for dust and vacuum or blow dust out of equipment. i just got done battling my automation PC and after ruling out many issues it appears that dust blocking the vents was the culprit.
after a good vacuuming out, it has been running for two hours now with no issues where before it would shut down after about 30 minutes.
just and FYI.
I try and blow my machines out at least once a year, one of my automation machines is pushing 15 years old now and still running strong. Old Compaq with 724 MB of RAM, Pentium 4 processor, soundblaster sound card, and loaded with XP Pro. My main automation computer is a roughly 10 year old HP Pavillion with 1 GB of Ram, AMD 64 processor, with Win XP Media Center. Another thing to touch up on is any thermal paste.
I try to blow my computers a couple of times a year to keep them happy. It depends on the location though, how much dust there is, but all computers need to be cleaned every so often. With canned stinky air, I take the whole computer outside then blast it, through the fans, vents, heat sink on the processor, and through the power supply.
In the winter, inside, I use a vac hose, with a toothbrush to gently brush the dust into the hose end, that can be a really clean way to do it.
I find older operating systems work better, Windows XP can be great, Windows 2000, and server editions, at least I tried Server 2003, where you add just audio drivers and not much else, so things are more stable. Newer Windows seems to have so much going on in the background, so I'll have to go through a checklist of things to modify and turn off to try to keep it lean and stable for radio.
Nate said: "I try to blow my computers a couple of times a year to keep them happy."
I said: "Really?"
Hey...if 'it" makes 'em happy.....Who am I to comment????!!!
Could make all the difference between a "hard drive" and a "floppy disk".....!!!;)