Would You Believe Dust?

"Uh-oh," I said quietly to myself. Of course now my husband is listening and he says, "Uh-oh what?" "Nothing," I say, not sounding very confident. "Well, it must be something. What happened?" says he. "I'm not sure, but I think our computer has decided to take a permanent vacation," I replied.

Our computer had been doing weird things over the previous week. Things like taking forever to boot up, taking forever to shut down, shutting down altogether in the middle of whatever, sluggishness, and complete unco-operation. We thought it was "just time." Time to upgrade what we have or buy a new computer and we couldn't afford either one at the time.

A friend of ours who knows his way around computers came over to take a look at it. He asked me to take the cover off the tower, then he said he was going to try blowing the dust out of it first. I'm thinkin', "C'mon! Enough foolin' around! I want/need to get on my computer!" So he blew a dust storm out of the tower with our air compressor, put the cover back on the tower and fired 'er up. I squeezed my eyes shut and gritted my teeth hoping for the best. When I opened my eyes again, not only was the computer running, but the desktop was already up and completely running! It was lagging anymore and it was booting up and shutting down like the speedy demon it is.

Dust. Dust. I can't believe it was just dust. I was so relieved that the problem was so simple and easily fixed. Yay! Which of course got me thinking about other electronics and appliances. By blowing the dust out of our refrigerator it now runs more quietly and efficiently. Our t.v. stopped making this annoying, high-pitched beeping sound. My box fan I must have running 24/7 regained the highest speed. Now I keep a lot of things around the house blown out about every six months.

My mother took her computer to a computer repair guy because her computer was doing the same thing mine was. She said he did everything but blow the damn thing up and it still refused to work. I asked her if he blew the dust out of it with an air compressor and no, he hadn't. I told her to bust out the ol' air compressor and blow the dust out of it. She did and it fired up and worked just as it was supposed to with none of the previous problems. I guess the computer guy was sick that day...

So before you panic and run out and spend exorbitant amounts of money on repairs, software and anti-viruses, look at the vent on the side of your tower. If you can see dust there, I promise you, there is dust throughout and it is a huge burden to your computer (or other electronics and appliances). Dust slows down the fans, conducts electricity, and causes appliances and electronics to overheat. Sort of like making sure something is plugged in before you start troubleshooting anything else, blow the dust out and take troubleshooting from there. After that, a good blow job to your appliances and electronics about every 3-6 months and it will keep them running cool, quiet, and efficient!