# How do you guys clean your servers?



## hockey97 (Mar 19, 2012)

Hi, my question is how do you guys clean your servers? Mine currently been dusty. I cleaned it via a vacuum and a paint brush. I still couldn't get some of the dust that stick well with the server fans. I was thinking to dip the fans in water but was told to not do that since it will destroy them or  apply some damage to them. Is this true? what is a good way to really clean everything inside the server. Talking about the dust physically inside the server.


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## SirDice (Mar 19, 2012)

hockey97 said:
			
		

> I was thinking to dip the fans in water but was told to not do that since it will destroy them or  apply some damage to them. Is this true?


Yes, remember a fan is just an electric motor with a bunch of blades attached. Soaking it in water will get water in the coils, destroying it in the process.



> what is a good way to really clean everything inside the server.


You're already doing it.


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## mix_room (Mar 19, 2012)

SirDice said:
			
		

> Yes, remember a fan is just an electric motor with a bunch of blades attached. Soaking it in water will get water in the coils, destroying it in the process.



As long as you dry it out properly before starting the fan up again I do not think it should be a problem. Normal water shouldn't cause huge amounts of corrosion, and once it has evaporated you should be left with almost no residue. It still isn't something I would recommend doing though. 

Compressed air might be able to help you reach some places which you can't access with the vacuum cleaner. 

What should also be noted is that spinning the fans at really high speeds may cause damages as the movement can induce voltages in the coil. Basically turning your fan into a generator.


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## SirDice (Mar 19, 2012)

mix_room said:
			
		

> As long as you dry it out properly before starting the fan up again I do not think it should be a problem. Normal water shouldn't cause huge amounts of corrosion, and once it has evaporated you should be left with almost no residue.


Normal tap water contains quite a lot of calcium. This will get in the ball bearings.

Leave a dish of tap water out, let the water evaporate and see what's left. You'll be surprised.

Normally I'd put a keyboard under the tap if something is spilled over it. The mechanical switches don't suffer as much. Ball-bearings however are a different story.


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## nakal (Mar 19, 2012)

I use cotton swabs to clean the fans. But I have to warn you: *don't apply pressure to the fan blades, because it will destroy the fan*. I try to get between the blades wipe away the dust from the cooler underneath. The cotton makes the dust stick to the cotton swab and you can pull it out very easily.


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## roddierod (Mar 19, 2012)

Q-tips with rubbing alcohol. You can clean just about anything with this. Back in the day, when I was particularly insane, I used to take the add in cards and memory out of my PCs on a regular basis and clean the gold connectors like this. Used to be one of my first steps in trouble shooting hardware problems also.


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## redw0lfx (Mar 19, 2012)

Like others have said... a mixture of compressed air (while keeping the fan from spinning), and a q-tip with alcohol to get what ever is left.  However, I haven't had to do that in a while as I haven't gotten any dust in them thanks to using filters at the entrances of the vents.


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## SirDice (Mar 19, 2012)

roddierod said:
			
		

> Q-tips with rubbing alcohol.


Ether is probably better as it leaves less residue. Use it in a properly ventilated room though. 

You don't want to pass out during cleaning


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## roddierod (Mar 20, 2012)

I believe you need a special license here in the US to buy Ether


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## pboehmer (Mar 20, 2012)

I tend to stay away from using a vacuum within the server case itself as the plastic attachments tend to generate static from the air movement depending on humidity (at least that's what I was told).  We use a small portable (1 to 2 gallon) air compressor and use a vacuum outside of the case to try to catch as much of the dust being blown out.  As far as the hardcore gunk on the cooling fans, some Simple Green or 409 applied to the Q-Tips do the trick.


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## michaelrmgreen (Mar 20, 2012)

I use a small paint brush and a vacuum cleaner to remove the dust the paint brush raises. Caution though, vacuum cleaners create static, keep the nozzle well away from your parts (oh, err). Don't use water or solvents.


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## overmind (Mar 21, 2012)

1. Use a vacuum cleaner that has two holes, one that suck and one that evacuates air. Put the pipe of the vacuum cleaner to the hole that evacuates air. This is the best way to clean it. Then, clear the remaining dust with a brush.

2. Clear the dust from inside the cooler with medicinal alcohol (put the cooler in a dish full with medicinal alcohol and shake it to wash the inside)

3. Shake the cooler so that the alcohol will go away, then let it dry.

4. Then use something like WD40 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD-40 ) to lubricate the cooler.


Don't try to suck the dust with a vacuum cleaner, it will not suck it properly. Blow it.

If the cooler is not working properly anymore, change it.


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## Beeblebrox (Mar 21, 2012)

You have no idea how hard I had to look for this pic!


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## overmind (Mar 21, 2012)

@Beeblebrox: Your idea is bad practice: you must use a more powerful jet. Like the one used by firemen.


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## shitson (Mar 21, 2012)

Are these production servers or home servers?


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## hockey97 (Mar 23, 2012)

shitson said:
			
		

> Are these production servers or home servers?



Yes, these are production servers.


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## redw0lfx (Mar 23, 2012)

hockey97 said:
			
		

> Yes, these are production servers.



In the 9 years I have worked taking care of servers, I have never had to clean any major dust on any of them.  The server room is always kept clean, with the door closed.   However, home servers are a different story, due to them not being in a clean room (skin dust, dog hairs, etc).


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## pboehmer (Mar 23, 2012)

redw0lfx said:
			
		

> In the 9 years I have worked taking care of servers, I have never had to clean any major dust on any of them.  The server room is always kept clean, with the door closed.   However, home servers are a different story, due to them not being in a clean room (skin dust, dog hairs, etc).



In a perfect world, this is how it should be.  But the reality is that some admins are dealt with less than ideal conditions and have to make the best of it.  In my current job, we have a dedicated server room with dedicated cooling, but construction (drywall dust) in the surrounding rooms still makes its way into server room despite numerous precautions.  In one of my previous jobs, the "server room" was nothing more than just another cubical.  Management didn't want to invest in infrastructure for something that worked (at the moment) just fine, regardless of how important the data is.

Image search worst server rooms to see some real winners.


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## saxon3049 (Mar 23, 2012)

I am lucky enough to work in a industrial plants IT department, our servers for the most parts are in a data center in the office block but the computers on the production line get SERIOUSLY dirty so we take them down to the maintenance area and use a industrial air compressor just to get the dust*** off and then a solvent for the most serious cases from the paint shop even then they can be beyond hope in some places.

It's hard keeping them clean as you can imagine, we manage for the most part for example we have a DEC server still running in a control booth next to one of the more high traffic areas of the plant, but that's checked regularly and built like a tank. From what I can tell other than a few days downtime each year during shutdown it hasnt had any serious issues since 1995.

* = The dust can be industrial debris of any kind form dried paint aerosol (believe me that stuff travels), general grime, to oil residue in some areas.


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## overmind (Mar 24, 2012)

My short advice on cleaning a server did not include how to clean dead fish bodies or dead cockroach bodies (which, no joke, I did encounter when cleaning home servers).


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## indyJones (Mar 25, 2012)

Water, bel*ie*ve it or not, can be quite useful in cleaning computer components. I have had to use it in three emergency situations over the past ten years.

What? you say. Yes water, but there are some caveats that must absolutely be observed. You must use distilled water. As someone mentioned here in this discussion, there is quite a lot of "other stuff" in tap water that will remain after the water has evaporated. After cleaning anything electronic with water it must be COMPLETELY 100% dry before re-installing, and it must not get rusted or corroded in any way during the drying time. Anything with a motor, like a fan is not a good candidate for water cleaning. But really gunked-up circuit boards and connectors can benefit from a vigorous slosh in a pail of distilled water.

You are wondering, I'm sure, what the three "emergencies" were.
1. An associate at my office spilled an entire glass full of cran-rasberry juice right onto the keyboard of his laptop. It was gruesome! My friend thought that it was sayonara for the laptop. But no. I took it partially apart, removing the individual pieces that could easily be re-connected. I did "slosh" everything in the water. When completly dry, everything worked again just fine.

2. The second time was a situatuon where Hersey's syrup (don't ask!) had slowly collected over several days into the crevices of a network card and sound card. Removal, sloshing in the water and a blow dry did the trick.

3. The third time was really bad. I knew an unlucky fellow whose entire office, including three  servers, was submerged in a flood during some terrible rainstorms. The servers were filled with mud, grass, and whatever when they could be recovered. We took everything completely apart, bathed everything in distilled water, and re-assembled. One hard drive and a few other things were gone, but a great deal of it was recovered.

Now, I hardly recommend that everyone rush right out and get a few gallons of distilled water. These situations were emergencies, but the water did work.


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## Pushrod (Mar 25, 2012)

I use an air compressor with the line pressure up to 120psi. There's nothing it can't clean. Wear ear protection though...


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## tingo (Mar 25, 2012)

Pushrod said:
			
		

> I use an air compressor with the line pressure up to 120psi. There's nothing it can't clean. Wear ear protection though...



Yes, I bet it can take some components clean off the motherboard too, if you aren't careful.


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## hockey97 (Mar 26, 2012)

indyJones said:
			
		

> Water, bel*ie*ve it or not, can be quite useful in cleaning computer components. I have had to use it in three emergency situations over the past ten years.
> 
> What? you say. Yes water, but there are some caveats that must absolutely be observed. You must use distilled water. As someone mentioned here in this discussion, there is quite a lot of "other stuff" in tap water that will remain after the water has evaporated. After cleaning anything electronic with water it must be COMPLETELY 100% dry before re-installing, and it must not get rusted or corroded in any way during the drying time. Anything with a motor, like a fan is not a good candidate for water cleaning. But really gunked-up circuit boards and connectors can benefit from a vigorous slosh in a pail of distilled water.
> 
> ...




I wanted to use water and dish soap. Yet, I do know some components in the server uses paper.. so didn't use it for the server. I wanted to use it for the fans. Just didn't use it because wasn't fully sure if dish soap would do any damage to the fan. We do have a air compressor industrial size. I just cleaned the server by just a paint brush and a vacuum cleaner. I cleaned most of the dust. Yet there were still some dust left behind. Like on the fan there some small amounts of dust that sticks to the fan. Seems like I will need to soak the fans in water that has dish soap in that water. I thought about using rubbing alcohol. The room it's in isn't those super clean rooms. It's in a old office building room. The whole building is old. The only problem is fine wood dust. 

The compressed air I don't like that method because the dust would fly all over the place. 
I do thank you for sharing your stories and what you use. I just want to find some way that is the best way to deal with these issues. 

I do notice that it's very hard to clean the sever case completely. Too many wires all over the place and very little room to stick a vacuum  nozzle into.


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## wblock@ (Mar 26, 2012)

Compressed air really is better.  The way to control the dust is to take everything outside.  Or use a long air hose.  An air tank works, but doesn't last long.  Stay upwind.

If you have to use a vaccuum, use a HEPA filter or it'll just blow the ultrafine dust all over.

Alcohol on a cotton swab can clean fan blades of sticky dust, but takes a while to clean each blade.  Avoid soap or solvent in the bearings, and replace seedy sleeve bearing fans with ball bearing fans when possible.


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## shitson (Mar 26, 2012)

hockey97 said:
			
		

> Yes, these are production servers.



Are they in a DC? I would do a root cause analysis to determine why you need to clean them at all. 


Is there dust or contaminants entering the data center?
Are the devices being used for longer than a typical maintenance period (3-5 years)
Do you regularly have the facility cleaned they live in?
If it's an office computer cupboard have you thought about modifying the room to hold the servers? i.e ripping up the carpet etc

Apart from that *I* would go with a compressor fitted with a moisture trap.


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## brd@ (Mar 28, 2012)

wblock@ said:
			
		

> Compressed air really is better.  The way to control the dust is to take everything outside.  Or use a long air hose.  An air tank works, but doesn't last long.  Stay upwind.
> 
> If you have to use a vaccuum, use a HEPA filter or it'll just blow the ultrafine dust all over.
> 
> Alcohol on a cotton swab can clean fan blades of sticky dust, but takes a while to clean each blade.  Avoid soap or solvent in the bearings, and replace seedy sleeve bearing fans with ball bearing fans when possible.



+1, this is what I do as well.


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## peetaur (Mar 29, 2012)

hockey97 said:
			
		

> Hi, my question is how do you guys clean your servers? Mine currently been dusty. I cleaned it via a vacuum and a paint brush. I still couldn't get some of the dust that stick well with the server fans. I was thinking to dip the fans in water but was told to not do that since it will destroy them or  apply some damage to them. Is this true? what is a good way to really clean everything inside the server. Talking about the dust physically inside the server.



The best policy is prevention.

If you keep the windows and doors closed, keeping the dust out, and don't have organic things in there (pollen from the windows, plants, cat/dog hair, etc. and your own skin/hair if you spend long in there... maybe in the server room under your bed) then it doesn't get dusty. So they don't really need cleaning until they are obsolete and in the trash.

As previously said:


			
				redw0lfx said:
			
		

> In the 9 years I have worked taking care of servers, I have never had to clean any major dust on any of them.  The server room is always kept clean, with the door closed.   However, home servers are a different story, due to them not being in a clean room (skin dust, dog hairs, etc).


(and similar statement by shitson)

When dust sticks to the fans, in my experience it is always because of cigarette smoke. The tar sticks to the fan, and the dust to the tar. I've never had this problem in a server room though, and don't know what else causes it. So just keep the door closed and don't smoke in there. [forgive me if this guess is way off]

When you need to avoid submerging something in water, you can most often ignore all warnings on the label and just use a slightly wet (not dripping, even if you squeeze it) cloth/brush instead, and hold the object so the dripping goes away from the electronics due to gravity, avoiding touching the electronics, then dry it off with a cloth then letting the insignificant remainder evaporate rather than shaking/spinning/blowing. But I never once did this professionally or to a computer... only a yellowish keyboard or something else coated in tar and nicotine.


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## Kari (Apr 2, 2012)

Hi all!

I think you people working with expensive servers on production enviroment should consider ESD vacuum cleaners. If I remember right, such things exists. They might not be very cheap, but when thinking what those server parts and they breaking up cost, it doesn't seem expensive at all to me. They are needed tools after all. If using brush, then that should be ESD brush. I don't work with servers, but this came to mind.

Water washing that indyJones mentioned, really works with electronics. My friend told me, that when they were really drunk, one of his friends barfed on his keyboard. I mean now that musical instrument, not computer keyboard. He immediately disassembled it, washed all parts and circuit boards with tap water, dried them with hair dryer and it's still working. However, tap water is quite soft here and doesn't leave much residues.

I kept this on my mind and washed many corroded circuit boards from medical devices at work. First I brushed them with tap water and used deionized water for flushing, as we had deionizers available. It's quite same as distilled water and there was plenty of it. Then I flushed them with alcohol to remove water and then I removed alcohol with compressed air. Our repair shop was allowed to buy medical alcohol, but we used that sparingly or suspicions would have risen 

Of course washing should be avoided when not *really* needed.


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## drhowarddrfine (Apr 3, 2012)

Kari said:
			
		

> Water washing that indyJones mentioned, really works with electronics.


I'm an electronic engineer though I've not done that in a number of years. Washing circuitry with water is something you can get away with but it's not something you can count on getting by on. Circuit boards made in a factory are never washed with plain water, not even on a technician's bench. We used alcohol and sometimes freon sprays in the lab. 

fwiw, the one and only time I tried cleaning out a keyboard with water (just to try it), the keyboard never worked again.


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## sossego (Apr 3, 2012)

When I was a prep chef in South Florida, the Maitre'd made the servers take a bath before they came in to work.

Either that or the dishwashers would spray them down.


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## roddierod (Apr 3, 2012)

sossego said:
			
		

> When I was a prep chef in South Florida, the Maitre'd made the servers take a bath before they came in to work.
> 
> Either that or the dishwashers would spray them down.



Worse joke, ever.


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## Beeblebrox (Apr 3, 2012)

@ sossego
- Hi I'll be your server today, what would you like to start with?
- Please start by telling me your specifications: processor model and speed, total available memory, that sort of thing. Also give a detailed breakdown of your bus speed under conditions when your bus-boy is not around to help.


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## jrd1 (Apr 9, 2012)

I have worked with a couple *of* production servers and a lot of off-the-shelf machines. Generally, compressed air and wipes/Q-tips lightly soaked in methanol do the best work.

Note: always wear a static wrist band or ground yourself prior to cleaning any components of the server.


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