Case in the Dusty room

[Vladi40]

Hello.

I started building my PC and it was nearly done, until i realised that room it will be staying in is dusty, really dusty. So I need help chosing a new case. Now I'm looking for the most gain at the lowest avaliable price (dust first, money can wait)

 

My build is:

MB: MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600 

Cooler: BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro4

RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz

GPU: GTX 1660 Super Asus TUF OC

SSD: Kingston A2000 M.2 500GB

HDD: WD Blue 1TB

PSU: Enermax Revolution D.F. 750W

 

Ps: I've been thinking of Fractal Design Define R5 and adding some Arctic Cooler P14 fans to keep high air pressure inside. 

Thanks! 

[Bombastinator]

One issue is how big the dust is.  A filter needs to be smaller than the dust particles to work.  Plaster dust, for example, is really really fine and you’d need something pretty extreme to keep it out.

[Vladi40]

6 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

One issue is how big the dust is.  A filter needs to be smaller than the dust particles to work.  Plaster dust, for example, is really really fine and you’d need something pretty extreme to keep it out.

True, but then again I don't have the budget for something along the lines of Silverstone Mammoth mm01. And room is regularly vacuumed, wiped and aired. So lower end spectrum should be enough, i guess... 

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, Vladi40 said:

True, but then again I don't have the budget for something along the lines of Silverstone Mammoth mm01. And room is regularly vacuumed, wiped and aired. So lower end spectrum should be enough, i guess... 

There are cases with screen inserts and cases with fine mesh fronts.  The finer the filtration the lower the airflow.  You seem to be looking for as fine as you can afford.  

If you don’t want to change your current case and don’t mind ugly Hackery, I did a case where I used what was effectively aquarium filter material (I used stage 1 filter material from an air filter) and put adhesive  hook Velcro (I threw out the fuzzy half) around the case air inlets and just stuck squares of it to them.  Not pretty but it was removable and did pretty good filtration.  I don’t know how it compares to screen.  It was finer though so far as I can tell because my PSU still has the screen on it and it fills up much more slowly.  

[Vladi40]

33 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

 

It seems fine, but isn't all this Overkill? 

I mean, it's nice way to get rid of dust, but I'll get a whole new bunch of Temp issues...? 

[Bombastinator]

19 minutes ago, Vladi40 said:

It seems fine, but isn't all this Overkill? 

I mean, it's nice way to get rid of dust, but I'll get a whole new bunch of Temp issues...? 

It required changing fans to High static pressure models and using more fans.  Works fine though.  It might be overkill.  I don’t know your situation.  Part of it is how often you are willing to clean the dust off stuff.  My system would go five years at a stretch where it was sitting.

 

The R5 wouldn’t work well for that anyway.  It’s a low noise case.  To do what I did you’d basically have to take the front panel off completely and cover it with filter.  It’s already got (Or should have) high static pressure fans to make the front air turn the corner like it needs to.  That would mean aquarium filter would be a bridge too far with the front closed.  I can’t tell if there is a dust screen on the front or not.  Seems to be one on the side.   The r5 has a gigantic number of drive bays.  If you need all of those the new mesh front cases likely won’t work for you anyway because they usually don’t have drive cages like that.  Having sound deafening and airflow and filtration all at the same time along with all those drive bays is just expensive.

[Vladi40]

11 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

It required changing fans to High static pressure models and using more fans.  Works fine though.  It might be overkill.  I don’t know your situation.  Part of it is how often you are willing to clean the dust off stuff.  My system would go five years at a stretch where it was sitting.

 

The R5 wouldn’t work well for that anyway.  It’s a low noise case.  To do what I did you’d basically have to take the front panel off completely and cover it with filter.  It’s already got (Or should have) high static pressure fans to make the front air turn the corner like it needs to.  That would mean aquarium filter would be a bridge too far with the front closed.  I can’t tell if there is a dust screen on the front or not.  Seems to be one on the side.   The r5 has a gigantic number of drive bays.  If you need all of those the new mesh front cases likely won’t work for you anyway because they usually don’t have drive cages like that.  Having sound deafening and airflow and filtration all at the same time along with all those drive bays is just expensive.

When I opened my old PC, most of the dirt in the non-filtered/high airflow case is in form of fibers (carpets, blankets etc.). I don't think super (overkill) filters will be necessary. Maybe some dense mesh form dust filters will do just fine.