A Near Disaster - Ants in Mayling's Desktop PC

I had an unpleasant surprise early May 2008. My desktop PC had 2 DVD drives, one of which I'd not used for a while, partly because it would not read the disks I wrote. I pressed the drive button, and the tray was ejected. To my considerable surprise the tray was covered in ants with piles of eggs. I was too surprised to say more than 'Oh' and consult 'himself'- this being a hardware problem! I had noticed over several weeks that there were black ants around the PC area but assumed they were from the roof, where we'd had them before, and they have stayed there.
We took the PC to the balcony; this disturbed the ants - they spread out all over the PC and tried to get at us too. See above. The offending DVD Drive was removed and placed a couple of feet away. Eggs on tray fell off, ants fled, not liking light. See right. We used a 'sausage' type vacuum cleaner with a hose and narrow nozzle. It took the best part of an hour to remove most of the ants from the PC. they were very clever at finding somewhere else to hide in the PC, or under!! If you ever have the same problem, tap one side of the PC and catch them fleeing on the other - keep on repeating it, dodging from side to side. Ants have very small brains. Use anti-insect surface spray but do not spray the PC boards.
The relatively ant free PC, was left on the balcony, while 'himself' turned his attention to the DVD drive; he took off drive casing to reveal: see right. Oh sh1t. I had to go to a meeting so left 'himself' with the problem. When I returned the PC and the drive were semi-dismantled on the balcony, it had taken nearly another hour to get the DVD drive reasonably clear of ants Leaving the DVD drive as 'too difficult' for now we brought the PC back to the computer room, reconnected, and glory be, everything worked.
The following day we examined the DVD drive on the balcony, see right; there were many dead ants around it, in spite of having been 'cleaned' and sprayed. We decided that we did not have confidence in it. It was not worth the effort to clean it further. Cheaper to replace it! It was decently buried in the next rubbish removal. Sydney, Australia did not have a recycling system for electronic waste. Motto of the story - if you see an ant near your PC check inside the box, and inside the drives!! Suggest you use surface spray around PC to stop the ants getting into it.

Updated 29 April 2013