Cleaning of Dell Rackmount servers

[AndyD]

We are having major construction works going on in our school. We have had new Dell rackmount servers installed in our new server room. Unfortunately this was never sealed off, although we were told this was going to happen. This has meant that the server room and more importantly, our servers are full of dust!

Do we have to use a Dell authorised service centre to get these cleaned or can we use a local computer firm, which is what seems to be on the pipeline. Obviously, I want the job done professionally without invalidating our warranties.

Hopefully then I can be excited again about our new servers instead of feeling glum

[3s-gtech]

We had the same happen here. First up, play holy hell with the builders. Get plenty of evidence of the damage. We used professionals to clean our servers, and they did a cracking job as they had the right tools (anti static vacuum cleaners and plenty of air dusters!). We still lost four or five SCSI HDDs though.