(Very)Stupid Question

Right, i have an alienware tower

I treat it like my child

Its ontop of my desk right next to me on my right hand side
Now i smoke ciggies alot and the front fan sucks in nearly all of the smoke into the pc
Now its kinda cool because then my whole room dosnt fill up will smoke
But would alot of cig smoke going through the pc be bad for it?

Not an expert here, but if it does to your PC what it does to walls in the rooms of people who smoke a lot...I cannot see how it could be a good thing. It may wear out your fan prematurely.

It will harm it to some extent, depending on how much you smoke.

I remember when my dad sold me his company car. I got the vacuum and was cleaning it when I opened the ashtray and pulled it out. The amount of ash back in there was just incredible!

In your case maybe not so much ash, but the tars and nicotines will end up covering your mobo and internals. Couldn't be good.

So why not get a:



Cool looking, can't be too expensive.

HTH.

smokeless ashtray... great idea... or just stop smoking, even better.

Ooh, I know something... Yup, it is bad for your computer, because of the tar in the smoke, which when it goes over warm/hot components will stick to it, gunk it up and decrease its life expectancy. However, smoking is pretty cool and the amount it'll decrease your computers life by is possibly negligible.

Yes, it is very bad for the computer.

As the smoke is drawn in, it will flow through the hard drive(s).
Understand, the gap between the read head and the platter of a hard drive is less than the size of a particle of smoke.

The smoke will clog the intake filter-cutting off air flow and causing the computer to run hotter (the worest thing to do)

also the smoke will get onto everything and the computer will smell bad as well as the inside smelling bad enough to gag you-i worked on a computer like that.

It will stain and clog all the internals.

Originally posted by Disgustipated
Right, i have an alienware tower

I treat it like my child

Its ontop of my desk right next to me on my right hand side
Now i smoke ciggies alot and the front fan sucks in nearly all of the smoke into the pc
Now its kinda cool because then my whole room dosnt fill up will smoke
But would alot of cig smoke going through the pc be bad for it?

I don't know about bad for your PC, but Alienware? Dude I'd have built you one for half the price just as if not faster...

Oh and yes Cig smoke is bad because it will tar up your hardware, like it does your lungs, dust will stick to all your heat syncs and stop working... Then your computer will catch on fire and the whole house will burn down...

lol jk.. But ya it's not good, but would take a few months before you'd notice a nasty build up..

Oh and if you treat it like a child what are you smoking around it for? hmmm

[edit on 26-4-2008 by ElectricUncleSam]

I occasionally sneak a smoke, but for now I chew the nicotine gum. Sure I'm still addicted to nicotine, but at least I'm not smoking.

I love the gum so much, I thought it would be a good idea to try to start smoking again to quit. That failed pretty hard.

So I'm back on the gun. At least I don't have to get up and go outside now every time I want my nicotine fix.

Back when I smoked, I killed my computer with cigarette smoke, so says the computer guy who sold me my next one when he looked inside of it.

Its not so much that it builds up inside a hard drive, because the heads move so much that the surface doesn't get the chance to build up any crud, but that the circuit boards themselves, the traces on them build up a layer of crud and it acts like a thermal blanket over time, which can shorten the life of your board.

Heat is the only reason solid state circuits fail on their own, never mind leaky capacitors.

A layer of cigarette smoke helps the board stay warmer which shortens the life of any semiconductor.

[edit on 26-4-2008 by ben91069]

I usually leave a fan running and pointed at me to the smoke does not go in the PC. A lot of smoke will, still enter the system.

The most damage you will see from your PC's 2nd hand is the tar that will mostly settle on the fans in the PC. Then the dust will stick easier to the fans. This slows the fans down a lot, and the added weight will make the barings fail faster.

As for blowing smoke in it.. dont do it! Open it up and clean it. Look at the fan damge (mostly) for your self.

I used to have a computer that was constantly being smoked around, I did every month or two take one of the panels off and blast it with an air line to shift dust and whatnot but i used that computer for about 5 years with not so much as a smokers cough from it.

as long as you keep it reletavely clean inside i shouldnt worry too much.

When I bought my computer I was a cigar smoker, but when I got it I made a rule that I would not smoke in my apartment, even with the door open and an exhaust fan going.

Guess what, I wound up giving up the cigars.

Cigarette smoke fouls everything that it comes in contact with.

Choosing to not to smoke in the presence of your computer will not only increase the longevity of your computer, but it can also increase your own longevity.

www.worldstart.com...

www.benpreston.com...

i've inherited computers from various smokers over the years. there's usually a disgusting coating of tar-dust all over everything and it makes the room smell when you pop the case off to get inside. i usually stick a box of arm and hammer in there for a few weeks until it clears up. works really well. but what the others have said pretty much cover it. the tar will likely insulate a lot of the components. it WILL decrease the life span of your fans and it can clog the tiny air filters on your hard drives, but i'm not sure the smoke could get through. i don't doubt it, but i've never seen any signifiacant correlation of failing drives with smoking users.

overall, you're probably fine. i'm willing to bet you'll replace/upgrade it before it would die on its own anyway. just pop the case off and blow out your fans once in a while. power it up and make sure they're all spinning ok.

[edit on 16-5-2008 by an0maly33]