Ah the joys of computer ownership

[..]

OK sit down, take a deep breath and firmly believe what I am about to write.

My motherboard caught fire.

Yep, fire.
No namby, pamby just a hint of a smell of over heating.

This was a full scale "where's the fire extinguisher?" fire.
This was a "Towering Inferno" fire.
This was a pull the power cord out of the lightning proof power cord thingy fire.

This was a take the PC tower downstairs, take the side of the case off and turn it back on cause I don't belive what happened fire.

This was a bloody hell would you look at that there are flames emanating from the motherboard fire.

So now I have a new PC and the associated fun of rebuilding all the information from my previous hard drive. I had a back up on an external drive and my hard drive wasn't damaged so I'll be (fingers crossed) able to restore all my Emails, Streets & Trips routes, all my turn by turn Word Doc routes etc etc etc.

I think it was a combinatiion of an old PC - over 6 years old and dust bunnies. Even though I had been cleaning out the inside of the PC every 3 months the compressed air couldn't blow off the thin layer of dust clinging to the surface of the motherboard.

So if your PC starts to smell - be afraid, very afraid.
 
Make sure your backup is up to date 

[Stanley Steamer]

 

[Black Pearl's Captain]

So those of us who leave the PC running 24-7 are gonna be surprised someday?

Raymond

[BOOMR]

Dust will kill a computer. Period. This is the # killer of computers, mostly desktops and servers.

All my towers (server and stand desktops) are opened and cleaned every month. Same with the notebooks. Spray can of compressed air, then vac'd with a computer vac with special heads. Notebooke just sprayed.

Numba 1 rule of computing........ BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP. 

[Smokinjoe-VRCCDS#0005]

So those of us who leave the PC running 24-7 are gonna be surprised someday?

Raymond

The one I had before this one started to melt  while we was eating supper a couple years ago.I'm glad I was home and I now turn off the computer after every use.

[Duffy]

Backup? Yes. 

Pull the cover off and clean the inside?  Never. 

Isn't the whole idea of the cover to keep the dust out!? ???

Time will tell I guess. 

[Black Pearl's Captain]

Duffy I have these little balls of cat fur that roll across the floor around the PC, I'm sure most of the dust gets caught by those furballs before it gets sucked into my computer. I don't need no filters on the PC either, the same furballs work just fine. I'm also sure those furballs are completely fireproof.

Raymond

[fudgie]

Duffy I have these little balls of cat fur that roll across the floor around the PC, I'm sure most of the dust gets caught by those furballs before it gets sucked into my computer. I don't need no filters on the PC either, the same furballs work just fine. I'm also sure those furballs are completely fireproof.

Raymond

i' dont know about that. I lit up a cat one day, by accident. 

[Chrisj CMA]

Holy Cow!  My PC is a desktop tower, clamshell type.  I guess I just never thought about opening it up to see if it was dusty in there.  Had this one 5 years or so, that was a lot of dust!!  I used my Shop vac and pancake air compressor first the vacume, then compressed air then vacume and so on until it looked all spanky clean in there.....should the thing run faster now...LOL....I guestimate a couple horse power gained and Im sure the gas mileage will be improved.  Sounds better too

[..]

I had thought mine was squeaky clean but upon closer inspection a thin, hard film of dust was coating the surface of the motherboard.

[Bob E.]

i' dont know about that. I lit up a cat one day, by accident. 

This is a true story...A friend of my mom's where she works has these kids that, well, let's just say they probably shouldn't be left to their own devices for too long.   She gets a call at work one day from her kids asking her to promise not to be mad.  Apparently, their cat had fleas and they figured they would try and help it out by spraying it with Raid bug killer.  They are well-meaning kids but you know kids...sometimes they just don't think too far ahead.  Sometime later, they were out in the yard lighting and throwing smoke bombs around and apparently, one went too close to the cat.  Well, the cat burst into flames.  So they chased the cat around and finally caught it and put it out.  Since it was really only the fur that got burned, the cat was relatively unharmed although understandably traumatized.  So these kids, knowing they couldn't just leave the cat like that all burned up, got out the electric shaver and shaved all of the fur off the cat.  It was the funniest thing to see this cat all shaved up by a couple 10-12 year old boys. 

[Charlie McCready]

Never had a problem myself but a neice had a tower catch fire like Britman's.  I should turn mine off every time but seem to jump up and run whenever I'm finished with whatever I'm doing. Maybe I'll turn it off now. Thanks for the post Britman.....you may have saved some of our homes !!!!

[jammer]

I'm running a 10 yr. old Micron.  I  shut it down between uses & clean it occasionally.  It has thousands of hrs. on it. Harddrive is  backed up for its eminent  doomsday.


G

[ArmyValker]

I can't tell you how many times I've opened a client's computer to find a dust bunny colony firmly established. I'm actually impressed that computers can operate under those conditions at all. A little fire is to be expected.

[SlowRoad]

When I used to work on computers, I worked on a contract in a refrigerator plant. Sometimes, you couldn't see the components on the mother board due to a thick layer of dust in them. It would be almost completely covered. It was amazing that some of them still worked.

The worst I ever got into was in a home. When I opened the computer to see why the CD ROM wasn't working, roaches ran EVERYWHERE.  They don't work well with roaches in the mechanical parts. Printer wasn't working either. Same problem. In the process of working on the printer, I knocked over a dining room chair. Hundreds of roaches ran out of the chair. I called my boss and told her that I would go back one time to replace the parts, but that I would not go back again. She and my supervisor took the call to install the parts. When they left, after finding the nearest place to wash their hands, she called the company that we were contracted to and told them that she would not send anyone else into this house. 

By the way, computers run on smoke. If you let the smoke out, they won't work anymore. 

[Big IV]

I'd have had to stop to dump my tool box out!

I had a friend who was a home health nurse and she was constantly locking her keys in her car. She refused to carry her purse into most of the houses she worked doing rehab. She was afraid the roaches would get into her purse and then into her car and migrate with her.

Wash my hands if I'd done a service call in a roachy house. Probably, but not before dumping my tools and letting the roaches escape out into the wilds somewhere.

[Stanley Steamer]

the old desktop....a can of compressed air took care of it and I also took the opportunity to upgrade my RAM memory sticks while I had the cover off.....I went from one 512M to Two 1G sticks.....but I still have the 333Mz processor.....so what benefits should I see folks??...my large pic album folder still takes a while to load all the thumbnails and such....