dusty Pro Tools cards!!!

[monkey]

Yikes!!! I looked in my g4 the other day and found my 4 month old pro tools cards supper dusty from the fan. Has anyone found problems with this or know a way to clean up? Thanx

[DigiTechSupt]

A can of compressed air should be able to eliminate the dust build-up from the cards. However, you might want to also check the quality of air in your studio since 4 months is not very long to have dirt collect on the cards. Forced air heating systems are much "dirtier" than electric baseboard or hot water heat. If you have one of these ventilation systems, you might want to reduce the air flow into the studio and use a fan or isolated unit to heat/cool the room.

If the computer is sitting on the ground, make sure that you vaccum in and around the chassis, so the fan isn't sucking in any dust from the floor.

Brent

[Barnabas]

Good points from Digi.

Make sure you change (or vacuum) your air filters in your air/heating system. You might have the air ducts professionally cleaned. Dust can accumulate in there. I have an air cleaner in the middle of my room that continually sucks in air near the floor, filters it, and blows it out of the top. You can buy one at any small appliance dealer.

To clean inside the computer, I use a vacuum cleaner and a small paint brush to gently stir up the dust.

If you ever swap cards in the computer, be sure to get the dust out of the card slot before installing a new card or memory.

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Chris Droessler
www.barnabas.com Barnabas MultiMedia

[Lee Blaske]

I've always used a Toro electric leafblower to completely blow the dust out of numerous computers. The only caveat would be if you live in an extremely dry environment, in which case you could possibly have some static electricity problems. Keeping the computer plugged in (and grounded) while blowing things out is probably not a bad idea. After blowing all the junk out of a computer, I finish up by blasting out things like CD ROM and floppy drives with clean canned air. In general, you're much less likely to damage anything in this manner than you are with paintbrushes and vacuum nozzles, becuase with the leafblower, you don't make any physical contact with anything.

Also, I don't think a computer should ever be placed anywhere near the floor, where all the dirt and dust gathers. Get those computers up on shelves that are elevated several feet up from the floor. It makes a **big** difference. You don't want that dust horsing up your removable drives, CD ROM drives, and especially CD burners.

I don't think any serious studio should be without an electric leafblower. They're great for cleaning lots of stuff -- grand pianos, synths, RPG diffusors, Hammond organs, consoles, etc. With consoles, you might also want to follow up with clean canned air on faders, etc., possibly doing a big blow out coinciding with when you plan to treat the faders with CaiLube MCL.

If you're doing a major computer clean-out, it might also be a good time to blow out PCI connectors and RAM slots with canned air, and treat all edge connectors with Caig Pro Gold wipes.

Lee Blaske

[This message has been edited by Lee Blaske (edited October 03, 2000).]

[MacDaddy WGAR]

Very important also...
Your power supply! Pull that baby out and if you reverse the hose on a shop vac can blow lots of crud out. A can of air should do the same thing. I do mine twice a year now at home and will do at work too. The components will last much longer and you should never have to fork over $200 for a new one.

Bill