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Have i ruined my Mac Pro? - drilling wall dust/soot

I

iOrbit

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 8, 2012
569
30
so my Mac Pro was left somewhere in the house with some DIY done above it.. i was unfortunately not there when it was being done and the other member of the family obviously didn't care/think that anything could get damaged.

Tape-Drilling.jpg

so.. my Mac Pro was on (idle) during all that time. Some of the dust/powder from the drilling in the wall definitely was inhaled by the fans at the front, i wiped my finger on the area in front of the upper fan inside and there was a faint white smudge from what you'd expect from drilling dust/powder from a plaster wall.

has this guaranteed to have ruined my components inside? I've kept it turned off completely and disconnected all peripherals. I don't intend to turn it back on until next week when i get the electric duster / DataVacc 500.

i really hope I've not ruined it. I intend to sell in a year, but if it starts showing signs of issues, then that relative is going to pay for it.

 
It's dust.
"Ruined", as in "Permanent damage" is a bit overstated, don't you think?
Clean it out. Dismantle it as far as you are comfortable, if you feel it is necessary.

No harm done.
 
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Thanks guys, don't mean to sound too hypochondriac about it :(

i just hate making losses. its not my pride and joy but i only bought it a month or so ago. It was obviously still running when i came back to it but i just know parts can show signs of damage over time, not necessarily straight away?
 
No, I think it just needs to be cleaned.
If you bought it used, then that likely needs to be done anyway on a 6 year-old machine.
Now you have a good excuse to give it a good blow out.

Construction dust is not too likely to result in long term damage, unless you choose to not clean it out of blocked cooling passages, and it grossly overheats. That's your most important issue, and you should inspect all heat sinks, and both sides of all fans.
Lucky for you, your Mac will shut down if it overheats. Cleaning will help eliminate a dust build-up as a source for loss of cooling air.

[boring anecdote]
I used to be hired every six months to clean Macs in the office of a woodworking company. There was very coarse sawdust everywhere. The Macs were never damaged, just dusty (really dusty!)
[/boring anecdote]

Clean it out, get back to using your MacPro.
 
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You should be good minus a good dust removal on the inside. I don't think the gypsum that is in the drywall is going to short anything out, and all of the CPU heatsink fins have a pretty solid gap to them so not much should get embedded inside.
 
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