putey shut down

[flash]

yep purchased a can only a week ago ($22.95) and give the thing a real fine "blow job" even if I must say so myself, I have installed 3 extra fans as well, blowing in the side and sucking out the back to keep the air moving, hopefully this will stop the dust settling, chucked the tv card to gain cooling space and placed an nvidia GE force 8600 gt to replace the dead previous card, this has it's own fan and also stirs the dust, so fingers crossed

[Watchamacallit]

Oh, and I know it's a small thing but vent/fan filters. I would assume your case would already have them, but most people tend to neglect them. I'm lazy and prefer the removable andwashable ones, pull out, wash, dry, insert and done

[flash]

thats a good idea, what are they made of, can I make my own and where would I look to buy the gear or the filters themselves

[OzzieTraveller]

G'day all

Flash - good Q mate
Years ago when I worked in the computer centre of the federal dept of Industry + other stuff, the instructions to users was to leave all computers running, in sleep mode, overnight ... to assist software updates and other maintenance issues. This worked well but sucked up power - well you can imagine what 1400 computers [and laser printers & photocopiers etc etc] would do

For home use the above criteria does not apply in 99.5% of households, so I would suggest you just shut-down and leave it alone

If your house is in a 240v power-problem zone ... brownouts [under 240v] or surges [above 240v] then a half-decent surge-protector board will usually do the job okay
If you are in a lightning strike area, then nothing man-made will assist - disconnect everything from the wall

Years ago I was taken into a house in Bateman's Bay, sthn NSW and shown a house after a lightning strike. It looked like someone with a plumber's oxy-acetylene flame thrower had been around every power point and every appliance ... big black smoke & flame streaks out of everything... dunno what it cost to rewire & repaint the place but it more than a 1/2 decent camera

Hope this helps a bit
Regards, Phil

[flash]

thanks Phil. much appreciated and all taken on board, we are on a "protected line", the main infeed would have to go down before it affected us but we have had a couple of surges, in theory I have protected my gear against that with surge boards even on the printers and modems

[mcdesign]

oh! I call it a lot worse things than that! especially when we had the power surge last year and fried it! cost me just under $1,000 to rebuild it! then within a week the modem suffered the same!

You need a UPS board, 'Uninterupted Power Supply' if you have bad power surges, I have two here after frying a battery pack some years ago, they are not that expensive (compared to a service charge!) and can be bought in most good electrical stores now. Computer and Data drives run through the battery back-up part all other peripherals run through the surge protection part.

[Boofhead]

You need a UPS board, 'Uninterupted Power Supply' if you have bad power surges, I have two here after frying a battery pack some years ago, they are not that expensive (compared to a service charge!) and can be bought in most good electrical stores now. Computer and Data drives run through the battery back-up part all other peripherals run through the surge protection part.

Be aware that there are many different kinds of UPS as well, explained here

Your basic UPS will not necessarily filter all the bad stuff whereas a true online UPS will save just about everything bar a direct lightning strike.

Be aware that most of the cheap surge suppressors, apart from being a fire hazard , have no indication of whether they are still operational. They are all rated for how many and how severe voltage spikes they can handle. Once the limits are exceeded they will no longer protect your equipment and some will even work against you, amplifying the spike further. Laptops, being run on batteries, are not as prone to mains voltage issues.

It is a good practice to unplug any electronic equipment you care about during electrical storms as turning off the power point only disconnects the equipment from the actice wire, the earth and neutral are still connected and can carry damaging spikes from a nearby lightning strike.

[davidd]

About 15 years ago, I was at work, with my computer switched on, when lightning struck the power pole outside. My computer just re-booted, and ran fine, but a computer in the next office that was turned OFF had it's power supply fried! ???

[flash]

funny how these things work out, one fries and the other is fine, thanks for all the feedback, in relation to the suggestion of a dust filter, I answered my own question as to where to acquire them, if anybody is interested they can be found on eBay and very cheap as well!, blew mine out again this morning and it was chocko with dust

[Watchamacallit]

Sounds good flash - I'm a bit of a techie (aka geek ) so passing on my wisdom It's funny, but cooling/airflow is one of the most common things people overlook - but then again, we don't want our pcs sounding like a jet engine when we turn them on.

[flash]

yes mate, heat killed my video card, there are even water cooled jobbys, I dont know much about them but some run water through a cooling system on their heatsink and out through a radiator, I think this is mainly for overclocked game machines, I am thinking of putting a large fan on the front of mine, cut out just above the hard drive and install a "tunnel ram" made from a lump of pvc drain pipe with fan inside, apparently the cooler the machine runs the faster and better it is!

[Watchamacallit]

Generally water cooling is for overclocking machines, or in environments where you need to get every bit of cooling you can (sun rooms, etc). An important thing to remember is the airflow in the case.

There's a whole point on negative/positive airflow too but not really necessary to go over that. The main part is to ensure things like the following:

• Fans are clean
• Dust filters are clean
• Heatsink thermal compound reapplied (every 12 months or so, if you're brave and know what you're doing)
• Good cable management (to improve airflow)
• Good case design (this generally aids airflow, like fans first blowing over HDD, heat being expelled up/out)
• Sufficient direct cooling on hot devices (CPU, GPU, etc. My machine, main GPU is hotter due to heat from 2nd one below it)
• Ensure RAM is kept cool too (though this is only an issue if bad airflow/OC)

Also, depending on your environment - you may want to run with the case sides off or on. There are various factors as to why you'd want to do one or the other. I personally prefer on, but there are days where I take the sides off because it improves the airflow (the chunk fans can suck in more air from outside, not just what's being sucked inside the case) and knocks a few C off my cards.

I'm sure some other people can provide some input on this from too.