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Dust, pet hair, and the nMP?

W

wildmac

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 13, 2003
1,167
1
So, just got my nMP.. but have a concern for when I set it up this weekend.

My cats sit on a shelf above where the nMP will go, and one of them sheds a lot of fine hair. Right now, this accumulates on the front of my cMP, and I wipe it off every so often.

My concern is with the nMP design, this hair will get sucked in, and might get trapped inside.

Anyone run a nMP long enough to see how it's handling dust and/or pet hair?
 
I don't have an nMP but I built a PC and was shocked to find the filters on the case fans just full of cat hair and dust. If you have a shedding cat in the vicinity of the nMP, I'd probably lay good odds that the fur will make its way into the computer.
 
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From the OWC teardown images, it looks like there's no specific routing of air through the heatsink, so anything that gets sucked in is going to be pulling over all the components. Hence my concern...
 
Tell the cat to not chill up there...most likley theres going to be hair roasting over some tahiti if the shedding cat is around
 
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I have a dusty room with cat and carpet. Ill prob take the cover off from time to time and hit it with compressed air can. Just dont turn the can upsaid down as freezing liquid gas comes out. I have a bulb blower for camera lens/sensors I will try first.
 
I did an experiment by cutting some furnace/AC filter into a ring to put around the bottom of the nMP. The filter raised the CPU temp about 10-20F.
 
Einz said:
I did an experiment by cutting some furnace/AC filter into a ring to put around the bottom of the nMP. The filter raised the CPU temp about 10-20F.
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I probably need something just fine enough to capture most of the cat hair.
 
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Having seen the can in bits it's definitely got a cat hair problem. A can of compressed air baffled at the top with a thick cloth, or better still a trip to a friends workshop with an air line to reverse the air flow every now and then may help. Animal hair will get caught up mostly in the psu and smaller particles at the bottom of the thermal core.

Some material similar to the Dyson HEPA filters would work good as a filter but will have to be very thin so not to disrupt the air flow. Wouldn't be at all surprised if the 7,1 has a built in removable HEPA gauze of some sorts..
 
Robert Davies said:
Moving cats is not going to happen.

Move the nMP it'll be easier.
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Yeah, it's small enough that I could put it on the other side of the monitors, leave the oMP there for now, and wait until the cats decide that the shelf, no longer warm from the oMP directly underneath it, is not a suitable spot anymore. I may also put a cut-down box on the shelf to better trap some of the hair.
 
You could just spray some canned air up through the vents every so often. I have a dog that sheds, and I need to thoroughly clean out my desktop computers once every three or four months. But it's not like anything catastrophic will happen if a little bit of pet hair gets into your box / cylinder.

Also, use iStat Menus. Monitor your temperatures. If your CPU is running 75 C or below you're fine.
 
I got one of these filters for my cMP. Maybe if enough people contact the company and request one for the nMP they'll come up with one.
 
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Robert Davies said:
Moving cats is not going to happen.

Move the nMP it'll be easier.
Click to expand...

It won't matter. :(

We have two Maine coons (one's a dead ringer for my avatar).

We also have an intake air register in the great room that is 12' off the ground at the bottom, nearly 14' high at the top.

The register has to be vacuumed a couple of times a year when it becomes matted with cat hair.
 
Not to freak you out, but i just got my nMP and I have 2 cats. One used to sit on top of a 4tb graid on top on my old pro. I would blow it out every month cuz it would get crazy hair in it. That being said, i hid my nMP behind a monitor and moved the HDD and the little bugger can't get to it so easy now....But yea you'll need to at least blow it out every once in a while id assume....
 
For hair you may be able to get away with something less severe than foam, such as a perforated material, just cut it into a strip, curve it round to fit (maybe more than once) and staple it; it should catch the worst of the dust and hair without having as much of an impact on airflow as foam will.

You'll still want to clean out the Mac Pro regularly, but fortunately that's really easy; just lift off the case and give it a few blasts of compressed oxygen.


Another alternative, if you're willing to do it, is to (carefully) drill a circle of holes into your desk a little further apart than the Mac Pro's base, then use a piece of flexible plastic to block off the intake vent entirely. The idea being that instead of sucking from the sides the Mac Pro will pull air up through the desk (just make sure that space isn't too warm), which should be less prone to hair, though you'll still get dust over time.
 
snarfquest said:
Have you looked inside your old MacPro? I would bet it is full of dust and cat fur....
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The hair never seemed to make it in the oMP much, but it sure would get thick on the front. Did get quite a bit of dust, and perhaps even finer hair, inside, mainly on the video card intake grill (on the old apple card).

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Robert Davies said:
So it's looking like a regular nMP cleaning regime is in your future…

:)
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Oh yeah. Based on the tear downs, gonna have to do that. :apple:


For the moment, while doing the setup and file transfers, the nMP is on the other side of the monitors, away from the shelf. If that works well, might keep it there.
 
wildmac said:
The hair never seemed to make it in the oMP much, but it sure would get thick on the front. Did get quite a bit of dust, and perhaps even finer hair, inside, mainly on the video card intake grill (on the old apple card).

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Oh yeah. Based on the tear downs, gonna have to do that. :apple:


For the moment, while doing the setup and file transfers, the nMP is on the other side of the monitors, away from the shelf. If that works well, might keep it there.
Click to expand...

I'd say certainly after stripping down MacBook Pro's used by cat lovers on their bed. Two grey moustaches on the fan heatpipes and hair everywhere inside, not good. Though it's far easier than a MBP to do, regular blasts with an air line cloth baffled should do the job fine and keeping the surface area 3-4 inch radius as dead protein feline strand free as possible!
 
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