Gunther Svending

"ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com" (ita97) 04/12/2020 at 19:06 • Filed to: None

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All this competitive folding with Oppo served to remind me that Gunther was overdue for a cleaning. I’m slightly ashamed to have let such a fine machine get so dusty. Once I got to end of a set of work units, I vowed to fix the error of my ways.

This also served as a reminder to fire up the compressor in the garage and clean out my modem and routers, too.

Blowing out the case was deeply satisfying, and the amount of dust that came out of the GPU and radiator was a bit surprising. It even motivated me to pull off the back cover and clean out my cable management area.

I rock a Fractal Design R6 USB-C, and it is a very fine piece of hardware. I can’t recommend Fractal Design cases enough to anyone wanting to brew their own. I will be using this quality case for many builds to come.

Gunther lives on my desk in the spare bedroom, so he can game or fold away through the night without anyone caring.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about RGB, but the fan lighting on the GPU can’t be disabled without replacing the fans, so I set the rest of it to a matching, steady light blue. No disco light show going on here.

Specs for the curious:

Fractal Design R6-USB C

MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC

Ryzen 7 1700 running a 3.8ghz all core overclock (the heart originally harvested from Gus, my former Dell gaming PC that got me back in the game after many years away from any kind of performance computing)

EVGA CLC 280mm aio

32 gb Corsair vegance LPX @3200mhz

Shapphire Nitro+ SE RX590 gpu

Cruical MX500 500gb SSD as the OS and steam drive

An old Toshiba 1TB hd for media storage

Effect: 3-5 degree Celsius drop in temps throughout the various components.

PyroHoltz f@h Oppo 261120 > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com 04/12/2020 at 19:16

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I have no clue the last time I blew out the various computers throughout the house but I’m probably going to be embarrassed....

...who am I kidding, more than likely I’ll be weirdly proud to have put it off for so long.

facw > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com 04/12/2020 at 19:26

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One time my CPU fan was running loud. I investigated and found this:

Apparently fans have to work hard when there’s a solid mat of dust between the fan and the heatsink fins.

My current machine is in a Fractal Define Mini C, which has better filtering (that admittedly I haven’t checked in a while), so hopefully I don’t get quite that level of buildup.

jminer > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com 04/12/2020 at 19:49

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This is always a superfun part of computers. Take them out to the garage and blow them out. For a few minutes work your machine will run cooler and and quieter.

The worst ever for me was when I worked for a cleaning company. The computers in the rug cleaning part of the company were the worst (yes a good chunk of their business was cleaning high end area rugs). Every 6 months I’d take the machines over to the compressor and blow out dust bunnies the size of jack rabbits.

PS- I’ve seen more area rugs that cost twice what my car did than I ever care to think about.

Nom De Plume > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com 04/12/2020 at 20:30

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So this definitely isn’t going to be an elitist discussion on paintbrushes and static free vacuums. Much less electronics safe compressed air solutions.

You were going here anyways so let’s just cut right to the chase and gag all at once.

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > Nom De Plume 04/12/2020 at 20:33

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Ha! I do have a drier on my air compressor, although that is really there more for the air tools than the occasional electronics cleaning. I did turn th e regulator down some from its usual 150 psi.

Nom De Plume > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com 04/12/2020 at 20:43

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Yes, gentle enough pressure to avoid stripping circuits off the board is always a good idea.

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > Nom De Plume 04/12/2020 at 21:06

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That picture just keeps getting worse. The more you look at it the more stuff you  notice ...

Idiot In The Garage Needs A New CGI Job... > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com 04/13/2020 at 18:35

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Looks like the same case I used to build my rig last November!

I hadn’t built a PC in many years and was surprised at all the little things they included that made the process so much better.

I didn’ t want RGB lites at all , so I just switched the case sides so the solid one covered the open area & the glass one was beh ind the motherboard. Might be an option for you if you get sick of any lights.