Urgent advice needed - Possible damage from home remodeling?

[gaas]

Hey guys. I'm in some real need of advice here.
I'll just cut to it..[bleep]

The home I've got my personal setup running in has invested a lot into remodeling lately that's been occurring non-stop for the past month or two, and it was never an issue for me until the past two weeks when the contractors started to refinish the hardwood flooring.. That's when everything started to going to hell and became really convoluted and stressful by everyone saying different things about how I should've gone about it.
Since I never found one clear answer on google (who can nowadays with filter bubbles?) I decided to leave it be and lightly cover everything with sheets..
I had to move out for about a week and a half and I was just now able to move back in today to find my room I had the contractors seal off full of polyurethane fumes..[bleep]

Let me preface before I go any further by explaining that before they had begun finishing the wood with polyurethane, I had made it a point to visit and check in while they were in the midst of the staining and sanding process just to make sure my mac, 96io, and two pcie accel cards were faring okay..[bleep]
And in doing so I uncovered that the contractors didn't seal my room off as I had instructed before they began staining and sanding, so I then proceeded to diagnostically tear everything down that night and make sure everything ran after cleaning the fine layer of sanded wood that had settled inside and atop the Mac, cards, and 96 -[bleep]I had taken it apart, cleaned everything at the time to the best of my ability, made sure it worked by opening a session, and then shut everything down and re-covered it within many more layers of sheets hoping it would deter anymore bumps in the road. Since I had explained why it was so important to me, how much it cost, and that they had not listened;
The next day I jumped on their asses before they began and they said sorry. I watched them try to seal my room off again with painters tape that would remain throughout the rest of the work they did.[bleep]
A few more days went by and thats when I was able to come back in and discover that the painters tape actually trapped the polyurethane fumes in from the final process..

Right now I'm worried that the very light sanding layer I had to clean from them not listening to me, among the staining and polyurethane fumes might have harmed or shortened my cards/computer/96's life span. And I have no idea who to turn to, what to do about it, or who to seek any advice from..[bleep]
I don't even know if it's as big of a deal as I'm making it out to be. I was told though that they are insured just incase anything did go awry.[bleep]

Do any of you have any insight, experience or support you could kindly share with me?[bleep]

Avid support, chieftechnician, digitechsupport,[bleep]
In your professional opinion, do you think anything could have been damaged or it's life shortened? How should I go about cleaning my pci-e cards from this, and just in general in the future?

I'm really worried right now and I don't have anyone I can easily turn to.. Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this -[bleep]

[Craig F]

assuming everything was turned off and you do not have an electronics vacuum with a toner filter:
1) get a pack of compressed air for electronics dusting
2) take the side off of the computer and the top off of the 96 (careful not to strip or lose the screws)
3) take one piece outside and blow out the dust, then repeat with the other
3b) might as well do the keyboard and any thing else, outside
4) put the side and top back on
5) reconnect the cables
6) a box fan in the window if there are still fumes (this is for you more then the gear)
7) when fumes are not noticeable go for a test run

[the dude]

The only thing I would be concerned about would be dust
And then again unless its really caked on it posses little threat at all
( I've had 192s and accel cards come in just covered deep with dust
But that was not the problem or cause of the problems that I fixed anyways )

The fumes causing problems is not likely what so ever

Just get some compressed air and blow them out

If you still think you may have issues with them please send them in to me
I'll be able to do any repairs needed ( if there even is any )
But it may put you at ease just knowing that everything is good

[gaas]

Originally Posted by the dude

The only thing I would be concerned about would be dust
And then again unless its really caked on it posses little threat at all
( I've had 192s and accel cards come in just covered deep with dust
But that was not the problem or cause of the problems that I fixed anyways )

The fumes causing problems is not likely what so ever

Just get some compressed air and blow them out

If you still think you may have issues with them please send them in to me
I'll be able to do any repairs needed ( if there even is any )
But it may put you at ease just knowing that everything is good

Thank you so much for the replies, Craig & Dude. The only thing I came across on google that lent me a teeny-tiny shadow of relief was a PDF from a repair tutorial explaining how poly fumes wouldn't affect anything at all - but it was the only thing I could find! It wasn't exactly reassuring! The thing that had me seriously worried about all the wood dust though was that from what I had, large amounts of lead were present. Which in my mind had all the flakes & particles interjecting itself into the current that runs through the PCB while potentially creating some sort of scrambling effect.
I went out yesterday and bought a few cans of duster and really plan on going to town here in a few..
I used to normally use a shop vac for years. But after I read more about the static potential I decided to leave it alone! I used to just closely hover over everything, and anything that didn't get caught would either be wiped down or blown away with more duster.

CraigF - I went out and bought two box fans and it worked like a charm! - Since the room had still been somewhat sealed from the leftover tape it created the perfect environment for a vacuum. I placed one that sucked fresh air in one window while the other one blew it out. I left the screens on and the circulation was incredible! I had the room cleared in a few hours

TheDude - Number one, AWESOME user ID. (Great minds think alike). And number two, you repair cards? That's absolutely brilliant of you! You bet your ass I will! I don't think I've ever met anyone that does that before. Now that Avid is dropping support - what are you going to do if they break!? Absolutely brilliant of you, sir. I'll shoot you an email and lets exchange digits! There is a very light layer of dust that's caked on in the middle and on top of both cards that still refuses to come off after using quite a bit of duster. But It's been there since I bought them though, and I still have absolutely no idea how to go about cleaning it safely. I was thinking about using a q-tip to wipe it off, but then I started thinking about how that might be a static-killer. Dude, what's the best way to go about this? And what's the best way, in your opinion, to handle them 'static free' once they're out of the Mac and in your hands, safely?

[albee1952]

Not sure if you mentioned this but, was everything powered OFF. If it was ON, it surely would have sucked lots of dust and fumes, even with covers(I bet you had it off). Question #2, did everything sit still of did you have to move anything? Wondering if maybe a card(HD) got bumped and needs a re-seat? I would probably break down the entire rig and reconnect as if you had moved to a new place Fingers crossed

BTW, not sure if dried poly is conductive or not

[gaas]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Not sure if you mentioned this but, was everything powered OFF. If it was ON, it surely would have sucked lots of dust and fumes, even with covers(I bet you had it off). Question #2, did everything sit still of did you have to move anything? Wondering if maybe a card(HD) got bumped and needs a re-seat? I would probably break down the entire rig and reconnect as if you had moved to a new place Fingers crossed

BTW, not sure if dried poly is conductive or not

Oh no man, Albee - I totally turned everything off! No.. That would have been bad if I hadn't!! I made sure everything was unplugged and sat still throughout the entire process except when I powered on to inspect everything halfway through.. I went ahead and decided to do just that and tear everything down for a thorough cavity search and cleaning
Right now I've got my 96's top off and have been dusting like mad! It was surprisingly clean inside.. I'm about to move onto the Mac next - I figured I'd go ahead and reseat the cards anyway since It's going to be open after I clean them again. I totally used some old fashioned elbow grease tonight and created an anti static wrist band from some stripped speaker wire I had laying around! Just lightly unscrewed one of the chassis screws and tightened it back in for a worry free night!

.. Although I did use the vacuum again out of (bad) habit on the right side of the 96's chassis where the vents are :I
On the other hand it really did the trick!
Thanks for the reply Albee! I'll let everyone know how it goes :]