Laugh at me - talc

Angilion

Angilion

Angilion

Man of Honour
Joined
5 Dec 2003
Posts
21,063
Location
Just to the left of my PC
I had athlete's foot and went through a time of using talc to make sure my feet were dry. Talc, talc and more talc.

Then I noticed that surfaces in my house was coated in talc. The stuff gets everywhere!

I fitted some more memory in my PC today...and found that the inside of my PC was coated in talc. My soundcard has a black PCB, but the top of it was white. My graphics card was well dusted, but the Zalman GPU and RAM coolers were full of talc and there were thick deposits under the heatsink (the fan blows down through the heatsink. My HDD is mounted just underneath the intake fan (current HDD temp - 23C) and it was white with talc. Talc on the motherboard. Talc in the chipset heatsinks. Talc on the cabling. Talc in the PSU. Talc filling the fins on my Noctua. Talc, talc talc. My case intake is filtered well enough to stop normal dust, but not talc.

It took me two hours to clean the stuff off, and I'm sure there's plenty still in the PSU (which I didn't disassemble). I did some recabling to improve airflow (again - forget wireless internet access, I want wireless connections inside my PC), reassembled everything...and no boot. HDD not working, not even detected. Probably talc'd to death.

So I said "Oh dearie me, how irritating" (or something like that) and had a cup of tea.

Which was when I realised that it might be a good idea to check that both ends of the SATA data cable were connected, since the motherboard end is a rather loose fit.

Why do I start work on my PC in the early hours of the morning, when I am dopey? Silly me.
 
I think so, if I get around to buying one from somewhere. Nowhere near here sells them.

On the plus side, I have confirmed by experiment that talc is electrically inert and thus increased my knowledge :)
 
Do you have any photography shops near? They usually sell some, other than that your friendly local electronics store will probably have some. However as you say it probably doesn't make much of a difference. :)
 
Photography shops...I think there's one in town. I hadn't thought of that, but of course it would be useful for cleaning lenses or something.

My friendly "local" elctronics store is a long bus ride away with an abysmal bus service, so I don't think I'll bother. My PSU might be running a bit hotter (talc must have some thermal insulating properties), but it's been as it is for several months and it's very well cooled.

Another plus - the variation in the talc deposits allowed me to see the airflow inside my PC :) It was, in a sense, a good thing to see the dense talc build-up on the rear extract fan - that shows strong airflow through my PC.

So, today's top tip: If you want to judge airflow in your PC, puff some talc into the air intakes :)
 
My missus uses talc like no tommorow on the baby... My case is disgusting. So is all the units and my poor lcd tele.. Lucky im off next week for a clean up..
 
I would really think twice about using talc too liberally, especially on young babies, as there have been concerns about using it.
 
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