After spotting quite a lot of dust inside my newly built Homelab NAS, I decided to overanalyze the situation a LOT – and then go out and buy a bunch of dust filters.
So in this video I show off how I “dust proofed” my two computers (my workstation PC and my Homelab NAS). I also give some tips and tricks along the way because dust filters are NOT some magic solution that will prevent any PC cleaning/maintenance from being done.
If you prefer text over video, please read on for the guide/transcript version of this video.
Video Transcript And Guide
Hey, everyone. When I built my home NAS a few months ago, it was more of a budget build, so I got a really budget case, which didn’t have dust filters or anything like that. I thought that wouldn’t matter because I actually stored it on a table raised from the ground, so I thought no dust would get into it. But when I opened it a few months ago, quite a lot of dust was actually getting into it, especially via this sort of side intake fan.
So, I did what any good introvert would do: I overanalyzed the situation quite a lot, and then I went out and bought loads of different dust filters. In this video, I’m going to add these dust filters onto my Homelab NAS and also my workstation computer, which is another budget build that also doesn’t come with any dust filters or anything like that.
There are some dos and don’ts when it comes to dust filters because these are not some magic panacea that’s going to mean you never need to clean your computer ever again. When it comes to side fans and things like that, they can take in a lot of dust.
‘Old Fashioned’ Dust Filters
The traditional way you would do things is you go out and buy a thin mesh filter like this. Then, you would put this on, and what you would actually do is screw it back over into there.
So, you would take the screws out—you’d take four out, but in this case, I’m doing just this one to show you. You would put the dust filter over it, and then you would screw it back over. As you can see, you’d screw all four. What would actually happen is your dust filter would then be covering the outside of the 120mm fan. When cool air is coming in, if there’s any dust or cat hair or dog hair or anything like that, the dust filter is actually going to stop it, which is great. It’ll stop all of that.
Dust Filters Aren’t Magic
But there is a problem. Firstly, you will actually need to clean these. If you didn’t, this filter would get really dusty, and that’s going to limit your airflow. I mean, it’s already going to limit your airflow a little bit because this is a fine mesh—it’s a lot finer than what was there before—and, as a result, you are going to have limited airflow. You do need to know that.
Before this video, I took some stats in HWInfo and my fan software and things like that, so I’ll compare the results at the end. The other big downside of dust filters in this particular configuration is that, because I screwed them into my fans, every time I want to clean this particular dust filter, I’ll need to take off all four screws. Then, the fan is going to drop, I can clean the dust filter, and then, finally, I can put the fan back on, put the dust filter back on, and screw it back in, which is quite annoying.
Magnetic Filters
There is actually an alternative, and that’s why I only did one of these four screws. What you can do instead is buy a magnetic filter. It still has screw holes, so you can screw it in if you wanted—for example, if your case was acrylic or something else. But if you’ve got a metal case, this actually has magnets built in. You simply pop it over your fans like that, and it’s done—it’ll actually stay on there.
Okay, it slid off because I put it the wrong way around—it’s only magnetic on one side, of course. That’s how magnets work. Whoops! But anyway, you can check which side is magnetic. In this case, it’s this side. Basically, you put it on there, it covers all the holes, and you’ve got a much finer mesh as well. I much prefer this dust filter to this one. I just don’t think that one is very good, to be honest.
This is the better way of doing it, especially with a side fan or something like that where you don’t want to have to screw and unscrew it all the time. You can simply use this, and it will work. When you want to clean it, you take it off, clean it, and once it’s dried—you never put it back on while it’s still wet, of course, because moisture could go into the computer—you just put it back.
These are the best option. If you’re going to buy dust filters, this one was 99p. The other one was £2 or £3, I think, so it is a bit more money, but it’s also a lot more convenient. This is a false economy because you’ll spend so much time actually rebuilding half your computer, it’ll feel like you literally need to be taking your fans off all the time.
Don’t Use Them On Exhausts
My computer also has an exhaust fan, which we can see there. I’m not going to cover that, though, because it brings me to my next point. I mentioned it in the intro, but with exhaust fans, you don’t tend to want to block them. I do have another dust filter that I could literally put on there. Wrong way again—I keep doing that. You know, you could put it on there, and it would cover the dust as well. But, as I said, you shouldn’t really do that. Exhaust fans are all about getting rid of the hot air inside your computer, and you don’t want to cover them because it will limit your airflow.
The Exception To The Rule…
But I wanted to talk about the exception to the rule because there’s always one. In my workstation computer, I’ve actually got top exhaust fans, but I will be putting a fan cover on that. So, this is the CiT Galaxy case, and on top, you’ve got space for two fans—120mm fans on the inside or 140mm fans on the outside. But the problem is, I don’t actually run this computer 24/7. Some days, on the weekend, it’s off for the entire day. Other times during the week, it is on, obviously, but then I turn it off once I’m done with my work or whatever, and then it’s off overnight as well.
So, any dust can actually fall down into the case. You could argue I should get 120mm magnetic fan filters or whatever because I’ve got 120mm fans and pop them on there when my computer is not running. So, obviously, that will cover the 120mm area. But of course, you’ve still got this gap along the edge because this case supports 140mm fans as well.
What you’d probably want to do—and it might seem obvious, but I wanted to cover it—is instead of using 120mm dust filters, you’d want 140mm ones instead. If you’ve actually got that option, you want to fill as much of the space as possible to minimize the chance of dust getting in. Now, already, I can see some dust on these, but you could do something like that. I could leave them on all the time, but obviously, because they’re exhaust fans, as I said, it’s not really ideal to do that when the computer is running.
Because they’re magnetic, it’s easy to just take them off either when my computer is running or when I want to clean them. So, that covers individual ones. What you can actually do, if you know you’ve got two fans, for example, is buy a double-slot dust filter. Again, it’s got a fine mesh—certainly finer than what was actually on my computer. It’s got much smaller holes than that. Then, you can simply pop it down, and it’s done.
That is quite an easy solution. What I’m going to be doing is leaving this on there overnight and on weekends when I’m not using my computer. When I am using it, I can just stick it in a drawer or something like that. That’s actually quite a good solution, I feel, because then you’ve kind of got the best of both worlds.
Front ‘Internal’ Fans.
So, this is the front of the case. What’s important to know here is it’s actually got, despite the way the case looks, a completely solid front. The only place air can actually get in is via these particular fan grills. You can see there—if I just turn that around a little bit, you can actually see there.
There are two things you could do. You could potentially, in some cases, if this was a single strip, come along and buy a strip of magnetic dust filter or something like that. However, in some cases, such as with this one, it’s actually quite hard to get dust filters that fit because you’ve got these bits of plastic that jut out. You’ve got another bit of plastic that juts out for the RGB strip.
What you can do instead is look at actually patching the holes on your case instead. In this case, I’ve got three intake fans here. I’ve got this little strip here, so I could put a dust filter there covering that one, another dust filter there covering that one, and another dust filter there covering that one. Once I actually learn the order of things—there we are, that’s the right way around. That, again, is going to help a lot more than simply not having those dust filters.
I can’t really cover that strip, so this is going to be the easiest way. I’ll talk about this in a minute. Don’t ignore this particular panel because that’s just like some massive dust intake.
The key thing to know, though, is once I’ve put this back on, “out of sight, out of mind” can kick in, and it’s really easy to forget that you’ve got these dust filters here. What I would actually do—it sounds silly—but put something in the calendar or something like that. Just remember, you want to actually take the front of this off and check these dust filters and clean them as necessary.
Smaller Front Case Holes
Then, there’s this particular bit, and there are a few different options there. You can make your own dust filters—actually, JayzTwoCents did a really good video on this, which I’ll link to in the description. But the other option is I measured this up and was able to find these magnetic dust filters that sort of work. I mean, they’re better than nothing, anyway. Basically, they just about fit a little bit—they don’t cover the whole thing, and it’s not really ideal. Obviously, I’ve got these cables coming in, so I need to be a bit careful.
But, you know, I can either have multiple ones like that—it looks a bit janky—or I could just come along and have a single one like that. Then, it’s simply a case of putting the actual cover back on.
Front ‘External’ Fans
Okay, so this now is the other case. This is my Homelab NAS that actually stores all my media content and things like that. It’s got two NVMe drives in there. You’ve got this gaping hole here where all the cables come through and then another one there.
This is different, though, because the fans here are actually outward. In many cases, the fans are on the inside, but here they’re on the outside because this is such a small case that they don’t fit inside. So obviously, in this particular case, things are going to be slightly different.
The top holes are absolutely fine—you can just cover them up. Yeah, that’s better than nothing. It doesn’t look great, but it will actually work, and it’ll prevent some dust from getting in. When it comes to these, as I mentioned, it’s not magnetic, so that’s not going to work. But obviously, it’s not too bad because you’ve got these screw holes completely free. So, whichever type of dust filter you actually want to use, it’s just a case of putting it over and then screwing it in.
So, these are now screwed in. I’m not particularly a fan of this cheaper bottom one just because it doesn’t feel as strong, and there are more gaps around it compared to this one, which feels really solid and covers things a lot more. But, obviously, either way, this is going to prevent a lot more dust from coming in than what I had before, where dust was just constantly being sucked in, and this was quite a dusty case.
Test Results (Before/After)
So, has this led to any temperature changes? Well, before doing anything on my workstation computer, temperatures were higher than I thought, actually, but fan RPMs were around 1,000. If we can see there, if we look at the T-die averages—they tend to move around less—it’s 50°C and 40°C. Then, if we compare that to my workstation computer again, you’re looking at around 50°C and 40°C. No major difference there.
I did actually see my case fans spinning more—so, 1,100 RPM—but I don’t know whether that’s because the software recalibrates things every so often. I will keep an eye on this in case my case fans are spinning more.
If we then go back—just to confuse you—before I had dust filters, I ran Prime95 on my main PC, and temperatures were around 70°C. Then, after the dust filters were applied, temperatures were again around 70°C. So, no real change.
The same is true with my Homelab NAS, which runs on Debian and has an AMD stock cooler. All the temperatures were fairly similar, as you can see here—no real change.
So, there you have it. Dust filters can be quite a good thing, in my opinion. Obviously, they’re not ideal—they’re not a panacea, as I’ve mentioned a few times in this video—because you will end up needing to take them off to clean them and things like that. It’s certainly not going to mean that your computer is now suddenly maintenance-free.
But, obviously, I think they’re a pretty good option, and I’m going to keep using them, at least for six months. Then, I’ll probably do a video in six months and see whether I like them or not, or whether I’ve decided to take them all off because they’re more hassle than they’re worth. When that video is out, I’ll put a link to it here.
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