21 Oct
2005
21 Oct
'05
11:24 a.m.
At 6:09 -0500 10/21/05, Allison wrote:
.... All of my systems
cooling and air flow get attention even if it requires some card stock
and tape duct work. Fans blow in and filters keep cat hair and
other deutrius from getting in those places where it's going to do bad
things. I find that tends to keep the inside of my PCs clean too. I
turn the fan around and add a filter. Beats having a hairball clogging
the cpu fan and crashing the system.
<see my previous posting, somewhere back in the archives...>
Although this in general is a good idea, it doesn't always
work. NeXT cubes were designed with the fan exhausting air, so the
crapola sucked in through the optical drive slot wiped out the
optical drive before long. NeXT eventually approved the procedure to
mechanically turn the fan around (do *NOT* simply reverse the
connector).
Problem is the designers actually did do _some_ thinking. On
its way out the fan in the original configuration, the air went over
the logic board(s) first, then the power supply and drives last.
Reverse the fan, it's now hot air hitting the logic board. On my
system, this caused the SCSI controller to fail occasionally.
Solution in my case was to put the fan back to its original
configuration, then tape over the floppy and optical cut-outs on the
front of the case. (N.B. my system may be unique in that the floppy
is mounted with a custom mount to an optical-sized cutout, with no
attempt to seal well. It may be that either taping or reversing the
fan would have solved the problem.)
--
- Mark
210-522-6025, temporary cell 240-375-2995