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Dusty Mac

V

Vlad

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No wonder it smelled like dust. I thought it was a box I had near by, turns out it was a customers Mac! O.O Sadly, I've seen much worse...
 
omg you think that's bad a teacher wanted me to get an ibm aptiva that she had in her room to work there was every thing in there. when i opened it there was nothing but dust, trash, and gum (students would drop it in an open slot in the back ) it was a miracle it worked after it was cleaned out

btw if youve ever hads to get gum off a table or somthing this was much harder as it for some reason gets in around poins and thengs ang grabs in im surprised i didnt pull anything off
 
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Who needs snow when you can just grab a 24hr PC, climb to the top of the roof & start shaking! :p

Nevertheless this reminds me of all the fun-filled times I've had w/ opening all the boxes my family uses that never seem to get any rest, but I don't think I've seen a case this bad!

Powermac, right?
 
The worst I've dealt with was back when I was working at the shop. A customer brought a Gateway that was not only double the dust of the Mac, but totally coated in cigarette byproducts. I had to double up on surgeons gloves to haul it out to the dumpster because the nicotine was so caked on, it would have made me sick by absorbing though my skin. First time I saw a computer that was literally almost a biohazard.


Yep, a Powermac G3.
 
Vlad,
I have seen some dusty computers but that takes it.

Yikes, where were they using that poor thing?

That is just plain wrong.

Thanks!

Andrew Lynch
 
Both machines were from a daycare and probably hadn't been moved in years. I'd stay they far passed the time for regular maintenance.

-VK
 
Vlad, do you have pics of the gateway? I've bought some NES carts that have actually turned to a dark-brown from cigarette smoke. I thought the carts where painted until I opened up the shrink-wrapping the cart was repackaged in & immediately got hit by the aroma. Thank god rubbing-alcohol was able do get it off!
 
That is one dusty beige g3 Mac, looks like the dust will come out with just a vacuum.

I can't stand machines that smell like smoke, which is one of the reasons I tear anything I add to my collection down to the smallest part and wash it all.
 
Its good that you got the dust out. Typically what I do for dust is vaccuum out what I can. Then, I grab a straw, and blow out all the dust I can, white holding the vaccumm(while on) a few inches away. That works especially well for the fans and processor. Unless you have a shop vac, you'll need that straw for the dust.

Just thought I would letcha know how I tend to get the job done.

--Ryan
 
Get a nice blast of compressed air on there - but remember to wear your mask and goggles!

The worse one I ever found was an old 1GHz Pentium III used in the wood-working shop of the school were I used to work. That was so full of sawdust I am amazed it did not catch on fire! I went to 'repair' it as the teacher had reported it locking up. Unsuprisingly it was overheating...
 
I found this old mga/cga controller card in this box I had, but I had no can of compressed air, so I had to compensate that with tissues and rubbing alcohol to clean the contacts. I hope it works so I can find a cga moniter to use with it. Alley cat..

I've never seen such a dusty mac, hope it still works.
 
I have a client (long time family friend and he even married my best friend's oldest sister) who runs a monument (read: tombstone) company.

Every six months or so, it comes in for a checkover (I make most of my clients do it on a yearly basis for all their machines) and I dismantle everything, pour a small beach worth of very fine sand out of the case, replace the CD-RW, air-blast off (downside up, of course) the motherboard, the cards, et c., replace the fibreglass filters I installed on all the openings, rotate the power supply that I removed and cleaned down to a shine the last time it was in, put it all back together and send it back out to the sand-blasting shop from wence it came.

Repeat.
 
This is why any machine at my workplace that can produce dust/grit/fine matter (& is in the same room as a computer) has a small air hose running by it. These are hooked to vacuums in another room. Open valve, flip on the power switch to vacuum, be happy. It really cuts down on the amount of cleaning , which amounts to a compressed air blast once a month.

I think the salespeople have dirtier computers than we do due to this regimen. Nothing like a full-blown sandblaster w/ a computer nearby, though the lasers do come close.
 
I have seen quite a few installations of computers in the middle of glass manufacturing plants that are installed inside of air conditioned with filtered air little rooms, keeps the machines nice and clean. The rooms can only hold 4 or so people at a time, the machines have the HMI that controls the PLCs in the plant, everything outside is grungy.
 
Worst I ever saw was a Celeron based Compaq Presario 5000 series that lived in a smoking environment. The owner was having trouble with it crashing and locking up all the time, and no wonder, the computer literally had LUNG CANCER! The CPU was fulled with dust with a similar composition to potting soil, nasty stuff, and don't even get me on the EPA offense that the heatsink was.

Needless to say, it ran great once I ran my little "detox program" on it (Formula 409, tooth brushes, and tuner cleaner).
 
That gateway I mentioned seems close to that, although it had a total mobo failure so we declared it lost cause. But wow, I wish I did have pics of it, it looked like an entire cat was inside the dust was so bad.
 
Yummy! Speaking of fungus, I salvaged one of those CBM 700's a few months ago. I have a small pile of known good motherboards and had picked up a computer that wouldn't boot, so I was swapping boards. Once I opened the case, I could figure out why the old board didn't boot anymore. It was covered in a mix of dust, fungus and rat poop (sorry). I didn't take any pictures, but it was nasty just to remove the old board. Then I had to clean the inside from a thick layer of fungus that could just as well have been foam padding.

At least I got a working computer out of it, and I could blame it on age (24 years of which the last 10-15 in a cold, wet garage). What your friend's customer had done to his laptop, I don't know but it hardly could've been stored in a cold, wet place for even five years.
 
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