Vaping inside & Damaging PCs/Electronics

[Izan]

Hi all. Started vaping full time at the beginning in 2015, in summer 2016 I bought a Full sized gaming tower, by summer 2017 the motherboard had died and I replaced it myself but just in January it died again, I finally clued on (so I think) that vape moisture in the air and dust had made a brown residue inside the case and fried the motherboard.

As I was tired of sinking money into that PC I bought a new ASUS weeks ago. It's a regular PC with some power. I figure the gaming rig had much more air intake (and had lots of holes in the side where the fan was) and the gaming PC was on a wooden plank next to the PC on the ground .. and I also was blowing my clouds to the left. So being close to the carpet, and sucking in tons of vape form that direction, this all added to the vape residue getting in the case.


This time the ASUS (new desktop) is on the desk to right, of me (I blow to the left), I've attached a dust filter to the side intake of the case, and I'm trying to run my mini HoneyWell air purifier a lot more, and periodically de-hazing my condo with the oven fan and bathroom fan. For a few days this week I tried only blowing vape outside my balcony sliding door but I found it to be hassle and didn't really work with my online video chatting, etc.

DId I take the extra precautions this time? Tired of it happening, also, I plan on cleaning out inside the PC tower every 2-3 months. Any tips/recommendations/products worth looking at?

Hi mate,
Increase you nicotine strength so you do not vape so often.
Have you considered an de-humidifier to pull some of the excess moisture from the air?

Cheers
I

 

[440BB]

I go through 30 ML every 24 hours, not all that time was spent at home, but you get the idea.

The volume's your culprit, most likely. I'm assuming it's high VG, which would leave enough residue in the air for a gaming machine to pull many cubic feet of vapor through the machine. That residue would be the perfect way to trap dust in a relatively small room.

 

[Fozzy71]

Both times the motherboard died the MB itself and other pieces of hardware were drizzles in a brown oily residue,

the only thing in my office (I work from home full time, 7 days a week) that ever has something like that on it is the fan I have on my floor that I blow my vape towards so I don't cloud up my office and monitors. My last PC was 9 years old when I replaced it last spring and it was fine after 2+ years of vaping. I only crack the case on my tower to air dust my PC 2 or 3 times a year.

 

[untar]

de-humidifier

You don't really want to artificially decrease air humidity in a room with computers in an uncontrolled manner, you'd just increase the risk of static damage. You want to stay between 30%-40% RH so don't just dry the air out. And then we didn't even speak of location yet, RH can have pretty big swings depending on where you live and what the weather is..

Dry air could also become very uncomfortable especially to vapers who already tend to have dry mucous membranes, not a good idea.

 

[Coastal Cowboy]

I work from home and my home office "work area" consists of 2 laptops, 2 desktops, a server, 3 monitors, a color laser printer, various pieces of network hardware, and a 32" TV. I have vaped right next to all of it, all day every day, for 5 years and not one single piece of equipment has broken down, needed repair, or replacement.

If I were a betting man, I would say that your power is not "clean". I do run all of my equipment on a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) that also acts as a line conditioner to remove any spikes or drop outs.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go find some wood to knock on.

Ditto here. Home workplace and electronics everywhere. I'm also running everything through UPS.

I do have a Honeywell air cleaner upper en route but not because of residue. My wife and her daughterspawn are all wrinkling their noses at me when they enter my space.

 

[rollersk4te]

I both work and go to school online from home and I haven't ever had a PC die because of it... In fact, I still have one laptop from over 5 years ago that keeps on kicking strong despite its age. It's not that I doubt you, but dude... that must be a heck of a lot of vapor being pulled into your PC's intake to have done that. I agree that you should vape in a better ventilated area, and ALWAYS dust out your PC once a month or so. Please do follow the advice about the power supply here, also... as a past PC technician and system administrator, I can assure you it's 100% true that a cheap power supply or unstable "dirty" power can jack your PC up pretty badly.

 

[AzPlumber]

You don't really want to artificially decrease air humidity in a room with computers in an uncontrolled manner, you'd just increase the risk of static damage. You want to stay between 30%-40% RH so don't just dry the air out. And then we didn't even speak of location yet, RH can have pretty big swings depending on where you live and what the weather is..

Dry air could also become very uncomfortable especially to vapers who already tend to have dry mucous membranes, not a good idea.

30% to 40% would be muggy day around here.

 

[Ryedan]

I've got a big tower with lots of fans, liquid cooling, and vape near it for hours at a time and my only problems have been dust bunnies, dog hair, and one time a cobweb. Not one of those affected hardware or performance, just grossed me out.

I really don't think your vaping had anything to do with it.

Minus the liquid cooling, this has been my experience also. I clean my machines yearly, whether they need it or not. Been working for me for almost 6 years now

 

[tokarev]

I'm a computer (IT) guy myself, but I didn't have that much gunk when I was smoking at my computers. Honestly, it sounds like the gunk I used to see from the "capacitor plague" (long story - Google is your friend) but I thought that was over with 10 years ago. I had several brand new motherboards go belly up from bad caps about 10-15 years ago. Even then, I don't remember anything like a "glob" of goo.

 

[HauntedMyst]

Been vaping for 5 years now and I wouldn't doubt for a moment that your vaping had something to do with it. I have two air purifiers running in the room and they collect the airborne VG and I get small puddles of the stuff if I don't clean them regularly. I don't do near enough PC cleaning and the last time I did it was like an apocalyptic wasteland in there with dust bunnies and sticky residue in the filters and on the rails. One of the factors is that we have radiator heat so the air isn't exchanged like a forced air system would be. Since I vape, I have to assume a shorter lifespan on my PC which is fine with me as long as I am not smoking. FYI, Apple announced years ago that smoking would void their warranty.

I know I need to. I have a GSD that sheds like crazy.

I didn't want to believe him about the vaping, but yes - it's a thing.

Say hello to the snow blower. GSD's have a problem with excess awesome. It comes out as extra hair.

 

[LyLyV]

Been vaping for 5 years now and I wouldn't doubt for a moment that your vaping had something to do with it. I have two air purifiers running in the room and they collect the airborne VG and I get small puddles of the stuff if I don't clean them regularly. I don't do near enough PC cleaning and the last time I did it was like an apocalyptic wasteland in there with dust bunnies and sticky residue in the filters and on the rails. One of the factors is that we have radiator heat so the air isn't exchanged like a forced air system would be. Since I vape, I have to assume a shorter lifespan on my PC which is fine with me as long as I am not smoking. FYI, Apple announced years ago that smoking would void their warranty.



Say hello to the snow blower. GSD's have a problem with excess awesome. It comes out as extra hair.

View attachment 725707

^^What a cutie pie!! [emoji178]

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[r77r7r]

Something going on that we haven't heard about something like this before.

 

[calsax]

The only time I have experienced anything like this was when a desktop melted down, and left a puddle of brown goo on the desk. Nothing to do with vaping, just worn out electronic components.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[Snicks]

Been blowing vapor around my desk and PC for many years. That alone will never cause a PC to fail. More likely the motherboard failed for another reason. Or maybe the PSU, or the ram, or the cpu. I mean it could be any one of many things. Ship that old PC off to my house and I'll go through it for you. I can keep it when its fixed right?

 

[kbeam418]

Not a chance, computers are pretty robust and usually what kills them is heat. I was working in a glass factory during a furnace rebuild those computer are operating in about the worst environment a computer (or human for that matter) can be in. Those worked fine simply because they were underclocked and the fans were at max speed constantly. If particles of glass doesn't kill a pc vapor won't either.

 

[smacuser]

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