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Years ago, when I
first started working on computers, I was asked to repair two computers
that were at one of the tills in the old Gateway Bank. One look inside
those systems, and no one could convince me that they were not a health
hazard. I told my boss that I didn’t think that working on them would
be worth anybody’s while, as the amount of sludge that had accumulated
on the motherboards was just too much. Two things, to be honest; I was
just being lazy. But I was right.

You see, I was
ordered to go ahead and work on the computers, and having locked myself
into a room with them, proceeded to use a hand-jet first to blow the
dust off the insides of those computers. However, it all turned out to
be a waste of time, as the computers died soon afterwards anyway.
Hazarding a guess now, I think it was the extras, such as sludge, that
caused it. Maybe it was the fact that I was just a trainee then, but we
will never know.

What I do know for
a fact now is that dust is a particularly fine killer of computers.
Dust particles vary in size from as small as microns to as large as
micrometers. The larger particles tend to fall and stick to surfaces,
whilst the smaller ones tend to remain in the air. Dust particles
contain anything from skin cells, liquids (water or oils), organic
materials, minerals, metals, all depending on the environment in
question.

In a normal office
environment, the problems associated with dust are usually kept to a
minimum. Nevertheless, over time, there are certain crevices that your
cleaner cannot get to, and one of those crevices is the inside of your
computer.

Dust is dangerous
What effect can dust have on computers and electrical equipment? Dust
can have serious effects on our health, from causing asthma and
allergies, to more severe respiratory problems. Like us, our computers
need to breathe. Dust can block filters and prevent air from flowing
through the computer. This makes it act as an insulator, which can add
to the heat build up, thus causing it to overheat.

Dust can also cause
a short in circuit boards and integrated circuits, leading to the
computer crash and in some cases, even catch fire. It can clog up some
of the computer’s moving parts, such as the disk drives and even block
input devices such as USB ports.

There are a number
of ways of eliminating and reducing dust. Protective covers can be used
as a temporary but cheap method of preventing dust particles from
getting into your computer.

However, a more
permanent approach to protecting your computer is to use a specialist
computer enclosure. These enclosures can house your existing computers,
protecting them from dust, but with the added advantage of allowing you
to replace or upgrade your IT whilst still keeping the same enclosures,
which can also protect your equipment from fire and impact. Nothing,
though, beats a routing clean-up of the entire system. Open it up and
have a hand-jet run over it.

While it may not look like much, dust is actually responsible for
hours upon hours of downtime. Protect your computer equipment and you
can sleep easily!