Topic awaiting preservation: Keep it Clean, Yo

Got my hands on an old-ish machine. It just up and died. The guy that I got it from was a smoker for many years, but he did quit. However, the damage had been done.

The heat sink on the CPU as absolutely clogged with smoker yuck. Zero airflow. Dead computer.

The really weird thing is that the rest of the guts were mostly clean. Well, clean enough to not cause a problem. Minor dust in the power source and under the front face plate. Looks like he did clean it out on occassion, but he completely missed the CPU.

Keep it clean!

I worked in radio for a long time, an electronics laden environment if there ever was one AND at a time when smoking was allowed in the work place. And smoke we did. Unabashedly unchecked & unsympathetic to any non-smoker who may have infiltrated.

Whenever a piece of equipment would breakdown the engineers would tell us time and again...'the biggest danger to all this equipment is nicotine' And sure enough when a sound board or pre-amp was opened ..and this was in the day when electronics consisted largely of tubes/valves of varying sizes... everything... was covered in brownish yellow orange goo. The engineers used to get royally pissed off. There was no denying it. Nicotine was everywhere.

Anyway... I no longer have that problem as I am now coming up on at least 4 years sans nicotine perhaps 5. Can't remember for sure and that is perhaps the best part. -_Q

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"It doesn?t matter to business, if cannibalism were legal, we would all be in cans."

So smoky could damage machines too.. this is new to me..

I quit about 6 years ago after several failed attempts. I got a job at a publishing house and none of my ex-colleagues smoke, so that helped me quit naturally..

Yup, keeping it clean!

vinoun.com

Wow, Rick, I'm almost stunned. I had it in my mind that pretty much everybody here has seen, or at leat heard of, smoke damage to machines. Regular dust is bad enough, but smoker smoke is OMG bad. Do a search some time for "dirty cpu heatsink" or something similiar. You will find all kinds of nasties in regular computers and gaming consoles.

Hey, NoJive, you wouldn't happen to have any photos, would you? I doubt you do, but I am hopefully for some show-n-tell incase you do.

I do remember one machine that I cleaned out with a motor-powered blower. Again, from a smoker. Silly me didn't wear a respirator mask of any kind and boy did I regret that. Had to ventilate for a few hours, burn my clothes, take a shower, shave my head, disinfect, and sterilize.

I just did some searching around and pretty much all I could find is stuff about regular dust accumation. I've never had a problem with regular dust using motor-powered blower (vacuum cleaner out) for such things.

But I couldn't really find much about cleaning smoker damage. So far I've had good luck using... common sense? Blow some out, then get in there with Q-Tips and regular iso alcohol in a bottle. Then blow it some more for missed dust and evaporation.

Now, there is definitely a marked difference between regular dust and smoker yuck. If you haven't seen it, Rick, you will know when you do. Not just by sight, but by smell.

Come ye vets, thoughts or experiences with such things? Regular dust vs. smoker yuck?

Nothing stunning, actually, mr warjournal. I was just lucky to work in an environment were smoking was the last thing that you'd think of. Also, my friends were supportive enough; they told me that I'd never quit, and what better thing to do than to prove them wrong. hahaa.. I feel much better physically since quitting.

vinoun.com

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Hey, NoJive, you wouldn't happen to have any photos, would you? I doubt you do, but I am hopefully for some show-n-tell incase you do.

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Sorry Warj. notta one. Except of course the images permanently burned in what's left of my mind.

This is one of my favorite grossers. http://www.guzer.com/pictures/dirty-keyboard.php

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"It doesn?t matter to business, if cannibalism were legal, we would all be in cans."

quote:

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This is one of my favorite grossers. http://www.guzer.com/pictures/dirty-keyboard.php

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O man.. dude must be playing WoW? I have a friend who's keyboard was filled with ciggies dust. Gross...

vinoun.com