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Where do you keep your Mac Pro?

Dust and the condition of the inside of your tower have much more to do with what kinda of a person YOU are rather than where there machine sits. I've had my tower on the floor for 6 years and on about 24/7 and it's rock solid. Every few months I blow the dust out but it's never THAT bad. Sitting on a carpeted floor under my desk.

Then again I've cleaned out friend's computers before and man...I feel for smokers. Opening up a smoker's machine is a disaster. Talk about dust and bunnies! I mean handfuls and wads of crap just sitting inside.

Basically, if you're a clean person, don't smoke around the machine, you can put it anywhere. All this talk about not putting it on the floor is nonsense.
 
Thanks for the replies. I finally got mine today and its great. Another thought is how far away from the wall do you keep it? You know, for adequate airflow and whatnot. I have mine about 4" out from the wall. Do you think thats enough? I noticed it's a little warm on the back of the unit around the gpu area. (I'm running the 5770). Is that normal?
 
SteelBlueTJ said:
Thanks for the replies. I finally got mine today and its great. Another thought is how far away from the wall do you keep it? You know, for adequate airflow and whatnot. I have mine about 4" out from the wall. Do you think thats enough? I noticed it's a little warm on the back of the unit around the gpu area. (I'm running the 5770). Is that normal?
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Mine is the 4" from the wall, been so for years. I keep an eye on it with a program called temperature monitor. Recently, the Northbridge Heatsink got a little hot after i loaded up with ram. I replaced the thermal paste which helped only a little. Cranked the fans up from 500rpm to 750 rpm, which helped a lot.
Eventually when i am in the mood, going to cut a hole in the wall and put a fan in it. I'd rather do that than re-arrange everything.

As far as the dust, there was no difference when i quit smoking - i just live in a dusty place. Now that my cables hang, instead of lay on the ground - there is no place for the dust to collect.
 

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On the floor. I have a board underneath it so it's not sitting directly on the carpet. I clean the inside every six months or so, it's never bad. Sometimes it doesn't even need it.
 
Under my desk, 3" above the floor on a simple wood platform with wheels. Handy for quick access to swap drives, cables, etc.
 
Mine's on top of table next to 24" Apple Cinema Display because cord is too short for Mac Pro to be put on floor/rug. Dust is not a problem, maybe if it was on the floor/rug it would be worse . . .
 
I have mine under my desk on a carpet - theres a building site next door so more dust than normal - I used a electovac thing on it 9 months in and did a great job of clearing the dust - I would probably now do this once a year

Here's the electro vac for blowing the dust out - so not massive issue if having on floor (just need to blow once a year really)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...p=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=B003BZCOKK

Ive heard however that it's not fit for industrial usage - ie will be fine if you use now and again per year vs every other day in a big it dept.*

Available for around £82 from amazon uk with uk 3pin plug or $50 from America lol!!*
 
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on the floor, in a very dusty 110 year old house frequented by smokers

first clean since i bought it in 2007 :)

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I am keeping mine on the floor. The machine is just to big and awkward looking sitting up high on something. I am clean and live in a smoke/pet-free home so keeping it on the floor should be fine. I always swiffer dust my laminate floor once a week and plan to open it up at least once a month to check inside. I bumped my intake/exhaust fan speed settings up to 800 from 600 to help keep it a little cooler and less noisy.
 
derbothaus said:
Awesome. It is true though they don't clean themselves.
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yup :)

i repair and service macs, have done for many many years, and yet somehow servicing my own always seems to be next weekends job...

the cooling system in mac pros are pretty efficient with little chance of hazardous overheating unless you live in some extreme environments, regardless of position and dust

just make sure you dont shove a domestic hoover in there unless you have some serious grounding
 
Mine is on the floor and under the desk. Reading this thread reminded me of cleaning it. I have not cleaned it for about 10 months.
 
adream said:
yup :)

i repair and service macs, have done for many many years, and yet somehow servicing my own always seems to be next weekends job...

the cooling system in mac pros are pretty efficient with little chance of hazardous overheating unless you live in some extreme environments, regardless of position and dust

just make sure you dont shove a domestic hoover in there unless you have some serious grounding
Click to expand...

Can't let it go that far. It seemed whenever i got too dusty, it would start to arch in the cables behind the computer. I would clean it out and the burning smell would go away
 
on a related note, thought i was going to have to replace my sony trinitron (triniTON) before i curb anything, try to fix it.
read about how to resolder the vertical ic, but all i had to do was blow out the 1 pound of dust that was on the inside
 

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I don't have a Mac Pro but a G5 and a rearrangement of my desk layout means I'll need to put it on the floor, which I hate. So today I built a little skate for it to sit on, it will sit about 10cm off the floor and I'll be able to move it to clean the floor under it when needed. Maybe even each weekend. I'll try and post a picture when it's sorted.

I'm in the process of upgrading to an iMac, when Apple gets off their butts and release the 2012 update. So I built a new desk top, which leaves no room for my current tower, which is sitting on the desk for the time being.

When I do the move I might check inside, otherwise I'll wait until I get my new iMac as I don't want to break anything before I have a backup computer.
 
On my desk, where it's right in front of me and easy to access the DVD drives and front USB/Firewire ports.

Why on the desk? Because I can't afford a large, solid gold pedestal for it.
 
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