Iceland volcanic ash and my PC

[axel]

On Mon, 2010-04-19 at 21:34 -0400, Xander Pirdy wrote:
> On 4/19/2010 4:09 PM, axel wrote:
> > On Mon, 2010-04-19 at 19:23 +0000, Frans Ketelaars wrote:
> >
> >> On Mon, 19 Apr 2010 10:09:31 +0100, axel wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> Greetings!
> >>>
> >>> I run a Dell Inspiron 1501 with Ubuntu 8.04. and I live in London where
> >>> the air pollution is so bad you dont need to smoke to be a candidate for
> >>> all kind of breathing problems.
> >>>
> >>> About a year ago I had a Dell Service Tech replace the Dell PC fans ,
> >>> filters and a few other bits and pieces : due to the fact that the PC
> >>> was crashing due to high Temperature. His recommendation was to blow
> >>> high pressure purified air into fan intakes.
> >>>
> >>> Further reading on the subject , I found the opposite opinion :that was
> >>> the last thing you should do, as it blows all the dust inwards...past
> >>> the filters and into the system.
> >>> i.e. in other words the remedy lies in using a vacuum cleaner and point
> >>> it at the fan intakes.
> >>>
> >>> Now with all this ash coming my way...
> >>>
> >>> I would appreciate your thoughts on the subject, Cheers,
> >>> Axel.
> >>>
> >> I would check Dell's user manual ( online or offline ) for your laptop
> >> model or contact their helpdesk or service department regarding cleaning
> >> dust from your laptop's cooling system.
> >>
> >> I wouldn't mention 'volcanic ash' :)
> >>
> >>      -Frans
> >>
> > Thanks Frans !
> > Regards
> > Axel.
> >
> >>
> >>
> 
> 
> Axel,
> I am fairly sure that I have taken apart and cleaned the dell inspiron
> 1501, and it was one of the easiest air filter cleanings I had ever
> done. You pop off (from memory, you should probably google this first)
> the piece of plastic in between the keyboard and the screen (the one
> with the power buttons, and are presented with two small screws that
> allow the keyboard to be flipped back. When I got this far there was an
> immense amount of dust all over the inside of the thing: the similarity
> between most laptop cooling systems and a vacuum cleaner never fails to
> amaze me. From there I think there was a metal plate on the right side I
> think that came off with maybe three screws revealing the fan. Taking
> this cover exposed the inside of the copper heat sink I think and from
> there I just peeled off about a 1/4" of something fairly identical to
> dryer lint. I then carefully vacuumed (try not to touch ANYTHING with
> the plastic vacuum as that is a really good environment for creating
> static, so don't even get too close to the motherboard without that
> metal thing on, though you can clean that off on its own)  the rest of
> the inside up put it all back together and wham! no more overheating,
> about 2 times as long of battery life and the whole system ran smoothly
> from there on out.
> 
> So my suggestion is NOT to call dell, as they gave you horrible advice
> already, and look up a comprehensive guide for getting to the heat sink
> making sure that you understand it and being careful to store and
> correctly lable the screws from each step so that you can put it back
> together. Good advice that I heard once (though have never taken as I
> tend to jump into things, is to print out every step of the directions,
> and then tape the screws to the step that they came off in as you go
> along. This way when you work backwards you know where everything came
> from, and will hopefully accomplish that oft missed goal of ending up
> with no "extra" parts when "everything" is back together.
> 
> -Xander
> 
> p.s. I wouldn't be surprised if the hard shut downs from overheating are
> causing the problems that you mentioned before (OS not found.)? But one
> more thing on that that I may have failed to mention is that you really
> should back every thing up if you haven't already because the comment
> about the hard-drive going bad, and corrupting your data is absolutely
> valid.
>