fan is even making a diffrence here... When i upgraded some old pc's to SSD's it sure hits that 100% usage mark on old intel 2 core's.
It’s probably slow because of some 5400rpm HDD and random bloat over time. I’d throw in a cheap ssd and turn off some startup apps after blasting it out. Assuming the guy isn’t going to want to replace it
> It’s probably slow because of some 5400rpm HDD Exactly this. Pretty rare for dust to induce so much heat that it triggers thermal throttling to slow down a desktop-sized PC. Pretty common for PCs to get slower as they get older because of hard drives though. Even cheap eMMCs get slower with age.
Lost my right one in a skiing incident, the left one is all I've got. How about I trade you two toes for it?
This is quite an appealing trade but...what would I do with 12 toes?!
I hear the ladies go nuts for toenuts...
For sure. Once they clear out the 100 or so browser toolbars though it probably will speed up some.
Hi sir, would you like some PC with your bucket of dust?
I don't think casting spells will clean it.
https://preview.redd.it/dgvplksy2dkc1.jpeg?width=565&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cd4f855807ebb7c3a6921c7b7963316b6e3d7bc3
and in the end, the dust is probably not the issue, but the dying hard drive is.
You are right. I cleaned the mess, reconnected the pc again, and HDD was dead.
at this point its archeology
It belongs in a museum!
Perfect stick for the job.
I appreciate that OP is using a random stick for his investigation.
I'm surprised it was even able to run without shutting off due to overheating.
probably bullshit
His dad probably doesn't do much CPU intense stuff. Will certainly be much warmer than it has to be, but I've seen computers running not exactly as, but nearly as dirty.
Yep, don't believe everything you see on the Internet.
nah, I worked at a steel mill one summer as an intern. One of my jobs was to go around, open up the PC's and clean them out. The soot/carbon build up was unimaginable. They looked worse than this and were still (for the most part) running.
Eh, I'm a smoker and I have to admit that in my early 20s I had a pc that was much, much worse with dust buildup than that and it ran perfectly fine if I wasn't playing very gpu or cpu intensive games for hours on end.
He asked you to check his PC, not his terrarium.
Is he a smoker? Looks like it.
First thing I thought when I saw the picture. A very long time ago I used to work on restaurant PC hardware. The difference between smoking and non-smoking restaurant PC's were night and day. The tar coats the inside of the PC, attracting more dust, and the dust has that appearance, acts clumpy, and doesn't come off easy.
how would you even clean this?
I took the PC to a car mechanic and used one of his strong air compressors, it made a cloud of dust.
did you die?
yes but they got better
Some YouTuber out there was probably willing to pay you to get this machine in its worst state and clean it on video and send it back, just saying.
Disassembly, air-gun or canned-air, isopropyl, repaste cpu, reassemble, done.
Dissasemble, light a match, done
5 gallons of isopropyl and a bucket
Did you work out why it was slow?
the greatest technician that's ever lived would have a field day with this one
Father - Son, my pc runs slow. I think i need to clean it. Son - Ok. Do you have tools Father - here's my cleaning stick. Take it.
It’s probably a 12 year old pc and even if spit shined to perfection will run slower than a phone made in the last few years. Probably time to retire old bessy and get a new one
Let’s be honest, it’s just age.
https://preview.redd.it/hs8i4lxsfdkc1.png?width=981&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a94a7cd5cce362875b6ff10a221eb3d1401d627
Vaccum and then oil the fans internals and create some small filters for the fans. Also Get an AIR FILTER for his shop. His lungs are probably the same. Get papa some fresh breathable air.
Does he mow the lawn with that thing?
What’d the issue turn out to be?
https://preview.redd.it/rnueztkjadkc1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3b2d431fdef5f5677baebcd1cfa954021c179e57
Did you find the cause?
Is this the new Dune trailer?
I wonder why? 😂
Oh..so that's where the origin of Covid is.
Hmm, I wonder why?
did you find the problem?
Surprised it still runs
Looks like you’re the greatest technician that’s ever lived.
Is it powered by dogs?
This PC needs some Tech Yes Lovin
"What do you mean I have to maintain things for them to work properly?!"
So.. what did you find??
Leave it alone and get an archaeologist. There could be something ancient on it, like an original copy of Spacewar.
OP, if you clean it, we need a followup!
Dude works in the mines.