I always new that UV radiation from sun rays damages plastics and today i've experienced it first hand inside my PC. I've had UV cathodes inside my PC running 24/7 for the last few month. Today I've decided to do some spring cleaning inside the PC and when I touched one of the cathodes, the plastic zip ties just disintegrated into small pieces. This shows how UV damages plastic. Now i'm wondering if it causes same damage to other plastic components on the mobo and other hardware. Is everything made from UV resistant plastic? What about hardware like CD drives? Has anyone experienced any similar problems?
How safe is UV for your PC?
- Thread starter Day03
- Start date
UV is used to wipe EEPROM chips. And it's bad for your eyes, so UV lit case right next to you in a dark room doesn't sound like a good idea. 
http://www.siliconchip.com.au/cms/A_104058/article.html
Oh you will also be a computer nerd because you're fitting lights and other tacky crap.
http://www.siliconchip.com.au/cms/A_104058/article.html
Oh you will also be a computer nerd because you're fitting lights and other tacky crap.
Soldato
- Joined
- 13 Jul 2004
- Posts
- 20,345
- Location
- Stanley Hotel, Colorado
Going to the trouble of making your case look good for no practical or logical reason sounds positively unnerdy to me more like creative, artistic, etc
Still on the nerd spectrum but just on edges and hardly visible
I dont think the uv light would pass through a see through side panel that well. Sunlight has uv and does not pass indoors for similar reasons apparently.
Check what plastic those zip ties were made from. Probably not even close to the motherboard compounds and a cd drive is metal..
I have plastic bags in the loft that you can poke your finger through like burnt newspaper and their only a decade old however most plastic does not do this but a bag is pretty disposable like those zip ties I think
Still on the nerd spectrum but just on edges and hardly visible
I dont think the uv light would pass through a see through side panel that well. Sunlight has uv and does not pass indoors for similar reasons apparently.
Check what plastic those zip ties were made from. Probably not even close to the motherboard compounds and a cd drive is metal..
I have plastic bags in the loft that you can poke your finger through like burnt newspaper and their only a decade old however most plastic does not do this but a bag is pretty disposable like those zip ties I think
Yeah i think nerdy is finding humour in something PC related that the average joe would have no clue about, that to me is nerdy....... kinda like all those people who feel the need to put their specs in there sig. Not implying anything here, there's plenty of valid reasons for this to, and i wouldnt be so quick as to paint everyone with the same brush...... but hopefully you catch my drift.... 
Making something look nice, is as said above..... more on the artistic side of things..
Making something look nice, is as said above..... more on the artistic side of things..
t31os said:Yeah i think nerdy is finding humour in something PC related that the average joe would have no clue about, that to me is nerdy....... kinda like all those people who feel the need to put their specs in there sig. Not implying anything here, there's plenty of valid reasons for this to, and i wouldnt be so quick as to paint everyone with the same brush...... but hopefully you catch my drift....
Making something look nice, is as said above..... more on the artistic side of things..
Like people being able to see your system spec when you have a problem without you having to write it all out.
Case modding is a geeky in an artisitc way. Its a computer at the end of the day... i'm pretty sure no-one did case mods till some spotty teens decided they wanted to out-do each other at lan games.
My case has been modded to a small extent. I drilled 2 big holes in the side for fans and stuck a load of stickers on it.I only got halfway though because ******s sold out of 120mm fan grills and a can't be bothered to go and get one now.
squiffy said:
Anything to increase appearance is for personal taste, some people use wallpaper at home, some use paint, and some fit fancy lights onto their walls, but that doesnt make them children.
Improving appearance for anything isnt a bad thing, if you can look at it and enjoy it more, who's to stand in the way, because i'd be damned if a negative forum member would stop me increasing the prettiness of my PC or anything else i choose to for that matter.
Would you also suggest women don't wear make-up?....... or that no one should wear expensive better looking clothes?...... or decorate their house?...
I mean common, there's nothing wrong with making something look nicer..... its just a matter of what you personally define as looking nice, and for some people thats a cathode or an LED fan, there's no need to get personal and to call people children for doing it though, you're just asking for an argument.
And people have no taste, just like cars more lights mean more bling. Cathodes and LED fans/uv braiding make it look tacky, and make the owner look a right saddo. Being into computers is geeky enough, but messing around with lights is even worse. Ask someone who's not into computers what looks better, a nice black LL case, or a Blade-X case with a police strobe on top.
A clean understated unlit case has far more style than a tacky lit one. It's like going to ballroom dance with a tuxedo, but with a 100 gallon cowboy hat. You have "improved" the tux look with that hat, or so you think. You actually look a prat.
You look at the monitors image, not the computer case. Unless you build a base unit up with tacky 1000W strobe lights without a monitor and just stare at it for hours. I on the other hand look at the screen, and I don't have an annoying light source peering from the corner of my eye.
Side windows are even worse, really what do they do? What is so impressive about drooling over your PCB's and other components?
All of those serve a purpose. Don't compare a nice suit to buying a nice case than ruining it with cathodes. It's like buying a gucci suit but wearing trainers- you look "rad" Or buying a nice presitage car and fitting a whopping 6' high spoiler and under lighting.
Making it look nicer is toning it down, not up.
I mod my PC, car, and anything els I can to make it more personalised, but I aint a nerd lol.
So what your saying real is, it doesn't matter how things look. You could wear cloths that you got for extremely cheap, no jewerly, and have no hait style etc ( not dissing anyone ), but the people who buy trendy cloths, jewerly, mod their cars, prefer to have a nice case rather than a plain tacky white one are nerds?
So what your saying real is, it doesn't matter how things look. You could wear cloths that you got for extremely cheap, no jewerly, and have no hait style etc ( not dissing anyone ), but the people who buy trendy cloths, jewerly, mod their cars, prefer to have a nice case rather than a plain tacky white one are nerds?
squiffy said:
So because to you its Sad or Tacky, then it must be for everyone else?....
This is the reason i choose the word 'preference', what you, me or anyone else likes are going to be different things.
Some mods are horrible, but then again some are not. As to case windows, again another mod, some people pay good money for nice looking hardware and like to see it/show it off, or a window is a nice quick way to see if fans are spinning to, if problems ever occur, or if maybe a wire had come loose.
To me it seems like you're trying to tell me what people do and don't like, when really you're just posting your own opinion.
Ha ha, this threads funny.
Face it, lights and windows and UV reactive cables etc inside your case is geeky. Theres no way a set of cathodes and fans make a case look smarter, its just people trying to have a "cool" pc case.
What looks smarter? An all black case with simple steel fan grills and black, unlit but almost totally silent case fans... or a clear perspex case with neons here there and everywhere and weird coloured cables.
The walls and face makeup justifications are irrelevant. They are done to make something look better... where as case modding is done to make something look "cooler".
Face it, lights and windows and UV reactive cables etc inside your case is geeky. Theres no way a set of cathodes and fans make a case look smarter, its just people trying to have a "cool" pc case.
What looks smarter? An all black case with simple steel fan grills and black, unlit but almost totally silent case fans... or a clear perspex case with neons here there and everywhere and weird coloured cables.
The walls and face makeup justifications are irrelevant. They are done to make something look better... where as case modding is done to make something look "cooler".
MadMacs said:
Downloading, servers, hosting things.
krisboats said:
In your opinion yes, head over to the Case section and have a neb in the Desk and Room gallery / Case gallery, TFT set ups, Water cooled case threads. I'm sure a lot of people will disagree with you, not every ones the same.
krisboats said:
My point exactly. Now if you were to spray the case yourself, then that is art and shows a sense of style, and much nicer than a case with lights and side windows.
Wearing nice clothes is not the same analogy as case mods. It would like walking around with this.
He looks cool, because he's wearing lots of lights. He's improved the Roman centurion look with pretty lights.
t31os said:
Show me some mods that serve a purpose (functional) and not a eyesore.
If I were to buy a Ferrari, and glue on leopard print fur on the bodywork, it wouldn't be tacky. So it's my preference I want it to look it that way. If you say it's tacky then that's just your opinion.