Manuel Mejia Jr
- 2001.01.31
From the time the first Macintosh
128 was taken out of its box by its owner in 1984 up to the
today's Cube, the same enemy has come
to harm the Mac. It is small, persistent, and builds up its forces
to titanic sizes. Macintosh users, one and all, low-end and
state-of-the-art, beware this enemy - dust.
Dust is likely the leading cause of mechanical breakdown for all
Macs. Small amounts of the contaminant get sucked in by the cooling
fan. Macs without fans (such as the Mac Plus and the iMac) have the contaminant flow in
through the vents and set up a bridgehead. Over time, dust will
build up on parts like the fan, the logic board, and the disk
drive. In large enough quantities, the dust can stop a fan blade
from spinning, short out key components on the logic board, damage
disk drive heads, and cause overheating.
To keep this menace from damaging your Mac, Mac users should
open up their Macs and blow the dust out using compressed gas from
either a blower or an aerosol can. One can also use special vacuum
cleaners to suck the critters out. I remember working on a Mac II and finding a small cockroach trying to
take up residence near the RAM chips. It found resistance was
futile.
In areas of high humidity, it is possible for mold to form. Such
was the case for a Mac that resided in a clay shop. Such places are
damp due to the clay that is stored and used. The man who used the
Mac for spreadsheet work also had to have the machine purged of
clay dust on a regular basis.
For those people with newer Macs that may be under a warranty
service plan, be sure that the authorized service technician gives
the Mac's insides a cleaning. Regular dust-busting will add years
to a good Mac.
Mac users, heed this warning.
Manuel Mejia Jr is familiar with Mac IIs, LCs, and older PowerBooks. He
uses his Mac LC, PowerBook 145B, and PB 100 with System 7.1 on a
regular basis and recently added a Mac Plus running System 6 to his
collection. He's quite familiar with both System 6 and System 7. He
also owns the Pina books on repairing compact Macs from 128k through
the SE. You can read more about Manuel's computers in Manuel Mejia Jr's Four Old Macs.
