Ways to reduce dust bunnies.

[popgoesthweasel]

Living in the desert southwest dust is ever present. I have a Cheiftec Matrix midtower case, w/ 4 80mm case fans. Also use an Enermax Noisetaker 420W psu, a standard AMD heatsink and fan, the only other fan is a the stock cooling on my eVga 6800GT. What can I do to reduce the dust bunnies that occupy my case. The case also sits on my desk.

Is it better to have more incoming air versus outgoing air? And what about filters? Any good places online for those?

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by popgoesthweasel Living in the desert southwest dust is ever present. I have a Cheiftec Matrix midtower case, w/ 4 80mm case fans. Also use an Enermax Noisetaker 420W psu, a standard AMD heatsink and fan, the only other fan is a the stock cooling on my eVga 6800GT. What can I do to reduce the dust bunnies that occupy my case.

Basically you can do two things...blow the case out regularly or you can install filters. I prefer to just blow my computers out regularly. Filters tend to clog up quickly (especially in a dusty environment) and end up blocking the airflow into the case.

Originally Posted by popgoesthweasel Is it better to have more incoming air versus outgoing air?

I prefer more exhaust than intake...in fact, I only use exhaust fans, no intakes.

Originally Posted by popgoesthweasel And what about filters? Any good places online for those?

You can get filters here. Or you can make your own. Window screen over the fan opening would work. Nylon stockings too. But like I said, the filters get clogged up pretty fast and you have to clean them often or you'll lose airflow.

Cricket

[forizzle111]

i wud say that cleaning regularly opposed to filters is personal preference, but i WUD suggest that u have more air intake than outtake,because if u have more intake the air will hit the components more than if all the air is being sucked out as soon as in enters. thats my opinion of course

[sdkfz]

nature abhors a vacuum, as long as you set up the exhuast fans so that they are blowing out from the top rear then you could skip a lower front intake.

While it is true that you could use a side mounted fan to blow air onto a specific componet, you need to carefully study the case and the airflow patterns, careful cable management can do more for a cooler computer than all the fans you could realisitcallyy place in a case.

[TwoRails]

I can't remember for sure, but I think it was Toaster that says Scotch-brite pads work very well for filters for in front of the case.

As far as the ratio of incoming versus outgoing aire, a "balanced" setup, or more outgoing is generally recommended. Balanced being like one fan in, one fan out. Or just one or two exhaust fans is good in most situations.

More incoming than outgoing tends to stir up the aire inside the case instead of letting it flow thru the case, which is required for good cooling. Even AMD has recommend to Not use front case fans for this very reason. I have even stopped using front fans and the boxes run very well that way, temp-wise.

[David M]

I use filters and prefer a little more intake than outake because this puts a positive pressure in my case which keeps dust from sneaking in through the cracks. My case gets virtually no dust inside.