I thought I was running a clean computer. Until I checked the power supply….

I don’t vacuum my office as often as I should. Okay, I only vacuum when someone’s coming  to visit, and we haven’t been getting many guests the last couple years. So I’m careful to vacuum out my PC’s at least once a year. After all, they live on the floor. As does the dog. And the cat. And my boots. And the furnace cold air return duct. In short, I know my PC’s live in an unclean environment. So every New Year’s day  I have a calendar reminder that pops up and tells me to clean them. (I run 3 tower PC’s, an old one, a new one, and a Linux box for fun.)

Cleaning a tower PC is quick and easy. I power each PC down, unplug the power cord, and open up the side. I carefully use a vacuum hose to suck out the obvious dust bunnies. I suck the dirt off the external fan grills. If there is dust on internal fans or components, I turn a drinking straw into a vacuum hose extension tool, holding the straw at the end of the vacuum hose between my fingers, while my hand blocks the hose-end, directing the suction through the straw. I’m very careful – I NEVER touch components with the vacuum end, and I try not to touch  them even when using the straw. I generally pull the graphics card and go over it carefully, since it often has a fan of its own that can get pretty dirty.

So I’m running clean machines. Cool. Powerful. Trouble-free. Or so I thought. However this morning, the power supply on one of them abruptly failed. The machine is six years old.  And suddenly dead. Pressing the power supply “test” button did — nothing.

I’ve built PC’s from components so I’m comfortable cracking open the case on equipment.  I pulled the power supply from the dead unit and set it on my desk. As you can see, it looked fine.

Without a schematic you really can’t do any serious repair, but I decided to see if the internal fuse that had blown, or perhaps there was a loose connection. Four screws later I’d popped the top – and was greeted by, well, here it is:

The moment I saw it, I recognized the weakness in my cleaning regimen. I clean the OUTSIDE of the power supply. But in a tower case, the power supply inhales most of the air consumed by the PC. And that little box has lots of places for air to slow down and drop its load of crud. Over 6 years it had collected quite a load!

I vacuumed out the power supply, checked the fuse (still good), and tested again. No go. I’d clearly burned this one out by effectively blocking all cooling to the components. So now I’ve got a new job for next Sunday morning – install the replacement power supply I just ordered and HOPE the  old one didn’t fry the motherboard when it died.

And next New Year’s day? I’ve changed my cleaning reminder to include opening the POWER SUPPLIES. It will add some time to the process – but I suspect it will add years  of life to both the power supply AND the PC.

In the meantime, I’m thinking about installing a piece of furnace filter over the intakes  on my power supplies. Maybe it will catch more of that “crud” before it gets into my power supply!

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