I was also thinking "why do YOU have to clean their computers?" haha Its their PCs so its their job to maintain them. Though I get he gets to make this video because hes doing it.
I mean... water and electricity, it should just be common sense to turn it off... even if you don't know about the CPU/GPU probably running hot ...or the pump running dry being very bad things.
@@agentcrm I mean, leaving a PC running isn't really a bad thing, considering that the bulk of voltage shocks to various chips (including CPU) that can fry said chips typically occurs during the power up phase. I've had a system or two that were working just fine before being turned off, only for them to refuse to ever turn back on, one of which was back in late-2004; An Athlon XP system that I was using for course work at CIT (Canberra Institute of Tech) was working before I packed it up and took it on a 300km drive home after finished the course, only for the system to refuse to power back up once at the new location. At that same home I had a bunch of older desktops going back to 486DX's on BabyAT boards that worked just fine after that same 300km trip just 10-11 months prior, only that Athlon XP system seemed to have died between the final powering off in Canberra and trying to boot it up at home after the trip.
I used to work as a security tech and a client was having issues with their cameras being "laggy". Client owned a storage facility that was on their property across from their house. PC for the cams was in the house. PC was in the kitchen...... on the floor.... by the door that led outside to the dirt pile that was their back yard..... And they had 2 dogs. I have never seen such a neglected PC in my life so I took it back to my shop and spent an entire day cleaning it. To say my allergies were not happy is an understatement. Brought the PC back and hooked it up. Lo and behold, no laggy cameras. Told them some basic things they need to do to clean it and to please move it off the floor and away from the door, but I'm sure nothing was done. In their defense, they were both easily 80 years old and I'm surprised they even knew how to work the PC at all but still, my heart hurt for that lil PC lol
Go to a Metal working shop where there a old PC being used to run the just as old if not older CNC machines. Oily metal filings everywhere, permanent grease stains on the keyboard, and because of the cost of replacing the CNC machines are too high you got to repair this aging way out of date PC.
Former chemistry teacher here. I wonder if the cracking acrylic has to do with possibly thermal expansion and contraction being different between the metal coupling materials and the acrylic itself. The other possibility is that having a high temperature outflow with a colder temperature in flow so close together maybe part of thestory
my bad... I Taught chemistry. I earned graduate degrees in chemistry, physics, and teaching... 🤷♂️ Did I mention thermal expansion, a physics And chemistry concept 🤔
I also found unnecessary to claim your education when it is a normal thing people in this channel are familiar with, no one is asking a professional opinion and you can wonder about such thing as a cook. Unlike the other guy, I'm not criticizing you per se, but why did you thought it added anything? Don't fall into unnecessary internet BS of people saying stuff like that to gain credibility (even if it is true) and be conscious of why you are saying something or it just adds nothing and detracts. On the acrylic thing. Maybe, but it is unlikely it plays a big role because the cracks are around the fitting instead of anywhere within the enclosure. Maybe impurities in the fabrication process come into play + pressure + contact with other material + thermal movement but there is really no need to delve too much since we know the water cooling industry is full of cut corners and prices that don't correlate to quality or processes since it preys on looks, enthusiasms and minimal gains so many people just are on a never ending upgrade cycle to the greatest and latest to actually complain about this type of problem. Set and forget; set, use and move on.
@@Raizan-IO The thing you call "unnecessary Internet BS" is what we're told to do any time we write an academic paper. Establish credibility. It's habit. It's not unnecessary and I think you dislike it because you have some self conscious complex about your education level or which degree you went for as opposed to another.
Granted, you got a video out of it, but your kids totally played you on this one. Instead of cleaning it themselves, they got you to do it for them xD.
As an added bonus - you could get your wife to use an “air duster” to clean it; let her break one of the fans (which you had no idea would happen) and tell her, well, the whole things broke now! Gotta buy a new one On a side note, I’ve had to show my wife a few videos in the past of exactly why she can’t blow an air duster at the fans! lol - saw her do it one day while she was dusting and said she wanted to help clean the computer 😂 bless her heart…
The webbing on acrylic blocks (Especially thicker ones) is due to the stress of material when opposite ends have different heat cycles. (Inside of the block will have warm fluid, whilst cold air is being pushed over the outside. This temperature difference will eventually cause micro cracks. On your block however, its 99% sure also because of over tightening of the fittings alongside what I previously stated (It basically looks way worse)
@@conda2008 Jay's own words in the video in regards to the cracks in the acrylic "It tends to be something that happens to acrylic over time, haven't really figured out why"
@@UnknownEntity420 There's no sensible temp difference: it's a continuous flow, so water doesn't stay inside the WB to absorb heat and then exit allowing colder water to enter. (edit later) Heat cycles and different thermal expansion, on the other hand, could be a possible cause; but only with the help of over torque. EDIT: I read wrong: OP was talking about temp difference between inside and OUTSIDE of the loop, not inside the loop, so yeah: could be that as well.
2:20 "we have dogs... they have a front bonus room.. converted to their computer room.. they love to shut the door.. because we yell.. shut the door.. because they loud.. when gaming" This whole part made me laugh. wow, they some cool dogs if they shut the door when told and play games on pc's lol
Your 15-year-old should not be calling you out on her dirty computer. She is by far old enough to clean out her own PC. Your 9-year-old on the other hand, I can give some leeway to
Pretty sure Jay does EVERYTHING about computers in this house, the question is if he maintains everything why would they even think of doing it themselves? Also he has an air compressor so this is usually a 2min job just for the dust.
One thing I learned from this video is that I have been cleaning my PC in a safe and effective manner. Every Spring and Autumn I take my system outside and use some compressed air to clean out the chassis, filters, etc. Doing this outside means that I can do a really thorough cleaning without sending dust and cat dander all over the house. Let nature recycle that stuff.
@@Thurgosh_OG Because my window is in the side of the house that tends to have the wind current from outside pushing against it. This means that it's impossible to throw dust outside without immediately having some of it coming back in. And since it's wind from outside, my room gets more dusty even after just 3 days, it's SO annoying. I should literally spend 2 hours in cleaning the entire room every single day and it would still feel useless. I can keep it closed but i need to change air here and there and it's still often better to have it open than the door for other reasons. I was wondering to invest in an air filter or something.
To avoid cracks in acrylic watercooling stuff, i use a valve on top of the loop. It removes any difference in pressure. I was tired of everything having cracks after a few years. The highs and lows in temp where i live are very wide apart.
The tube popping out of its fitting could be due to having minimal air in the loop. Water is its densest around 1°C/34°F. When you fill your loop the water is at room temp. As you use the PC, the water will warm up a bit and expand. It may only increase its volume by 1% or so, but it’s effectively incompressible. If you don’t have any air in the loop it will definitely make room for itself somehow, whether that’s popping off a fitting or cracking acrylic somewhere. Let’s say hypothetically you try to account for a 1% expansion. If you leave an air pocket big enough for that 1%, you’ll still break something. As the air gets compressed, some small amount may end up dissolving into the water, but at relatively low pressures it’s probably a negligible amount. If you halve the volume the air takes up, you double its pressure. You’ll blow a fitting long before the water expands to take up most of that space. The other thing to keep in mind is fatigue on the acrylic. Brittle materials fatigue faster than ductile materials, and acrylic is a lot more brittle than copper. When you have these heat cycles, all of the different materials in the loop are expanding and contracting at different rates. Over time this will inevitably cause cracks in the acrylic, and the first place they would likely show up is around the fittings, regardless of whether you’ve over tightened them or not. If you’re seeing random cracks in other places, for instance the sides of tubes/reservoirs/etc, it’s probably from cycles of excess pressure inside the loop. The unfortunate part is unless you’re leaving a giant air pocket, like an entire reservoir’s worth, you’re always going to have some non-negligible change in pressure. Sorry for the long comment. Hope it helps in some way.
Wait a second, Jay's daughter is a teenager and, based on her appearances in your videos, is quite smart. She is more than old enough to get a maintenance kit so she can do her own maintenance for Christmas for her PC (e.g. ESD mat, air blower, screwdriver set, a few brushes). Wouldn't static also be lessened by using a plugged in ESD mat on your desk too? As for the shroud, you could build a fume cabinet - basically, it's a partially sealed hood and table with an extractor fan designed to take nasty gases away from your face and is used for dealing with hazardous chemicals being mixed, like gold potassium cyanide used in the jewellery industry.
Omg thanks Jay you helped fix an issue I was having with audio on my PC for a couple months… The audio, regardless of output, would randomly cut out for a split second like it lost power. I tried a bunch of things to fix this but after this video and someone else online talking about cleaning their laptop fixing an audio stutter issue, I checked inside my case and it was a little dustier than expected. It’s watercooled and I’ve only spent a little time cleaning the glass in the last year since building it. Once I cleaned out the thin layer of dust from basically everywhere inside of it yesterday the issue has gone away! It was happening basically every hour or less and it’s gone now.
I once had a ancient server RAID array fail due to heavy dust build up. That was right at the end of a full working day and my colleague and I then spent the next 10 hours sourcing replacement hardware and rebuilding the array to have the server back online for the users the following morning. That was over 20 years ago and my PC is still regularly cleaned for this precise reason!
Just a suggestion for your cleaning hood idea. Check out using a big tube of water as the filter for the extracted air. It cleans air extremely well, and all you end up with ti clean is a layer of "mud" at the bottom of the water container.
I’m pretty impressed by how clean my fans have stayed without a filter, general dust-offs twice a year, but it is… about time to take them off for a clean. And now I need a detailing brush. Hey random question for random answers, what do I do about an AIO that wants to squeeze its soft little tube against the RAM? Can’t change the orientation because it’s made to go one way and one way only. Next RAM will be as short as possible, but for now I’m seeing this stick and tube squishing together and I’m just waiting for one or the other to fail.
I get you on the pet dander, man, I live in the woods and am moderately allergic to pretty much everything including the local staple crop of the fields surrounding the woods and the city in which I live, so cleaning my PC without a mask and gloves is a terrible experience. /Fun rambling story ahead/ I couldn't sleep the other night so I finally broke down and cracked open my old XBone S a couple weeks ago. It was starting to feel a little hot playing games, and I'd been meaning to for like two years, and I figured I'd repaste it while I was in there lol. It was MUCH cleaner than I thought it would be since I bought it used like six or seven years ago and never did more than hit it with a can of air duster or the vacuum through the exterior vents. While friggen clean af other than the small handful of dust bunnies impacting the airflow and causing the temperature issues so I didn't end up repasting this time, it was the coating of fine dust and pollen around the intakes that did me in. I did it unmasked, and just on the floor of my bedroom in the middle of the night. Thankfully I had the good sense to take the motherboard out on the deck for cleaning, because even though I had my windows open, the fan in the bedroom window going full blast, vacuumed, and made sure to clear out my nose and throat as much as possible, even moving my air purifier in there before laying back down, I felt absolutely terrible for the next three days. Not only did it feel almost exactly like the previous time with covid when it manifested symptoms in my sinuses and also my eyeballs of all places, but I'd never felt so run down and achy from anything other than fluvid and strep, and I swear my nose hasn't ran or drained that much in my life. Heck I woke up feeling so bad the first day I skipped straight past "Oh yeah, I'm allergic to dust and pollen and went to bed in a room filled with it" instead thinking I had perhaps caught some Victorian era sickness and was just about ready to go to the doctor until like day three when I was talking to a friend about cleaning my Xbox and went "Oh yeah..." and finally took the antihistamines I keep next to my bed for this exact situation, and improved dramatically in a few hours lol Worst hay fever ever.
This could be from a bigger problem as well. I am a building performance analyst. Disconnected HVAC ducting on the supply side can lead to dust accumulation in the home. I use a manometer to balance airflow in a case. Positive pressure is key
unless you're cooling a really hot cpu. Unfortunately I really need negative pressure and as much air movement as possible to cool my 7900x, even with a top mounted 360 aio it's still too hot for my liking. I have to clean out my case evey few months and clean my front mesh panel atleast once a week. My case is a Lian Li Lancool 206 with those big ass 160mm front intake fans so they really pull in air...and dust.
@@NonLegitNation2 You might want to check if your mobo defaults to PBO on in the bios. If it blasts the cpu with power, it heats up needlessly and in some cases even slows the system down.
I love how he said he was gonna vaccum it this time (which is what you should do if you don't want most of this sht in your lungs) and 5 seconds later starts spraying the dust all over the place with a brush
My great niece 20 y/o would take her car to the stealership and they would charge her for things that didn't need. Seeing as how I've been a transmission mechanic for 40 years and had all the tools she asked me to help her with her car,I told her we can do the work for a fraction of the cost BUT she will be doing ALL the work. Getting on the ground and dealing with the oil and things like that she has gotten pretty good everything. Like everyone said make your kids handle THEIR computers with your guidance.
Usually I'd agree but cleaning PCs takes time and care and precision while they should probably watch and help where they can. I very much think it isn't something you should just let children at no matter how educated they may be on it.
10:20 Man, seeing an EVGA GPU makes me happy. My first build had one and now they don't make them anymore. I remember I had such a good experience with customer service I told myself all of my GPUs would be EVGA, too. Great video as always Jay. actually kind of funny how your kids called you out their systems haha
You can get a sand blaster cabinet, just no need for the sand or gloves (unless you change them with lightweight anti-static ones, lime green with UV tints looked good and we told people they glowed because it was used to clean the reactor computers).
I was about to suggest the same thing. Could probably incorporate a shop vac/vacuum system with a hepa filter and a line from the air compressor to stay in there as well to do everything without breathing it in
Back in the last century sometime, when I was fairly junior in the world of PC support and most desktops were 286s, I got a call to a printer in one of the warehouses on the site. The problem was tracked down to the elderly PC which was acting as a print server, under the table on which the printer sat. On taking the sleeve-style case off the PC, I searched for screws for the inner case, until I realised that it wasn't a case, but a solid crust of dust which had completely filled the PC and been compressed over time by the fan (just the one fan in those days) so that it was firm to the touch. After excavating the contents of the case from its dusty sarcophagus and running a vacuum cleaner over it, the PC which I had disinterred made a full recovery. It was just the dust insulating every component that led to the thing giving problems, so I just put software updates on it to the current build standard and put it right back in service. I very much doubt if I'll ever see another even nearly as bad as that one, and I've seen most of the classic smoke, vape, hair, animal and human dander contaminants. Smoking tar is the worst as everything sticks to it and it is horribly toxic.
@@AlexGeo-e1i A 15yo isn't a little kid anymore they need to start learning responsibilities that's almost 3 years away from being an adult ,she should be cleaning her own PC not having daddy do all the work like a spoiled brat
I didn't touch my fluid in 5 years and I could have gone longer but the 3770k the loop was attached to kicked it last year. It was the EK premix, one of the many reasons I'm sad to see EK "Harry Kerry" itself.
Very nice video, we would like more of these! I have an expensive PC and for 4 years I have been taking care of the cleanliness and dust in the PC, additionally, the filters in the case help a lot. I have no filters in my apartment, so there is not much you can do except cleaning. I clean my PC myself. Maybe not with a vacuum cleaner, but with a brush and cloths and we have a clean and efficient place. A small amount of dust collects in the PC. As for the thermal pastes, I have to replace them, even though the temperatures are not high under full load. I am currently switching to a new PC. New parts, greater efficiency.Thanks and good luck with Your future PCs!
On your husky--there's a thing called Allerpet that we've used to reduce the allergic reaction to our pets. Wipe them down with a rag with some Allerpet on it every so often, and you can enjoy the pet without having your eyes tear up and sinuses swell shut. Helped us a lot.
Hey Jay. Thanks for making this video. You apologised a few times for it being overly basic, but you have a lot of fans, like me, who are pretty new to the world of PC's. I built my first system a year ago and until watching this video would have worried about unplugging the GPU or unscrewing the AOI to check the thermal paste. As a bit of a noob, I'd worry that when I plugged it back in it might not work and I wouldn't know how to fix it. The things that are "obvious" to all you tech wizards out there are pretty confusing for us noobs. Even little things like how often to change thermal paste, how to change thermal paste, how to clean fans and how often etc. Super helpful video dude. Thanks for remembering the noobs 😂😂
For trying to make a cleaning hood like they have for airbrushing, plastic cardboard is a great option. Super easy to work with and there are channels you can get to join them together for a relatively clean look.
I just had to do this, over this past weekend. I bought a 5 pack of arctic F12s, as my older Fractal 140mm fans were starting to make bearing noise. When opening up my case, I had a lot of dust to clean up, even with filters. So pulled the filters out, cleaned out my case and my parts, washed my filters, and while they were drying, I changed the fans over. Luckily my Fractal case has a dedicated fan board with standard 3 pin connectors. Now my pc is whisper quiet, and running nice and cool again, as the dust clogged filters were driving up my cpu temps.
The whole "don't use a vacuum, you have to blow air" doesn't make any logical sense. How does vacuuming create static and blowing not? Does the air magically know which way it's going?
I use an electric blower to blow the air and dust inside my PC case, and then have the vacuum with a brittle brush end ‘hovering’ close to suck up all the dust xD
On an old build, i built the pc into a desk-like armoire structure. Instead of front-fans, I actually ducted a hepa filter with a like 9" impeller into the pc "chamber", and basically that just ran full-time, whether the pc was on or not. Cleanest pc build ever.
@@WCGwkf dude saying that a child isn’t smart enough to turn off a computer is just wrong. Not everyone who games or uses a computer for work would know that. And what kid fully pays attention to “Dad”?
Regarding the idea of a paint booth, I’ve used a similar system for dust extraction when cleaning avionics units. The original “booth” (they are similar to a small fume cabinet) was connected to a dedicated local exhaust ventilation (LEV) system, and the replacement was simply hooked up to an industrial hoover, the dust is loosened with soft bristle brushes and blown out using a low pressure compressed airline
Or they could, or he could make content. Or perhaps he enjoys it and they hate it. Or perhaps just cause they can doesn't mean they have to. They need to be able to do their own laundry, but that doesn't mean their parents can't sometimes. You must be so fun at parties.
The cracking of the acrylich might be because of the different thermal expansion coefficient between the acrylic and the metal fittings. Over time that might stress the acrylic enough to crack, same as heat cycles might.
for sure dust can short. i had at some point that my internet connection just disconnected and reconnected at random times. I was going nuts trying to figure out what was going on. After some time i found out i missed cleaning the internet connection part on the mainboard(i got 2 cats). When cleaned properly everything worked fine again!!. never epected that.. but yeah there you go. cheers
I have a dust cover on my PC, monitor, and keyboard whenever I'm not using them. Had them for about a few years now. Everything still looks new and I only cleaned them only a few times. I highly suggest getting some.
Keep my mouse and controllers in cases for this exact reason. You'd be surprised how destructive dust can be. I also have crippling OCD though and use a lint roller on my mousepad multiple times a day
In regards to your fume hood shroud idea, it was speculated several years ago that an IT department should have something similar built into a work cart. roll the cart up to a tower that needs its routine cleaning, drop the tower onto the sunken work deck, plug the cart in and turn on the fan/vacuum/blower to suck all of the air around the work area into the cart's storage as you blow out all of the dirt and debris built up since last cleaning. always liked the idea but never got a job remotely connected to IT so i never designed/built one myself.
I keep my rigs pristine- we have 2 Dogs and..... 8 Cats. Blowing works best but the key to not blowing it all over the place: vaccum first to get the obvious stuff, then use the blower to get into all the nooks. I use a keyboard vacuum and a blower that looks almost identical- those little hand blowers are crazy awesome- no need for duster again!
the main concern about a vacuum cleaner is not the electrostatic danger, but the overvoltage due the fans spinning faster than they usually do - this induces voltage ([almost] every motor is also a generator) and depending on how lucky you are damages or destroys your system. A friend of mine destroyed his laptop because of this - So: always hold the fans and don't let them spin! edit: 15:21 mentions this, but you can clearly see the fans free spinning earlier. And this should have been said on the very beginning, and not after two thirds of the video
I'd bring it outside with a compressor and let it blow out there. you can even intermittently dust yourself off with the compressor should you feel the allergy effects setting in. No cleanup that way either, unless the dust has the 'moisture' or 'greasy' characteristics. Cool video!
Another maintenance thing computer people fail to do is back their files up AND routinely test those backups. I too am guilty of not routinely get rid of the dust. As for our HVAC system, we never have to remember to change the filter as the thermostats automatically pop up a warning that it's time to change the filter.
Kid's computers. Teach the kids to blow out their systems regularly. At least remove the grills and blow them out. You can help them take their rigs outside for full-on blowing out. For my main rig, it's heavy, so I bought a small furniture dolly. Put the rig on the dolly and wheel it outside to blow with my heavy duty AC blower. Yea for fan blade goop I use a paint brush before blowing it out just to loosen the crud. That AC blower is worth it's weight in gold but the rig gotta be outside LOL. Make a schedule with the kids, like every 4 weeks or every 6 weeks, do a blow-out weekend. And don't forget to vacuum/blow out the keyboards. They can get grungy. Remove the keycaps and disinfect them too.
De-dusting is easy. Lug the case outside and hit it with a leaf blower on low speed. Easy peasy. Just be sure to stand upwind to avoid the dust cloud. Hardest part is the deadlift of 40 lbs of assorted radiators, waterblocks, pumps-reservoirs and other PC parts.
Dust removal environment: Very large 3D Printer enclosure plus at least 1hp/500+ cfm dust collector. If you modulate the intake path, it will create a very efficient low pressure interior (the interior walls will slightly deform inwards) an you will hurt for nothing on controlling where that dust goes. Should you want to stand in it to do chaser work, increase your intake route or invest in a large grow tent for plants. They can get as large as a closet. While they aren't super cosmetic, I use carbon scrubber filters on my workstation PCs for managing dust (as my big one is out in my workshop sharing space with a CNC), cut to size per installation. Change it out when you notice temps increase over observed normal. It's cheap, porous fabric-adjacent and cuts with regular utility scissors.
About the HVAC filter that is to solely protect the HVAC equipment. Before anybody goes out and buys those high Merv filters. Just know those things create a lot of resistance and they will damage HVAC equipment. If you do not have the appropriate size return. We refer to the intake as the air return
4:31 NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF ZIP TIES!!!!!! I LITERALLY HAVE MY KIDS GTX 1070. HANGING IN FREE SUSPENSION ABOVE HIS SFF PC THAT HAS A 250WAT POWER SUPPLY. IT'S ABSOLUTELY A MARVEL TO BEHOLD
So most issues which don't make any sense is water cooling tubes like this. The maintenance is too high, for a kids PC I'd never go all out like this, it's just more time to waste. But the content is cool. (pun intended)
Listen up, just que up The Gooch Collector song and get started cleaning 1 time a month minimum. Personally I do mine bi weekly. I have a battery powered blower and blow everything out. I have a stick vacuum with attachments to get in hard to reach places. Also, everyone should get a PAINT BRUSH it will really help keeping your KEYBOARD free of debris. Trust me get you a nice 4 incher for that.
After getting a new and much bigger desk, and building a mini-itx pc, I had more than enough space to put it on top of the desk instead. Now the pc collects much less dust and I can see what gathers up on the floor. Worth giving it a try at least.
You should just revisit your old impromptu paint booth idea; cardboard taped to a MERV filter taped to a box fan, and just first break-up and loosen dust while within the booth, so that the box fan can suck most of it towards the filter, then start using the vacuum afterwards.
Thank you Jays kids for this video. ❤ We should have more pc maintenance videos. Great ideas. I put an air filter in my gaming room. I bought a cleaning brush and plan to redo the thermal paste every two years.
I use a few brushes that I bought at Lowes for wood working. They work great for cleaning fans and hard to reach places in the case. As far as nasty looking cases my uncles computer after a year looked 10 times worse that Jays oldest daughters' computer. When I clean his computer, I rip everything out deep clean the whole system then reassemble it. I've got one of those Data vac blowers to help.
I use a trick for keeping several things that need attention the attention they need. I use the time change days to be the trigger that sets off a bunch of making sure that everything gets the treatments they need to keep going. Loads to do but I know that everything needing maintenance gets it.
I built my desktop back in Mai 2018, only thing i've done is clean the filter every 1-2 months. From time to time i'll open the panel and remove the layer of dust on the back plate from my GPU. Yes it's a little dusty but the motherboard is surprisingly clean
Jay, you taught them to think critically and my question is..... Did you then think... "Hey, there is a video here" I hope concurrent to this filming your little ones are watching !! Give a man a fish .....😃
It's wild seeing this as it will show me that these 2 PC's are kept on the floor. I have a PC, built in a Fractal Torrent and it sits off the ground on a desk. I have 2 dogs, a Border Collie and a Border Collie x Cattle Dog so there's a lot of fluff around but very, very little gets to my PC. So yeah, pro tip, if you can ever have your PC NOT be on the floor, do that...PC on desk life is best life.
When i worked in a computershop about 16 years ago and people came in with their old towers like.. it's not working, you'd open it up and there would be an entire animal on the inside 😂😂... dead bugs, spiders and everything hahaha. We'd blow it out with the compressor outside by default, if you stick a finger in the fan before you blow you can stop the fan from spinning, so no issues.
I take my PCs out every six months and use a data vac on them. I literally just did this two days ago. Also, you've give yet another reason for some to not bother with thermal paste, and to simply go with graphite pads. They have no maintenance.
Since the last time I had to clean my PC, I’ve stopped smoking in the room. In just six months, so much tar had built up in the machine that I had to completely disassemble it and clean the entire case and the fans with a steam cleaner. I used a cotton swab and alcohol to remove the black and yellow gunk from the GPU fan. I had to cook the radiator in boiling water because the duster couldn't remove the dirt stuck to it from the tar. If you care about your PC, I recommend doing a small maintenance cleaning and dusting every two weeks to avoid horror-level conditions. Also, I highly do not recommend smoking near your PC.
What I do when vacuum cleaning my computer is I tape the cardboard tube from an empty long roll of paper towels to the end of the vacuum cleaner hose. Never got a shock from cardboard, never hurt my computer this way. I have killed a graphics card once, like 20 years ago, just using the vacuum cleaner with no cardboard tube attached. Sucking up dust through the plastic generates static charge, the motor can also generates static charge. From what I can see in this video, in your static discharge test you discharged to grounded parts, that's fine. If you discharge through a signal trace or similar, things will fry. A static discharge are a few thousand volts.
The lian Li EK Distribution Plate was not designed for this aquarium style water flow. It was designed for using two radiators (top and bottom). When using two radiators your entry port from the top radiator into the distroplate should be one port lower, forcing the water to flow at the right side from top to bottom for a second radiator at the bottom. You used a drain/fill port. But i must say looks cool if you see the water flow.
I've got a calendar reminder to clean the server's fans every 3 months and the other machines every 6-12 months. Definitely worth taking the time to do basic maintenance!
You MIGHT be able to teach the 9 year old how to do a "good enough" cleaning of a PC. Hard for me to fathom that the 15 year old complained to Dad about her dirty computer, but not my house, not my family. Hell, the 15 year old can have cleaning the other computer as a chore....again though, not my house, etc..
i usually change thermal paste on my cpu and gpu every 4 to 6 months that's just me though. yeah those little dusters are a big help too for getting into little crevices and pcie lanes and ram slots. good vid man i thought of making a filter system for when i clean pc's too lol!
In the Winter or when I'm lazy to haul the PC outside, I usually take it to the bathroom and turn on the bathroom exhaust fan. Clean the caked-on dust with a makeup brush and shop towels using a vacuum to collect the dust like in the video, don't recommend vacuuming the computer. Final pass with an air duster still running the vacuum, when following this you won't blow a ton of dust in the room, any dust the escapes the vacuum would get exhausted out from the bathroom fan.
Thermal Cycles. Will loosen fittings and crack plastics. On the day you complete a build, put its birthday in your calendar and clean it and service it on its birthday
you were hyping it up in the build vlogs, but I do like how close Phil can get to where you're working now. way better than the huge square in the old place. Stellar idea
A.) That ain't too bad. I've seen MUCH worse. B.) Allergic or not, you should definitely be wearing a mask. C.) Take those machines OUTSIDE to blow out the dust so it doesn't cycle back into your house. Filters don't get everything. The finest particulate matter goes right through. Just go outside.
It's better to use plastic fittings with acrylic blocks to prevent cracking, especially since glycol can make things worse. Glycol is designed to expand under pressure, which can cause it to crack and heat up, expanding metals, making plastic fittings a better choice. Glycol can also make acrylic more brittle, as it's not meant for that type of plastic, and it eats away at cheap metal fittings. With kids around, metal fittings are not a good idea. Coolant is also problematic, as it stains carpets, is sweet and attracts dogs, and evaporates into the atmosphere, putting your kids at risk. Additionally, using a filter with your air compressor is crucial, as it can release moisture that could short the board. For safety and convenience, it's best to use materials that are designed for the application and non-conductive. An AIO (All-in-One) system is the safest and easiest option.
Me as a motorcycle enthusiast who does maintenance myself that bought a gaming pc last year. Keeping my pc clean is no hassle, its fun to be honest. I clean it every 4 months but one thing scares me most. Is cleaning my GPU, I can see dust there but I'm just too afraid to open it. lol
Wait a minute Jay. Those are not "your computers" those are "their" computers. You should teach and make them clean them like a good dad. 😉
All I could think watching this. Specially the 15yo. Wtf!
I was also thinking "why do YOU have to clean their computers?" haha Its their PCs so its their job to maintain them. Though I get he gets to make this video because hes doing it.
Amen❤
FACTS
Yeah this is absolutely not your job
"Did you turn it off?!"
"Nyoo--"
"Go turn it off!"
Is such a kid move man 😂
Jay doesn't turn his PC's off either. So that's where they've learnt it from.
I mean... water and electricity, it should just be common sense to turn it off... even if you don't know about the CPU/GPU probably running hot ...or the pump running dry being very bad things.
@@ZeroB4NG That "common sense" has to be taught at some stage....
@@agentcrm I mean, leaving a PC running isn't really a bad thing, considering that the bulk of voltage shocks to various chips (including CPU) that can fry said chips typically occurs during the power up phase.
I've had a system or two that were working just fine before being turned off, only for them to refuse to ever turn back on, one of which was back in late-2004;
An Athlon XP system that I was using for course work at CIT (Canberra Institute of Tech) was working before I packed it up and took it on a 300km drive home after finished the course, only for the system to refuse to power back up once at the new location.
At that same home I had a bunch of older desktops going back to 486DX's on BabyAT boards that worked just fine after that same 300km trip just 10-11 months prior, only that Athlon XP system seemed to have died between the final powering off in Canberra and trying to boot it up at home after the trip.
I used to work as a security tech and a client was having issues with their cameras being "laggy". Client owned a storage facility that was on their property across from their house. PC for the cams was in the house. PC was in the kitchen...... on the floor.... by the door that led outside to the dirt pile that was their back yard..... And they had 2 dogs. I have never seen such a neglected PC in my life so I took it back to my shop and spent an entire day cleaning it. To say my allergies were not happy is an understatement.
Brought the PC back and hooked it up. Lo and behold, no laggy cameras. Told them some basic things they need to do to clean it and to please move it off the floor and away from the door, but I'm sure nothing was done. In their defense, they were both easily 80 years old and I'm surprised they even knew how to work the PC at all but still, my heart hurt for that lil PC lol
Go to a Metal working shop where there a old PC being used to run the just as old if not older CNC machines.
Oily metal filings everywhere, permanent grease stains on the keyboard, and because of the cost of replacing the CNC machines are too high you got to repair this aging way out of date PC.
Former chemistry teacher here. I wonder if the cracking acrylic has to do with possibly thermal expansion and contraction being different between the metal coupling materials and the acrylic itself. The other possibility is that having a high temperature outflow with a colder temperature in flow so close together maybe part of thestory
Chemistry has nothing to do in here. It's physics.
my bad... I Taught chemistry. I earned graduate degrees in chemistry, physics, and teaching... 🤷♂️
Did I mention thermal expansion, a physics And chemistry concept 🤔
I also found unnecessary to claim your education when it is a normal thing people in this channel are familiar with, no one is asking a professional opinion and you can wonder about such thing as a cook. Unlike the other guy, I'm not criticizing you per se, but why did you thought it added anything? Don't fall into unnecessary internet BS of people saying stuff like that to gain credibility (even if it is true) and be conscious of why you are saying something or it just adds nothing and detracts.
On the acrylic thing. Maybe, but it is unlikely it plays a big role because the cracks are around the fitting instead of anywhere within the enclosure. Maybe impurities in the fabrication process come into play + pressure + contact with other material + thermal movement but there is really no need to delve too much since we know the water cooling industry is full of cut corners and prices that don't correlate to quality or processes since it preys on looks, enthusiasms and minimal gains so many people just are on a never ending upgrade cycle to the greatest and latest to actually complain about this type of problem. Set and forget; set, use and move on.
Jesus, leave the teacher alone. He was only pointing wisdom.
@@Raizan-IO The thing you call "unnecessary Internet BS" is what we're told to do any time we write an academic paper. Establish credibility. It's habit. It's not unnecessary and I think you dislike it because you have some self conscious complex about your education level or which degree you went for as opposed to another.
Granted, you got a video out of it, but your kids totally played you on this one. Instead of cleaning it themselves, they got you to do it for them xD.
Pops is going to send them the video and what to do. Then kiddos will see the performance gain. Yay.
dad made some money off cleaning dust,
@@AlT-vt3gb True lol.
@@AlT-vt3gba s*** ton of money at that😂
No, they played us. We just watched nothing
I just take a water hose to mine about every two years, strangely about time I get a new PC. PS. don't tell my wife
Well, as a plan.....it works.
That is all a plan needs to do.
Crafty.🤣🤣🤣👍🥃
As an added bonus - you could get your wife to use an “air duster” to clean it; let her break one of the fans (which you had no idea would happen) and tell her, well, the whole things broke now! Gotta buy a new one
On a side note, I’ve had to show my wife a few videos in the past of exactly why she can’t blow an air duster at the fans! lol - saw her do it one day while she was dusting and said she wanted to help clean the computer 😂 bless her heart…
I know a guy whose team would clean mobos like that. He would let it sit in the sun and dry out. He surprisingly never had an issue with it.
classic wife enslaved husband joke ha. ha
The webbing on acrylic blocks (Especially thicker ones) is due to the stress of material when opposite ends have different heat cycles. (Inside of the block will have warm fluid, whilst cold air is being pushed over the outside. This temperature difference will eventually cause micro cracks.
On your block however, its 99% sure also because of over tightening of the fittings alongside what I previously stated (It basically looks way worse)
u do know that he's been doing water cooling for 20+ years im pretty sure he knows about the blocks cracking
i knew their crack but oh well, guess i stuck witj acetal 😮😅
@@conda2008 Jay's own words in the video in regards to the cracks in the acrylic "It tends to be something that happens to acrylic over time, haven't really figured out why"
Being a mechanic my first thought was also over tightening.
Temp difference would make sense too
@@UnknownEntity420 There's no sensible temp difference: it's a continuous flow, so water doesn't stay inside the WB to absorb heat and then exit allowing colder water to enter. (edit later)
Heat cycles and different thermal expansion, on the other hand, could be a possible cause; but only with the help of over torque.
EDIT: I read wrong: OP was talking about temp difference between inside and OUTSIDE of the loop, not inside the loop, so yeah: could be that as well.
2:20 "we have dogs... they have a front bonus room.. converted to their computer room.. they love to shut the door.. because we yell.. shut the door.. because they loud.. when gaming"
This whole part made me laugh. wow, they some cool dogs if they shut the door when told and play games on pc's lol
😂 We all know what he means, but, it's OK, let's have some fun 🐕 , I like having fun ;-)
That explains why this one guy barks every time he kills me in Fortnite!
Lol, noticed that too
@@comictrio you can't mean me, I don't play any shooters ;-)
I think he was talking about the kids, not the dogs 🤦♂🤦♂🤦♂🤦♂
I'm joking
Your 15-year-old should not be calling you out on her dirty computer. She is by far old enough to clean out her own PC. Your 9-year-old on the other hand, I can give some leeway to
Agreed. I was cleaning my own PC by age 12 or 13 already. Fifteen year old doesn't need mommy or daddy to clean the blasted pc, do it yourself.
I see you don’t have a 15 year old daughter.
you don't know her reasoning for wanting him to clean out the pc, for all we know she might be afraid of breaking something!
Pretty sure Jay does EVERYTHING about computers in this house, the question is if he maintains everything why would they even think of doing it themselves? Also he has an air compressor so this is usually a 2min job just for the dust.
Or maybe Jay thought it was a good excuse to make money by doing a video?
9 year old with a 3080 complaining about a dirty PC?
Lol. That's actually pretty funny.
A 3050 is a budget card?
@@insignia406
I know. And it's amusing for a 9 year old child to complain about her 3080 - while I'm cleaning my 1060.
ZERO malice. It's just funny.
Well she doesn't have the skills and tech knowledge yet to do it without worrying they'll break it, which is the last thing you want to do as a kid.
They're good kids, Brent.
@@Lil-watermelon-cat who said anything about a 3050?
One thing I learned from this video is that I have been cleaning my PC in a safe and effective manner. Every Spring and Autumn I take my system outside and use some compressed air to clean out the chassis, filters, etc. Doing this outside means that I can do a really thorough cleaning without sending dust and cat dander all over the house. Let nature recycle that stuff.
That's I handle my own and most of my family's machines. On the plus side, it's almost always windy here so nature does half the work :P
@@bathers107 Yeah but in my case the wind outside brings all the dust i throw away back into my room, so this nature thing is a B to me 😂
What maniac cleans it inside? That's like taking the trash bags out of the can and leaving it on the floor.
@@sasuke65743 How does the wind bring the dust into your room? Can't you close the door/windows to your room to stop that?
@@Thurgosh_OG Because my window is in the side of the house that tends to have the wind current from outside pushing against it. This means that it's impossible to throw dust outside without immediately having some of it coming back in. And since it's wind from outside, my room gets more dusty even after just 3 days, it's SO annoying. I should literally spend 2 hours in cleaning the entire room every single day and it would still feel useless.
I can keep it closed but i need to change air here and there and it's still often better to have it open than the door for other reasons.
I was wondering to invest in an air filter or something.
Just 3080s! How dare you deprive your progeny of VRAM in that manner!
To avoid cracks in acrylic watercooling stuff, i use a valve on top of the loop. It removes any difference in pressure. I was tired of everything having cracks after a few years. The highs and lows in temp where i live are very wide apart.
The tube popping out of its fitting could be due to having minimal air in the loop. Water is its densest around 1°C/34°F. When you fill your loop the water is at room temp. As you use the PC, the water will warm up a bit and expand. It may only increase its volume by 1% or so, but it’s effectively incompressible. If you don’t have any air in the loop it will definitely make room for itself somehow, whether that’s popping off a fitting or cracking acrylic somewhere. Let’s say hypothetically you try to account for a 1% expansion. If you leave an air pocket big enough for that 1%, you’ll still break something. As the air gets compressed, some small amount may end up dissolving into the water, but at relatively low pressures it’s probably a negligible amount. If you halve the volume the air takes up, you double its pressure. You’ll blow a fitting long before the water expands to take up most of that space. The other thing to keep in mind is fatigue on the acrylic. Brittle materials fatigue faster than ductile materials, and acrylic is a lot more brittle than copper. When you have these heat cycles, all of the different materials in the loop are expanding and contracting at different rates. Over time this will inevitably cause cracks in the acrylic, and the first place they would likely show up is around the fittings, regardless of whether you’ve over tightened them or not. If you’re seeing random cracks in other places, for instance the sides of tubes/reservoirs/etc, it’s probably from cycles of excess pressure inside the loop. The unfortunate part is unless you’re leaving a giant air pocket, like an entire reservoir’s worth, you’re always going to have some non-negligible change in pressure. Sorry for the long comment. Hope it helps in some way.
This!
Exactly!
agreed !!
Wait a second, Jay's daughter is a teenager and, based on her appearances in your videos, is quite smart. She is more than old enough to get a maintenance kit so she can do her own maintenance for Christmas for her PC (e.g. ESD mat, air blower, screwdriver set, a few brushes).
Wouldn't static also be lessened by using a plugged in ESD mat on your desk too?
As for the shroud, you could build a fume cabinet - basically, it's a partially sealed hood and table with an extractor fan designed to take nasty gases away from your face and is used for dealing with hazardous chemicals being mixed, like gold potassium cyanide used in the jewellery industry.
Omg thanks Jay you helped fix an issue I was having with audio on my PC for a couple months…
The audio, regardless of output, would randomly cut out for a split second like it lost power. I tried a bunch of things to fix this but after this video and someone else online talking about cleaning their laptop fixing an audio stutter issue, I checked inside my case and it was a little dustier than expected. It’s watercooled and I’ve only spent a little time cleaning the glass in the last year since building it.
Once I cleaned out the thin layer of dust from basically everywhere inside of it yesterday the issue has gone away!
It was happening basically every hour or less and it’s gone now.
I once had a ancient server RAID array fail due to heavy dust build up. That was right at the end of a full working day and my colleague and I then spent the next 10 hours sourcing replacement hardware and rebuilding the array to have the server back online for the users the following morning. That was over 20 years ago and my PC is still regularly cleaned for this precise reason!
Just a suggestion for your cleaning hood idea. Check out using a big tube of water as the filter for the extracted air.
It cleans air extremely well, and all you end up with ti clean is a layer of "mud" at the bottom of the water container.
I’m pretty impressed by how clean my fans have stayed without a filter, general dust-offs twice a year, but it is… about time to take them off for a clean. And now I need a detailing brush. Hey random question for random answers, what do I do about an AIO that wants to squeeze its soft little tube against the RAM? Can’t change the orientation because it’s made to go one way and one way only. Next RAM will be as short as possible, but for now I’m seeing this stick and tube squishing together and I’m just waiting for one or the other to fail.
Those cracks look almost like fatigue cracking in metals.
The tubes and fittings moving even just slightly but repeatedly could be the cause.
You definitely need a room air purifier. Also one of those dog vacuum brushes. HOLY SH*^
I'm an Old man and I don't have a 3080! 🤣🤣🤣
I get you on the pet dander, man, I live in the woods and am moderately allergic to pretty much everything including the local staple crop of the fields surrounding the woods and the city in which I live, so cleaning my PC without a mask and gloves is a terrible experience.
/Fun rambling story ahead/
I couldn't sleep the other night so I finally broke down and cracked open my old XBone S a couple weeks ago. It was starting to feel a little hot playing games, and I'd been meaning to for like two years, and I figured I'd repaste it while I was in there lol. It was MUCH cleaner than I thought it would be since I bought it used like six or seven years ago and never did more than hit it with a can of air duster or the vacuum through the exterior vents. While friggen clean af other than the small handful of dust bunnies impacting the airflow and causing the temperature issues so I didn't end up repasting this time, it was the coating of fine dust and pollen around the intakes that did me in. I did it unmasked, and just on the floor of my bedroom in the middle of the night. Thankfully I had the good sense to take the motherboard out on the deck for cleaning, because even though I had my windows open, the fan in the bedroom window going full blast, vacuumed, and made sure to clear out my nose and throat as much as possible, even moving my air purifier in there before laying back down, I felt absolutely terrible for the next three days.
Not only did it feel almost exactly like the previous time with covid when it manifested symptoms in my sinuses and also my eyeballs of all places, but I'd never felt so run down and achy from anything other than fluvid and strep, and I swear my nose hasn't ran or drained that much in my life. Heck I woke up feeling so bad the first day I skipped straight past "Oh yeah, I'm allergic to dust and pollen and went to bed in a room filled with it" instead thinking I had perhaps caught some Victorian era sickness and was just about ready to go to the doctor until like day three when I was talking to a friend about cleaning my Xbox and went "Oh yeah..." and finally took the antihistamines I keep next to my bed for this exact situation, and improved dramatically in a few hours lol Worst hay fever ever.
This could be from a bigger problem as well. I am a building performance analyst. Disconnected HVAC ducting on the supply side can lead to dust accumulation in the home. I use a manometer to balance airflow in a case. Positive pressure is key
unless you're cooling a really hot cpu. Unfortunately I really need negative pressure and as much air movement as possible to cool my 7900x, even with a top mounted 360 aio it's still too hot for my liking. I have to clean out my case evey few months and clean my front mesh panel atleast once a week. My case is a Lian Li Lancool 206 with those big ass 160mm front intake fans so they really pull in air...and dust.
@@NonLegitNation2 You might want to check if your mobo defaults to PBO on in the bios. If it blasts the cpu with power, it heats up needlessly and in some cases even slows the system down.
I’ve never had spider cracks in acrylic. The only thing that comes to mind is in some non pc related applications when I over torqued screws.
I was thinking the same thing, let the O Rings do their job. No need to he-man the fittings on.
Take it outside to clean it kids.
I love how he said he was gonna vaccum it this time (which is what you should do if you don't want most of this sht in your lungs) and 5 seconds later starts spraying the dust all over the place with a brush
My great niece 20 y/o would take her car to the stealership and they would charge her for things that didn't need. Seeing as how I've been a transmission mechanic for 40 years and had all the tools she asked me to help her with her car,I told her we can do the work for a fraction of the cost BUT she will be doing ALL the work. Getting on the ground and dealing with the oil and things like that she has gotten pretty good everything. Like everyone said make your kids handle THEIR computers with your guidance.
Seems like its a good time to teach them some responsibility and self resilience.
Usually I'd agree but cleaning PCs takes time and care and precision while they should probably watch and help where they can. I very much think it isn't something you should just let children at no matter how educated they may be on it.
Self reliance?
Imma make the youngling clean her PC today. Good advice 🤜🤛🏾
@@corrpendragon
self-re·li·ance
noun
noun: self-reliance
reliance on one's own powers and resources rather than those of others.
@@SeanMain4567 Its not rocket science, I think your making it into more than it is, also his kids are 15 and 9.
He got his kids to build PCs/
10:20 Man, seeing an EVGA GPU makes me happy. My first build had one and now they don't make them anymore. I remember I had such a good experience with customer service I told myself all of my GPUs would be EVGA, too.
Great video as always Jay. actually kind of funny how your kids called you out their systems haha
You can get a sand blaster cabinet, just no need for the sand or gloves (unless you change them with lightweight anti-static ones, lime green with UV tints looked good and we told people they glowed because it was used to clean the reactor computers).
I was about to suggest the same thing. Could probably incorporate a shop vac/vacuum system with a hepa filter and a line from the air compressor to stay in there as well to do everything without breathing it in
You want something more like a fume hood - like a chemistry lab.
Sandblasting cabinets are NOT great to work in - especially with delicate items.
Back in the last century sometime, when I was fairly junior in the world of PC support and most desktops were 286s, I got a call to a printer in one of the warehouses on the site. The problem was tracked down to the elderly PC which was acting as a print server, under the table on which the printer sat. On taking the sleeve-style case off the PC, I searched for screws for the inner case, until I realised that it wasn't a case, but a solid crust of dust which had completely filled the PC and been compressed over time by the fan (just the one fan in those days) so that it was firm to the touch. After excavating the contents of the case from its dusty sarcophagus and running a vacuum cleaner over it, the PC which I had disinterred made a full recovery. It was just the dust insulating every component that led to the thing giving problems, so I just put software updates on it to the current build standard and put it right back in service. I very much doubt if I'll ever see another even nearly as bad as that one, and I've seen most of the classic smoke, vape, hair, animal and human dander contaminants. Smoking tar is the worst as everything sticks to it and it is horribly toxic.
They should be cleaning their own computers out.
You wood let your kid clean a costome water pc ?
@@AlexGeo-e1i It's called "teaching good habits". They're more than old enough to know how to do it by now.
would* not "wood".
@@dangerwr men come on he said his kids are like 9 and 15 you rly gonna told your own to clean a pc that expensive and fragile
@@AlexGeo-e1i I would TEACH them how to instead of doing it for them.
@@AlexGeo-e1i A 15yo isn't a little kid anymore they need to start learning responsibilities that's almost 3 years away from being an adult ,she should be cleaning her own PC not having daddy do all the work like a spoiled brat
I didn't touch my fluid in 5 years and I could have gone longer but the 3770k the loop was attached to kicked it last year. It was the EK premix, one of the many reasons I'm sad to see EK "Harry Kerry" itself.
Do as i say not as i do.
.
.
.
On second thought...
Very nice video, we would like more of these! I have an expensive PC and for 4 years I have been taking care of the cleanliness and dust in the PC, additionally, the filters in the case help a lot. I have no filters in my apartment, so there is not much you can do except cleaning. I clean my PC myself. Maybe not with a vacuum cleaner, but with a brush and cloths and we have a clean and efficient place. A small amount of dust collects in the PC. As for the thermal pastes, I have to replace them, even though the temperatures are not high under full load. I am currently switching to a new PC. New parts, greater efficiency.Thanks and good luck with Your future PCs!
Time to call the Gooch Collector.
Almost need Super Gooch Collector for some of that
On your husky--there's a thing called Allerpet that we've used to reduce the allergic reaction to our pets. Wipe them down with a rag with some Allerpet on it every so often, and you can enjoy the pet without having your eyes tear up and sinuses swell shut. Helped us a lot.
Hey Jay, I'll take the trash out, wash your cars, do the dishes and mow the lawn if you have one...for a 4090 lol...
Hey Jay. Thanks for making this video. You apologised a few times for it being overly basic, but you have a lot of fans, like me, who are pretty new to the world of PC's. I built my first system a year ago and until watching this video would have worried about unplugging the GPU or unscrewing the AOI to check the thermal paste. As a bit of a noob, I'd worry that when I plugged it back in it might not work and I wouldn't know how to fix it.
The things that are "obvious" to all you tech wizards out there are pretty confusing for us noobs. Even little things like how often to change thermal paste, how to change thermal paste, how to clean fans and how often etc.
Super helpful video dude. Thanks for remembering the noobs 😂😂
We need a montage of the little ones running around the new office.
For trying to make a cleaning hood like they have for airbrushing, plastic cardboard is a great option. Super easy to work with and there are channels you can get to join them together for a relatively clean look.
I clean my PC every 2 weeks to keept it dust free
I just had to do this, over this past weekend. I bought a 5 pack of arctic F12s, as my older Fractal 140mm fans were starting to make bearing noise. When opening up my case, I had a lot of dust to clean up, even with filters. So pulled the filters out, cleaned out my case and my parts, washed my filters, and while they were drying, I changed the fans over. Luckily my Fractal case has a dedicated fan board with standard 3 pin connectors. Now my pc is whisper quiet, and running nice and cool again, as the dust clogged filters were driving up my cpu temps.
The whole "don't use a vacuum, you have to blow air" doesn't make any logical sense. How does vacuuming create static and blowing not? Does the air magically know which way it's going?
I use both simultaneously 😁
Blowing air does produce static. It's why you use compressed air or a electric blower that filters out all the particulates.
My assumption is that if you have a vacuum end with fibers, brushing the fibers against stuff may create static
I use an electric blower to blow the air and dust inside my PC case, and then have the vacuum with a brittle brush end ‘hovering’ close to suck up all the dust xD
no worries i have been cleaning my pcs for years with vacuum cleaners, never had any static kill anything
On an old build, i built the pc into a desk-like armoire structure.
Instead of front-fans, I actually ducted a hepa filter with a like 9" impeller into the pc "chamber", and basically that just ran full-time, whether the pc was on or not.
Cleanest pc build ever.
Why didn’t you have your kids learn how to clean their computers?
This was my first thought as well. Like they are using em, they can help clean em. It's good for em.
seems she wasn't smart enough to turn off the pc when the coolant started draining out, would probably break something if they tried themselves
Two words.. content. 😅
@@WCGwkf dude saying that a child isn’t smart enough to turn off a computer is just wrong. Not everyone who games or uses a computer for work would know that. And what kid fully pays attention to “Dad”?
Regarding the idea of a paint booth, I’ve used a similar system for dust extraction when cleaning avionics units. The original “booth” (they are similar to a small fume cabinet) was connected to a dedicated local exhaust ventilation (LEV) system, and the replacement was simply hooked up to an industrial hoover, the dust is loosened with soft bristle brushes and blown out using a low pressure compressed airline
The kids should be cleaning their own PCs lol. If they aren't old enough to maintain it. Then they're not old enough to have a PC
Like a jedi building their light saber.
Jay's girls are smart. They knew exactly what they were doing!
Or they could, or he could make content. Or perhaps he enjoys it and they hate it. Or perhaps just cause they can doesn't mean they have to. They need to be able to do their own laundry, but that doesn't mean their parents can't sometimes.
You must be so fun at parties.
He can't make content with his kids, cleaning their own PCs? @@Xenoch1
You should clean the PCs then since your acting as a parent saying who should and shouldnt have a PC.
The cracking of the acrylich might be because of the different thermal expansion coefficient between the acrylic and the metal fittings. Over time that might stress the acrylic enough to crack, same as heat cycles might.
First
Except for the five people before you.
for sure dust can short. i had at some point that my internet connection just disconnected and reconnected at random times. I was going nuts trying to figure out what was going on. After some time i found out i missed cleaning the internet connection part on the mainboard(i got 2 cats). When cleaned properly everything worked fine again!!. never epected that.. but yeah there you go. cheers
I have a dust cover on my PC, monitor, and keyboard whenever I'm not using them. Had them for about a few years now. Everything still looks new and I only cleaned them only a few times. I highly suggest getting some.
Keep my mouse and controllers in cases for this exact reason. You'd be surprised how destructive dust can be.
I also have crippling OCD though and use a lint roller on my mousepad multiple times a day
Love it that Jay cleans his PC like 90% of us, vacuum cleaner style.
In regards to your fume hood shroud idea, it was speculated several years ago that an IT department should have something similar built into a work cart. roll the cart up to a tower that needs its routine cleaning, drop the tower onto the sunken work deck, plug the cart in and turn on the fan/vacuum/blower to suck all of the air around the work area into the cart's storage as you blow out all of the dirt and debris built up since last cleaning. always liked the idea but never got a job remotely connected to IT so i never designed/built one myself.
I keep my rigs pristine- we have 2 Dogs and..... 8 Cats. Blowing works best but the key to not blowing it all over the place: vaccum first to get the obvious stuff, then use the blower to get into all the nooks. I use a keyboard vacuum and a blower that looks almost identical- those little hand blowers are crazy awesome- no need for duster again!
the main concern about a vacuum cleaner is not the electrostatic danger, but the overvoltage due the fans spinning faster than they usually do - this induces voltage ([almost] every motor is also a generator) and depending on how lucky you are damages or destroys your system.
A friend of mine destroyed his laptop because of this - So: always hold the fans and don't let them spin!
edit: 15:21 mentions this, but you can clearly see the fans free spinning earlier. And this should have been said on the very beginning, and not after two thirds of the video
My CPU started spiking up into the 90C's because of my fan filter being stuffy. After cleaning my CPU dropped with over 20 degrees
Jay, your implication that the air-flow in a computer case being laminar is hilarious... ; )
Yup as a pilot this made me laugh as well
I'd bring it outside with a compressor and let it blow out there. you can even intermittently dust yourself off with the compressor should you feel the allergy effects setting in. No cleanup that way either, unless the dust has the 'moisture' or 'greasy' characteristics. Cool video!
Another maintenance thing computer people fail to do is back their files up AND routinely test those backups. I too am guilty of not routinely get rid of the dust. As for our HVAC system, we never have to remember to change the filter as the thermostats automatically pop up a warning that it's time to change the filter.
Kid's computers. Teach the kids to blow out their systems regularly. At least remove the grills and blow them out. You can help them take their rigs outside for full-on blowing out. For my main rig, it's heavy, so I bought a small furniture dolly. Put the rig on the dolly and wheel it outside to blow with my heavy duty AC blower. Yea for fan blade goop I use a paint brush before blowing it out just to loosen the crud. That AC blower is worth it's weight in gold but the rig gotta be outside LOL. Make a schedule with the kids, like every 4 weeks or every 6 weeks, do a blow-out weekend. And don't forget to vacuum/blow out the keyboards. They can get grungy. Remove the keycaps and disinfect them too.
De-dusting is easy. Lug the case outside and hit it with a leaf blower on low speed. Easy peasy. Just be sure to stand upwind to avoid the dust cloud. Hardest part is the deadlift of 40 lbs of assorted radiators, waterblocks, pumps-reservoirs and other PC parts.
Dust removal environment: Very large 3D Printer enclosure plus at least 1hp/500+ cfm dust collector. If you modulate the intake path, it will create a very efficient low pressure interior (the interior walls will slightly deform inwards) an you will hurt for nothing on controlling where that dust goes. Should you want to stand in it to do chaser work, increase your intake route or invest in a large grow tent for plants. They can get as large as a closet.
While they aren't super cosmetic, I use carbon scrubber filters on my workstation PCs for managing dust (as my big one is out in my workshop sharing space with a CNC), cut to size per installation. Change it out when you notice temps increase over observed normal. It's cheap, porous fabric-adjacent and cuts with regular utility scissors.
About the HVAC filter that is to solely protect the HVAC equipment. Before anybody goes out and buys those high Merv filters. Just know those things create a lot of resistance and they will damage HVAC equipment. If you do not have the appropriate size return. We refer to the intake as the air return
4:31
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF ZIP TIES!!!!!!
I LITERALLY HAVE MY KIDS GTX 1070. HANGING IN FREE SUSPENSION ABOVE HIS SFF PC THAT HAS A 250WAT POWER SUPPLY.
IT'S ABSOLUTELY A MARVEL TO BEHOLD
So most issues which don't make any sense is water cooling tubes like this. The maintenance is too high, for a kids PC I'd never go all out like this, it's just more time to waste. But the content is cool. (pun intended)
Thanks for the reminder! I need to go clean my PC after work today... and it's probably about time for a good re-paste of my CPU as well.
Listen up, just que up The Gooch Collector song and get started cleaning 1 time a month minimum.
Personally I do mine bi weekly. I have a battery powered blower and blow everything out. I have a stick vacuum with attachments to get in hard to reach places. Also, everyone should get a PAINT BRUSH it will really help keeping your KEYBOARD free of debris. Trust me get you a nice 4 incher for that.
After getting a new and much bigger desk, and building a mini-itx pc, I had more than enough space to put it on top of the desk instead. Now the pc collects much less dust and I can see what gathers up on the floor. Worth giving it a try at least.
You should just revisit your old impromptu paint booth idea; cardboard taped to a MERV filter taped to a box fan, and just first break-up and loosen dust while within the booth, so that the box fan can suck most of it towards the filter, then start using the vacuum afterwards.
Thank you Jays kids for this video. ❤ We should have more pc maintenance videos. Great ideas. I put an air filter in my gaming room. I bought a cleaning brush and plan to redo the thermal paste every two years.
I use a few brushes that I bought at Lowes for wood working. They work great for cleaning fans and hard to reach places in the case. As far as nasty looking cases my uncles computer after a year looked 10 times worse that Jays oldest daughters' computer. When I clean his computer, I rip everything out deep clean the whole system then reassemble it. I've got one of those Data vac blowers to help.
I use a trick for keeping several things that need attention the attention they need. I use the time change days to be the trigger that sets off a bunch of making sure that everything gets the treatments they need to keep going. Loads to do but I know that everything needing maintenance gets it.
I built my desktop back in Mai 2018, only thing i've done is clean the filter every 1-2 months. From time to time i'll open the panel and remove the layer of dust on the back plate from my GPU.
Yes it's a little dusty but the motherboard is surprisingly clean
Jay, you taught them to think critically and my question is..... Did you then think... "Hey, there is a video here" I hope concurrent to this filming your little ones are watching !! Give a man a fish .....😃
5:26 Jay the Fan's just need a Mild Clean! BUT, The Radiator is Clogged to HELL!
It's wild seeing this as it will show me that these 2 PC's are kept on the floor. I have a PC, built in a Fractal Torrent and it sits off the ground on a desk. I have 2 dogs, a Border Collie and a Border Collie x Cattle Dog so there's a lot of fluff around but very, very little gets to my PC. So yeah, pro tip, if you can ever have your PC NOT be on the floor, do that...PC on desk life is best life.
Yes your filter idea will work. Many car detailers do this to contain the paint residue when we clean our polishing pads with compressed air.
I recently bought a compuclean blower too, pretty handy (also for cleaning dust under my couch, can't reach with a vacuum)
When i worked in a computershop about 16 years ago and people came in with their old towers like.. it's not working, you'd open it up and there would be an entire animal on the inside 😂😂... dead bugs, spiders and everything hahaha. We'd blow it out with the compressor outside by default, if you stick a finger in the fan before you blow you can stop the fan from spinning, so no issues.
I take my PCs out every six months and use a data vac on them. I literally just did this two days ago.
Also, you've give yet another reason for some to not bother with thermal paste, and to simply go with graphite pads. They have no maintenance.
Since the last time I had to clean my PC, I’ve stopped smoking in the room. In just six months, so much tar had built up in the machine that I had to completely disassemble it and clean the entire case and the fans with a steam cleaner. I used a cotton swab and alcohol to remove the black and yellow gunk from the GPU fan. I had to cook the radiator in boiling water because the duster couldn't remove the dirt stuck to it from the tar. If you care about your PC, I recommend doing a small maintenance cleaning and dusting every two weeks to avoid horror-level conditions. Also, I highly do not recommend smoking near your PC.
What I do when vacuum cleaning my computer is I tape the cardboard tube from an empty long roll of paper towels to the end of the vacuum cleaner hose. Never got a shock from cardboard, never hurt my computer this way. I have killed a graphics card once, like 20 years ago, just using the vacuum cleaner with no cardboard tube attached. Sucking up dust through the plastic generates static charge, the motor can also generates static charge.
From what I can see in this video, in your static discharge test you discharged to grounded parts, that's fine. If you discharge through a signal trace or similar, things will fry. A static discharge are a few thousand volts.
The lian Li EK Distribution Plate was not designed for this aquarium style water flow. It was designed for using two radiators (top and bottom). When using two radiators your entry port from the top radiator into the distroplate should be one port lower, forcing the water to flow at the right side from top to bottom for a second radiator at the bottom. You used a drain/fill port. But i must say looks cool if you see the water flow.
9:01 three hands, how handy!
😮14:22 Lazy Susan right there, spins the PC on the desk... old habits
I've got a calendar reminder to clean the server's fans every 3 months and the other machines every 6-12 months. Definitely worth taking the time to do basic maintenance!
You MIGHT be able to teach the 9 year old how to do a "good enough" cleaning of a PC. Hard for me to fathom that the 15 year old complained to Dad about her dirty computer, but not my house, not my family. Hell, the 15 year old can have cleaning the other computer as a chore....again though, not my house, etc..
Thats why tower dust covers are the best thing
i usually change thermal paste on my cpu and gpu every 4 to 6 months that's just me though. yeah those little dusters are a big help too for getting into little crevices and pcie lanes and ram slots. good vid man i thought of making a filter system for when i clean pc's too lol!
In the Winter or when I'm lazy to haul the PC outside, I usually take it to the bathroom and turn on the bathroom exhaust fan. Clean the caked-on dust with a makeup brush and shop towels using a vacuum to collect the dust like in the video, don't recommend vacuuming the computer. Final pass with an air duster still running the vacuum, when following this you won't blow a ton of dust in the room, any dust the escapes the vacuum would get exhausted out from the bathroom fan.
Thermal Cycles.
Will loosen fittings and crack plastics.
On the day you complete a build, put its birthday in your calendar and clean it and service it on its birthday
Kerby vacumes sells a horse hair brush for vacumes that doesn't produce static
you were hyping it up in the build vlogs, but I do like how close Phil can get to where you're working now. way better than the huge square in the old place. Stellar idea
A.) That ain't too bad. I've seen MUCH worse. B.) Allergic or not, you should definitely be wearing a mask. C.) Take those machines OUTSIDE to blow out the dust so it doesn't cycle back into your house. Filters don't get everything. The finest particulate matter goes right through. Just go outside.
It's better to use plastic fittings with acrylic blocks to prevent cracking, especially since glycol can make things worse. Glycol is designed to expand under pressure, which can cause it to crack and heat up, expanding metals, making plastic fittings a better choice. Glycol can also make acrylic more brittle, as it's not meant for that type of plastic, and it eats away at cheap metal fittings. With kids around, metal fittings are not a good idea. Coolant is also problematic, as it stains carpets, is sweet and attracts dogs, and evaporates into the atmosphere, putting your kids at risk. Additionally, using a filter with your air compressor is crucial, as it can release moisture that could short the board. For safety and convenience, it's best to use materials that are designed for the application and non-conductive. An AIO (All-in-One) system is the safest and easiest option.
I lost it at 18:45 , "bridged shit" I was LOL for real
Dude... "dog dander" is absolutely FOUL lmao
Love that lazy susan! Thank you! People forget about em
Me as a motorcycle enthusiast who does maintenance myself that bought a gaming pc last year. Keeping my pc clean is no hassle, its fun to be honest. I clean it every 4 months but one thing scares me most. Is cleaning my GPU, I can see dust there but I'm just too afraid to open it. lol