[colug-432] Spring Cleaning/Maintainance

[jep200404 at columbus.rr.com]

Computers fail unnecessarily. 
The weather is good for taking computers outside for cleaning, 
so now's a good time for some annual maintainance. 

1. Remove dust. 
2. Lubricate fans. 
3. Check for bad caps. 

Search the archives for details about the following. 

Overheating due to dust and stuck fans

   Dust 

      Much dust is benign, but dust that blocks air causes 
      things to overheat and die prematurely. 

         Once a year, remove the dust from one's computer. 
         First use a vacuum cleaner to remove as much as one can, 
         then use compressed air outside to blast away what 
         vacuuming could not. 

         Hard drives are vulnerable to both vacuuming and 
         blasting with compressed air. Remove them from the 
         computer before vacuuming and blasting with compressed 
         air the computer. It's OK to vacuum or blast with 
         compressed air hard drives only if you can find the 
         hard drive's vent hole and seal it during (and only 
         during) vacuuming or blasting with compressed air. 

   Fans

      Fans die from lack of lubrication, so relube them. 
      It's easy to do. 

      The fans in most computers are cheap and need lubrication 
      after only a few years of intermittent use. 
      It's best to relube them before they fail and 
      cause a cascade of failures. 

Bad caps

   Check for them. If you find bulged caps, your computer 
   is dying even if it is still working. Replace the caps, 
   or the boards which have them. 

   Bad caps can cause wierd intermittent problems before causing 
   consistent problems. Bad caps can lead to a cascade of 
   destructive hardware failures.