Jason Faulkner is the man who brings you our daily tips. He is based in Atlanta, Georgia.Yesterday I wrote about periodically cleaning out the insides of your computer, but I thought I would post a follow up for those who have pets.
We have a couple of cats and a dog, all of which shed a good bit. Of course, this creates a problem as whenever I clean out my computer, there is an abundance of pet hair which accumulates on the inside (having hardwood floors doesn’t help this either) of the computer.
If you do a Google search, you can find a variety of methods for managing this, from the very simple to the really extreme, however the most effective method I have found is that by simply moving the computer case off the floor, the hair doesn’t accumulate nearly as much. Granted, you do have to give up some desk space to accomplish this, but overall it is very effective.
If anyone has any other ideas on how to keep the pet hair out, please post them.
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Rich Menga, a native New Englander residing in Tampa Bay Florida, 
4/28/2008 11:51 am
What I did for this pet hair thing, and it didn’t make me lose any desk space, at least on top, I took and old pallet / skid (the wooden plank kind) cut it down to the size of my hard drive and put the hard drive on top of that, it now sits nice and neat under my desk and a good portion of the cat hair just finds a home under it, until I sweep it out of course.
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4/29/2008 10:16 am
Also, be careful where you place your box of tissues. Every time you pull one out, an almost invisible cloud of paper dust flies out and is sucked into the PC case. I happen to use a LOT of tissues and kept them on my desk near the PC which is also on the desk. When I opened the case, it looked as if it had snowed in there.
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4/29/2008 12:19 pm
Doing the job i do (pc support in a vets office) I see this a lot, The best thing I have found are fan filters. They are quick to fit cheep to buy and WASHABLE. It does not stop the problem altogether but
it helps.
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5/1/2008 11:50 am
Masking-tape all air inlets as far as possible. Have only one powerfuls, temperature-controlled air inlet fan, carefully directed with pieces of coca-cola bottle, so that the cool air points at the CPU & HDD’s.
At the only one POSITIVE-AIR-PRESSURE inlet, put a filter before the incoming air. I used a car’s air filter, or a fabric dust mask. Clean/ replace this one filter as needed. Also, if needed, put in hardware and/ or software temperature monitors, that the filter is letting this cool down.
Beware of having cloth (bedding, clothers, etc) near the air inlets. Avoid air outflow (via the power supply) recycled into the air inflow.
If in tropics, inflow can be tubed from under floor, air conditioner outlet, or cool part of outdoors.
Annually brush dirt of fans: power supply. internals, etc. Don’t use vaccuum clean near fans unless you physically stop the fans from rotating. Over-rotation will destroy the fan (all the above learnt by personal experience).
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5/1/2008 12:06 pm
For a while my computer would go into sleep mode / time out(as normal) when I was not actively using it for 15 minutes; However, it would not come back up after I touched a key or moved the mouse. I had to unplug it and restart it every time. The other day it did this; however, when I unplugged and plugged it back in, nothing happened, other then the LED ligh on the power button coming on (orange sleep color rather than green and computer booting up). I checked the power supply and it has a test switch. When I hold the test switch button in for 5 seconds the power supply fan comes on as does the other fan; however when I release the test switch button they all turn off. The LED on the mother board and the power /on of button LED stay on at all times when the computer is plugged in. Any ideas on what might be wrong?
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