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Cleaning Your Computer Don Bradbury takes you through some maintenance routines After a period of use any PC will gather dust and grime. Its removable drives, for example, will get to the point where reading their respective media may be either problematical or impossible. It’s cleaning time! The screen This takes a surprising amount of hammer, first from children who insist on fingering it, or splashes from this and that (shame on you!), or simply electrostatically attracted dust. Special screen cleaning fluids may safely be used, applying with a clean, soft, lint free cloth, and then polishing gently with a fresh piece. Glass will scratch, so go easy. Luke warm, soapy water might also be tried, but only slightly dampen the cloth, don’t soak everything. The monitor case and the system box may also be cleaned with warm soapy water, though again there are specialist fluids you can buy and use with benefit. Again, go easy on the fluid, and don’t let any of it dampen the internals through either power buttons and the like, or drive slots and drive controls. Floppy drive If your floppy drive gets to the point when reading disks is unreliable, don’t use anything to revive it except the specialist cleaning fluids you can buy from computer shops - applied via a special disk - or pure Isopropyl Alcohol, if you can access any. It’s easy; just follow the instructions. If the drive will read its own floppy disks but not those written by other PCs, suspect misalignment of the read/write heads in one machine or the other. It’s not worth trying to correct this. Decide which machine is at fault by trying to read a disk in other computers, then sling the faulty drive and fit another. They are very cheap these days. CD drives As far as cleaning the innards is concerned, the same applies to CD and DVD drives. Special cleaning fluids, applied via a special cleaning CD, will remove minor grime that has been drawn into the drive from atmospheric pollution, and polish the lens for you. Again, if that fails to correct CD reading problems, change the drive. Keyboards gather an amazing amount of filth, usually from people (not you, of course!) eating while working. If you can, keep the keyboard covered with a plastic cover while not in use, but when cleaning time arrives, first, invert the keyboard and gently tap out any loose particles. Follow that by gentle suction from a vacuum cleaner, preferably one of the diddy battery-driven type specially made for the duty. Again, careful application of PC case cleaning fluid will remove all manner of stains and grime. You’d be surprised at the state keyboards can get into and still work, but inevitably, in time, you’ll need to either clean it or sling it. Peripherals Flatbed scanners and printer casings, as well as other buff coloured plastic parts, will benefit from the occasional warm soapy water treatment, or preferably dedicated cleaning fluid, but with the same cautions as before. Don’t soak things! ‘Dampen’ is the keyword. Cleaning Inkjet printer innards has recently been covered in these pages, but following the directions of the manufacturer is sensible. Watch out for signs of inefficient printing, and then clean the nozzles in the approved way. System internals Over a period of time, the PC’s innards will become covered in dust - which can both compromise electrical connections and reduce heat loss from sensitive components. Careful application of the vacuum cleaner can be effective, making certain that no components are disturbed in the process. Just hover the thing, don’t poke around. If you suspect that PCI and other cards are ineffective or intermittent, try removing their fastening screws and gently removing them from their sockets before carefully reinserting them. That is often sufficient by way of contact cleaning, though you might also find the need to gently polish the electrical contacts with a clean cloth while you have the cards out of their sockets. Final word Take care of your PC and it will give you long service. Ignore it long enough and it will surely fail you at some point. The rules are, don’t smoke while working in the computer room, and don’t leave the machine running while your wife hovers the carpets. You may not see the dust clouds, but they’ll be drawn into your system box and accumulate there, storing up problems for you. And don’t eat or drink at the keyboard. I know, we all do it, but it’s asking for trouble. Whatever you do, don’t use solvents such as Benzene, for cleaning plastic parts; they’ll dissolve! Stick to recommended PC cleaning fluids as safe bets.
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