Marc Fowler - Personal Computer Support As You Need It

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Case studies

If you are an existing customer of mine and would like to share your experiences of me, your comments would be most welcome! Just email your thoughts to feedback@fowlerweb.net or post them - my address is on my Contact page.

No Smoking!

Everybody knows that smoking is bad for your health, but did you know it can be bad for your computer as well?

I was recently asked to look at a laptop which was rarely used as it kept crashing. The owner told me it would get extremely hot so they used to place pencils underneath to give it better ventilation. As soon as I turned it upside down I could see the cause, and a quick sniff confirmed it. Through the fan vents I could see a yellow brown muck coating the fans and grills. "Does the person who uses it smoke?" I asked. The customer was surprised at the question but answered that yes, he did.

I explained my question. If someone smokes around their computer while it is on, the smoke they breath out gets sucked in by the computers intake fans. These exist to force air through the hottest parts of the computer to prevent it overheating. The trouble is, the parts the air is blown though are very narrow. Normal house dust can build up over time around these parts, but cigarette smoke makes this much worse. As well as contributing more particles to get sucked in, it creates a sticky residue that coats the surfaces and other dust. This can wreak havoc with the internals of a computer.

When I opened the computer up I found the main venilation grills completely blocked by dense build ups of tar and nicotine. You can seen from the photos below how solid they were. No wonder the computer was overheating!

The blockages were so solid I could simply pull them away with a pair of tweazers in one piece. I then used a special tool of mine to clear out some of the more lose debris and dust and wiped the fans and other parts clean. Putting the computer back together again, it ran smoothly and I have no doubt it will run fine now it can breathe again.

More case studies will appear here as I get time to write them!