Sergei Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 I know you guys probably pay more attention to your computers than to personal hygiene, so behold and shudder: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/13/ventblockers/ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elmar Bijlsma Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 *looks at keyboard in guilty disgust* Hehe, mine is an open-sided dust collector extraordinaire so I HAVE to clean it regularly or it kills itself. The GPU clogged up a month or two ago, though not remotely as bad as in the pictures. But alas, my keyboard is pretty dire. Such a bugger to clean. I think I'll throw it in the dishwasher one of these days to check if it's actually true you can do that. If it gets fried/drowned I'll happily buy a new one anyway. Beyond cleaning, the current one. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted November 22, 2009 Share Posted November 22, 2009 But alas, my keyboard is pretty dire. Such a bugger to clean. I think I'll throw it in the dishwasher one of these days to check if it's actually true you can do that. If it gets fried/drowned I'll happily buy a new one anyway. Beyond cleaning, the current one. I'm not sure if my trick will help you. Sounds like your situation is much more dangerous for your equipment than mine is, but I keep a wooden toothpick on my desk to pull hair out that has fallen between the keys. Truth be told though, I can see plenty that has gotten so far in that it can't be retrieved by this method, so I guess that I too will be in the market for a new keyboard one of these days. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnergoz Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 Years ago I managed an independent MacIntosh software sales and repair and upgrade store; back when Mac's were little cubes on the desk. I saw many horribly filthy Macs - the worst were owned by smokers of course. And those early Macs did not have a fan (Steve Jobs overruled Steve Wozniak, who wanted a fan but Jobs said they made too much noise) so you can imagine how stuff build up in them. Pretty gruesome and very toxic to handle. Now I would not go near one but back then, we knew no better. And what was found in the keyboards and within the floppy drives defied belief too. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boeman Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 I'm not sure if my trick will help you. Sounds like your situation is much more dangerous for your equipment than mine is, but I keep a wooden toothpick on my desk to pull hair out that has fallen between the keys. Truth be told though, I can see plenty that has gotten so far in that it can't be retrieved by this method, so I guess that I too will be in the market for a new keyboard one of these days. Michael It's precisely for that reason why I despise modern keyboards. You can't remove the key caps to clean the keyboard! I use to have an IBM XT keyboard. Those things were not only rugged but you could lift the key caps and shake out the dirt or wipe it clean. They certainly don't make them like they use to. I'll be in the market for a Macbook Pro once the new revisions are announced by Apple this coming January/February and I intend to pick up a suitable keyboard cover. I recall watching a commercial that featured a keyboard cover which even protects from liquid spills. But sadly I can't recall the product name. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 I recall watching a commercial that featured a keyboard cover which even protects from liquid spills. But sadly I can't recall the product name. I had a clear plastic cover about a decade ago. It had to be removed in order to type though, so it was only of benefit if you left your computer unused for long periods of time. If you are like me, most of the crud falls on it while you are actually using it. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike_the_wino Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 Back in '04 I had a series of computer issues that involved me taking my box to a tech to diagnose and fix. It had lived on the floor, under my desk, in a house with 2 cats and 2 dogs. I was appalled at what came out. The rebuilt machine got elevated and now I regularily pull off the panels and blast the dust off. Which reminds me, it's that time again. Great, but disturbing, link. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted November 24, 2009 Share Posted November 24, 2009 Sergei, Scary! If I'd been on the ball, though, I could've contributed my own pic to the set, in the form of a toroidal "alien" from inside my 800 MHz dual OS snowball iMac. Was frankly amazed the machine ran with that inside it, but there was nothing conductive to short the boards it lay across, else the computer would've surely burned. Boeman and Michael Emrys, Shortly before Christmas last year I put my snowball iMac in the shop, for it was in bad shape. Detailed tests concluded it would need a new motherboard and a new hard drive, so I opted for the cheaper path of replacing my dying snowball iMac with their thoroughly gone through and warranteed snowball iMac and swapping my memory upgrades into the newer rig. In shipping it up here, though, someone left out the keyboard, so the shop here gave me the lovely modern one that came with the new iMacs. Only one problem: the new one doesn't support OS 9! I therefore still am campaigning my old iMac keyboard, which I do dust, clean the keys with rubbing alcohol and vacuum from time to time. JonS, Twisted, but I like it! Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elmar Bijlsma Posted November 24, 2009 Share Posted November 24, 2009 This seems an appropriate thread to post in. Dirty, dirty Mac Two separate US Apple repair centres have allegedly told customers that they couldn't repair their Macs because their machines had been contaminated by cigarette smoke. Are you kidding me?! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stalins Organ Posted November 24, 2009 Share Posted November 24, 2009 Concentrated nicotine is a serious poison - along with many of the otehr 2000+ chemicals that exist in cigarette smoke. I don't know anything about Macs, but if they have a fan drawing air through the computer then the computer will be a filter for everything nasty in the air and so there's a lot more crap in the computer than there is in "normal" 2nd hand smoke. Back when you were allowed to smoke on passenger aircraft we occasinally used to find cracks in the fuselage from the sticky brown mess of concentrated cigarette detritus that would seep through them! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted November 25, 2009 Share Posted November 25, 2009 I don't know anything about Macs' date=' but if they have a fan drawing air through the computer...[/quote'] I may be mistaken, but except for the ill-begotten Cube, all desktop Macs for the last 10-15 years have had fans. My G5 has three of them. Normally only one is in operation, but when I play a computation-intensive game like Civ, for instance, all three come online and it sounds like a jet plane winding up for takeoff. Since I've started reading this thread, I've begun wondering if I shouldn't open it up to see if it's time for a cleaning. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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