Conductive Dust Bunnies

[Ralph Harnden: I don't wanna badger you ext3430]

In article <19559 at cup.portal.com> mmm at cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) writes:
...
>When I first heard this, it gave me a great idea for "nuking" a computer
>center.  Get a bunch of graphite fiber, chop it up, and dump it into the
>air conditioner intake for the building housing the computer center.
>
>Of course, I never did it.  And you shouldn't either.   ;-)

In a past life, I worked for a large mainframe vendor.  One of their
customers destroyed a multimilliondollar machine by drilling holes
in a metal door frame close to the power distribution unit for the
dinosaur.  The power supply fans sucked the metal filings (dust...)
up into the unit; the result was a virtual meltdown.  The vendor
had to mechanically replace the entire machine.

The moral of this fable is: dust is not dust is not dust!

I'm not suggesting that the original poster send his dust bunnies to
the lab for testing before he removes them.  I would caution, however,
that unless you suspect there is conductive material in the dust, or
unless you observe the dust blocking the vents, removing it can
cause more damage than just leaving it alone. Especially if you
are not aware of static dischange, or the magnetic fields generated
by vacuum cleaner motors.

-- 
"People will do anything for a potato"

{amdahl, mtxinu, pacbell, sun}!rtech!gusano!ralph ralph%gusano at rtech.com