PC Cleaning

Not feeling loved.

Today I had some free time so I decided to clean out our family PC. I personally can't remember the last time I even opened the case so I figured it wasn't going to be pretty. It wasn't. So I disconnected everything and brought it down to my workshop. The patient is a trusty Gateway Essential that's about eight years old. It may not look like much but it gets the job done.

Anyway the outside of the case was in rough shape . I took some Clorox disinfecting wipes and wiped down the outside of the case. After a nice rub down she looked a lot better. That wasn't the worst of it.

Back of case.

Wow is all I can say.

I look in rear and discover that the vent holes for the power supply covered with dust. It's an overheating problem waiting to happen. I opened the case and wasn't as bad as I thought would be. So I took my can of compressed air and commenced blowing out the dust.

Inside view.

Inside view again.

I happened to notice that I was a little lacking in the ventilation department. Luckily I had an extra fan lying around. You should have heard the noise it made. At first it didn't move but with a little coxing I got it to go. Thats when the noise came. Don't think I ever heard one that bad. I immediately shut it down. I remember seeing this trick somewhere. I can't remember exactly or I'd give them credit for it.

Peal back sticker.

First you peal back the sticker on the fan. Then I removed the rubber cover over the bearing. You should see the housing inside. I squirted some WD-40 in it. I closed it back up and reconnected everything. I fired it up and it was much quieter.

Remove cover.

After putting back together I started it up again to make sure everything worked ok. It looked much better and I'm sure it was much happier now. Don't you after a shower? Anyway I was lucky that I wasn't having any overheating problems due to a clogged power supply fan. Well thats all for now. Have a great day!