M17x R2 in the Sahara desert.. (some maintenance info please)

So guys,

I'm like 600 km inside of the Sahara desert in Algery and i'll be here for the next two years (with 65/15 days shift, of course)

Sand and dust as far as i have seen till now is a real issue.

At the moment i have already accumulated a good ammount of dust on my fans and i'm planning to remove my vid cards in order to do some cleaning.

Well i'm a bit scared to touch the cards, are they so delicate or i can do it as a regular maintenance?

I brought with me antistatic brush, microfiber cloth and other little things to keep in a good shape my baby.

Any help, hint and sugetion will be really apreciated (i'm aware that some user from USMC has been on desertic/dusty areas before, so any one who want chime in will be really welcome)

thank you in advance

xaba

 

Don't worry about pulling them out for cleaning just make sure you apply new thermal paste every time that you do

 

Why should i apply thermal past every time i pull them out? my temps are fine till now, just the fans are getting dusty and i guess also the fins on the heatsink

 

You need to clean of the old paste on the heatsinks with alcohol and cloth, Then apply the new paste. It works that way. Once you pulled it out the paste is no good anymore.

 

I dont think you need to repaste as you think. Sure, if you are taking the heatsink off the gpu die, then you would need to repaste but if you take the whole card&heatsink out without seperating the two, cleaning should be a case of compressed air afaik to get rid of dust/debris like the OP may want to do.

Pretty sure that the gpu card and heatsink assembly can be removed without having to repaste every single time....that would be a right royal PITA.....

Moo has a good video here for gpu replacement that I reckon could be followed for cleaning purposes: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...remove-replace-your-gpu-m17x-allpowerful.html you can see that the gpu/heatsink come out "as one unit" hence the need not to repaste every time you take it out. You can then clean the fan and the heatsink etc quite easily!

 

Exactly this, Thanks stevie

Yes i mean to remove the whole card in order to acces the fans and clean them as well as the heatsink fins (on the exhaust side, where the hot air is blowed out)

 

-CPU fan and heat sink can be cleaned out or blown out by removing the bottom plate. Faily simple and easy to do.
-GPUs can come out as a whole assembly (card and sink) so no need to do the re-paste (unless you decide to). Cleaning will require opening your computer but not that difficult (subjective of course). Just be gentle with the xfire cord.
-Since you are in a desert, static is probably not a problem but be careful anyway.

-AND: if you decide to use compressed air, do not blow so that the fans spin in either direction. Need to find something to stick in there to hold the fans in place (won't spin). And do the cleaning frequently (how often depends on how much dust you expose the computer to) because cleaning lightly accumulated dust is much easier than cleaning a major baked on dust. It may only require a light blow-out every few days. And (common sense but I have to mention this) make sure the computer is off and all power supply removed.

 

Thanks ils,

I prefere the gentle antistatic brush way instead of compressed air.. also becouse here there is let say shortage of compressed air bottles

 

For more specific advice on keeping clean/maintenance, I would give DR650E a shout as he's been in the same kinda situation as you (being in the forces in Iraq).

Im sure he wouldnt mind a PM to ask for good practices to keep your baby tip-top.

 

Buy one of these

Amazon.com: Metro Vacuum ED500 DataVac 500-Watt, 0.75-HP Electric Duster: Home Improvement

 

I would not take out the cards in the desert. Chances are you may not have access to thermal paste and YES you do need to re-paste them if you take off the heatsink, else you may run into localized overheating (=dead card).

Furthermore, since there is so much sand floating around I would be worried about trapping some inbetween the die and heatsink. This is fine for 'dust' since it is soft, but silica particles are not and this could damage the die.

 

I just need to remove the card not the heatsink

 

Just follow Moo's guide to remove the complete card and clean as stated....like Ils said, keep the fan from rotating whilst cleaning. Ive also heard that using some cotton buds (i think you guys call 'em q-tips) and some alcohol (not beer obviously - that would be a waste lol) you can gently remove any debris or grease/dust/sediment build up that may have accumulated on the fins of the fans.

As long as you handle the card carefully, you shouldnt go far wrong.

An extra precaution would be to keep touching the frame of the laptop or something metal just so that you earth/ground yourself to prevent any electrostatic discharge when holding the card. (i would always use an anti static wrist strap whenever opening up to handle circuitry but you may not have one with you so just touch something metal every so often if your doing alot of "handling"

Thats about it I reckon!

Dont worry about repasting - unless you remove the heatsink from the gpu die (which you WONT be doing anyway) - just clean the complete assembly (fan/heatsink) with your antistatic brush, q-tips/alcohol if desired and pop it back in as Moo's vid shows.

You may wanna look at the teardown vids too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j20wn96uac0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyFAdmozp04

Always good for getting to know open heart surgery on your beast!

 

What are you doing in the Desert if you don't mind me asking?

 

Hey man, my suggestion is to just try and keep some compressed air with you. It really helps to give a quick blast, just to keep the system clean. Also if your not using the system, like if your out for the day, I wouldn't leave the system running. Than the fans will just suck up a lot of dirt. Also a good brush and some extra thermal paste would help. That way if things get real dusty, you can just open the system, and brush off the components. Also maybe if you out for the day keep the system covered so extra dust wont settle on it. When I was out, I usually left mine in the little alienware sleeve that came with mine. Hope things go well for you out there.

 

Thanks DR650, i will keep this in mind.

@Corpses3, we are doing revamping of old plants (Natural Gas compression Stations mostly)

This afternoon i'll be doing the surgery operation on my baby and i'll report back tomorrow

 

Ok, i did it, i dismantled everything up to de vga fans, removed'em and cleaned everything. Now it looks as it was out of the box.

Easyer than i thought. Thank guys for all the info and advices

 

Great stuff - I take it that its all gone back together just fine too and that everything is working as normal?

 

sure, i deeply clean the fans, blade by blade first with brush than with "cotton buddys" ( ) with a product usually used to clean lcd screen that doesn't leave any residual. the heatsink also.

I think i will shortly bother the community once again, i was waiting for an ssd to arrive but i had to leave home before they shipped it. Now is at home and a collegue will bring it to me the 28th of this month. So i will do the installation shortly after (i'm prepared with all the stuff needed as per the "nuclear wipe out" post )

Thank you again for all the good hints