Best methods for preventing or reducing the amount of dust in your system?

Vidar

Vidar

Vidar

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My house is pretty clean, I do have pets but they're mostly away from the computer yet every 4-6 months when I strip the case down, there is a considerable amount of dust, having the system in a Lian Li PC-Z70 Diamond Series Full Tower it's not the easiest case to clean.

So what tips can you guys recommend for reducing dust (other than cleaning) build up?
 
Positive pressure and dust filters. Positive case pressure means more intake than exhausts, and this will stop dust from being sucked in through any open areas like grilles. The dust filters, well they stop or reduce the dust that fans will pull in.
 
spoffle said:
Positive pressure and dust filters. Positive case pressure means more intake than exhausts, and this will stop dust from being sucked in through any open areas like grilles. The dust filters, well they stop or reduce the dust that fans will pull in.
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So if I have

two 140mm fans on the front
two 140mm fans in the ceiling
one 120mm fan at the back

the front are intakes and the ceiling and back are exhausts that's not correct?

Would it be better to change the ceiling fan closest to the front intakes to an intake making it 3 v 2?

Sorry for hijacking the thread...
 
Stretlow said:
So if I have

two 140mm fans on the front
two 140mm fans in the ceiling
one 120mm fan at the back

the front are intakes and the ceiling and back are exhausts that's not correct?

Would it be better to change the ceiling fan closest to the front intakes to an intake making it 3 v 2?

Sorry for hijacking the thread...
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You could have them all as intakes bar the rear fan, and that would be fine. The positive pressure will force air out of the case via the exhaust and any other air gaps.
 
Legend said:
Try both top as intake as well... that should help. However, intakes need to be filtered.
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spoffle said:
You could have them all as intakes bar the rear fan, and that would be fine. The positive pressure will force air out of the case via the exhaust and any other air gaps.
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Daaaveee said:
Agreed, this is what I do too.
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Ok looks like I have this wrong then.

So.. I have an air 540 case which has grills on the front and the top. Im assuming these act as filters?

and to conclude, Everyone should be pushing air into the case other than the small one at the back?

How does this affect cooling? Does this mean more heat will reside in the case?
 
Stretlow said:
How does this affect cooling? Does this mean more heat will reside in the case?
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Why not run a test before and after and let us know? :D it shouldn't have much effect +/- either way. Maybe a degree either way which you could put down to standard deviation of testing anyway.

Ideally you could intake through the bottom and front, exhaust through the back and top, but cases vary so much you can't always do this. Standard setup for positive pressure would normally be 2x front intake and 1x rear exhaust, but if you have the fan space and fans to put in them, you may as well use them so long as it's not too loud depending on your tolerance to that and fan speeds etc!
 
Daaaveee said:
Why not run a test before and after and let us know? :D it shouldn't have much effect +/- either way. Maybe a degree either way which you could put down to standard deviation of testing anyway.

Ideally you could intake through the bottom and front, exhaust through the back and top, but cases vary so much you can't always do this. Standard setup for positive pressure would normally be 2x front intake and 1x rear exhaust, but if you have the fan space and fans to put in them, you may as well use them so long as it's not too loud depending on your tolerance to that and fan speeds etc!
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Apreciate the advice.

Thanks
 
Heat rises so anything in the roof should be exhausts. All having them as intakes will do is suck back in the air that the rear exhaust throws out. If you have decent dust filters then you shouldn't need to worry about dust. I have a single front 200mm intake and a roof 200mm and rear 120mm set as exhaust. The front of my case is filtered and I have never had a dust problem. I get a tiny bit but you will get that even with everything filtered.
 
How would you guys recommend filtering? My case is aluminium and particulalry the top exhaust fans have almost zero room to add anything extra.
 
Keeping case off the floor would be a good start or even slightly raised if on a desk etc.

Regularly cleaning dust filters helps as well as general room/floor dusting - sounds obvious I know but if you can reduce amount of dust in the room then that will naturally reduce dust getting vented into your case.
 
Having the tops as intakes won't make the rear exhaust suck hot air in. Heat does rise, but air doesn't flow like a liquid. Heat starts dissipating into the air pretty quickly anyway so the priority is air flow, not really air temperature. It only matters when things are on top of each other. Like dual GPUs where one card's main source of air flow is from the hot stagnant air directly by it.
 
Vidar said:
How would you guys recommend filtering? My case is aluminium and particulalry the top exhaust fans have almost zero room to add anything extra.
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Demciflex do some nice magnetic fine mesh filters. They're very decent quality, and you can just peel them off for cleaning.
 
Back in the early days, people just used to wrap a pair of tights around the fans... not sure I'd recommend that as I'm not sure you'd want the outflow restricted in any way but would be a cheap solution if you could just have it on the inflow side.
 
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