My room is always dusty and fudges my fans

[test84]

Hi
Since I remember, we always had so much dust in our rooms, I donno whats the problem but there is always a line of dust on everything and sad thing is it fudges my fans of my systems and recently I heard a bad noise from my x360's fans, and it seems they are dying and you know if they don't work well, what will be the disaster.

My room's windows is closed always but there is a very thin line opening in it (its an old house so don't expect much), the panel of air condition is not covered in winter and my floor is "moukette", I forgot its english translation and tooooooooooooooooo bored to check the net for it, its like carpet but it covers whole floor, I think its called carpeting or something.

So what do you suspect being source of the dust.

-old test

 

[FAST6191]

Dust, comes from everywhere and without silly money you are not going to avoid it. If your carpeting is what I think it is (a long time family friend is a great fan of carpets from that part of the world) then you are screwed if you hope to get rid of dust.

As for fans.
Problem 1. Dust in the motor.
This is the major one, the grease they use on such things is not up to much, even in relatively clean places heating cycles will leave it like sludge after a year or two, add dust into the mix and that time drops faster than you would care to know.

You need to clean it and replace it with something better, I can not say I have been electronics shopping in Iran recently but from those over there I know you can get things if you need them.
Cleaning will be a pain, use alcohol based cleaning products (nail polish remover is good) or WD40/similar in a pinch. Make sure it is dry/clean before assembling again.
Next comes grease, if you can not get it in the computer shop look to the automotive world and possibly the modelling world (I am thinking remote control planes).
If you are not familiar with this I would not suggest custom grease but if you come unstuck it can be done with household chemicals.

Problem 2. Dust on the blades.
It may not weight much but I suggest you look up angular momentum and basic lever theory before dismissing it. Car windscreens get a spray that is quite useful here (they are often plastic coated glass these days and the blade plastic is not all that different). Apply it with a cotton bud after cleaning, do not spray it in as it runs the risk of messing up your efforts in fixing problem 1.

Help 1.
You can get static and glue based dust strips, they do not do all that much against mineral dust but against biological (your skin is a large contributor to dust) which contribute rather nicely they work wonders. Every bit helps. You can either put them on the xbox or around the place the xbox finds itself.

Help 2.
Making a clean atmosphere is expensive on a large scale, smaller scale is far easier. Get a fan to use as an extractor (the 360 has a nice spare USB port or three) and try to get that to extract/misdirect a good bit of dust (large fans are low in tone, it is small ones that cause the high pitched drone from most PCs and the xbox) before it gets to the xbox.
Put the 360 in a box (leaving room for airflow) or the part of the cabinet to give as ways in as possible for dust to get in.

Optional. Water cooled 360. This is a custom setup job and will prevent dust from messing stuff up.
Optional 2. Overvoltaged fans. It will up noise, decrease fan life but help it cut through the friction and keep it cool. I am not sure what voltage 360 fans are rated for right now (I have one downstairs if it comes to this) but there are many voltages making up a 360 you can tap into.
Optional3. Fans over the existing fans, there are several simple kits around for adding fans to the 360, using these can take the load off the current ones and act as sacrificial fans.

 

[test84]

Thanks for the info my lovely FAST,
but I can't open 360 myself and I'm kinda afraid to do so and I'm gonna give it to some shop to fix it for me, thats why I unfortunetly can't use your kind helps. I was after to check if I can do something with carpeting to prevent it for future malfunctions, you have to see the dust that it gets on my PS2, I HATE IT.

I wondered if it is necessary at this stage to do anything with it, sometimes when I turn it on its fans are making a louder noise than its regular fan noise and after some minutes it goes to normal noise, is it dangerous or is it dying?

 

[cardyology]

I replaced the fan in my 360 with a talsimoon whisper quiet one because the stock fan developed a horrible "whine"

I think it was dust that caused it.

 

[FAST6191]

If they make more noise they are probably working harder, in doing so my guess is it grinds through the dust or the grease warms up a bit and starts working properly allowing it to drop speed.

As for taking apart the 360 it is easy to do seen as there are no screws until you get right in there. I would not suggest a vacuum cleaner (dust past plastic is a near perfect recipe for a massive static shock) and it is not likely to clear up grease.

Still an extra fan (you can get external ones), the 360 is temperature based from that a recall (it cranks up when gaming but leaving it to idle does little) so another fan as cardyology mentions is an idea.

 

[test84]

Thanks,

Since I don't mess with my x360, I was more interested to know what would be the sources of this dust so I can cover them/fix them to prevent future damages.