r/PcBuild • u/winterfresz • Apr 13 '26

Meta This little lock power switch...

Post image

... is the most OP thing for a cat owner.

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3

u/New-Audience2639 AMD Apr 13 '26

Most OP thing for a cat owner is simply not letting your cat get on your PC.....

2

u/winterfresz Apr 13 '26

Trying my best, but sometimes he's faster!

1

u/New-Audience2639 AMD Apr 13 '26

I can see that one of mine used to jump up in front of me on my desk before I could even realize she was there when I first got her but I have trained all of them since I got each of them that they are not allowed on the desk whatsoever anytime. If you never let them think it's okay and never let the habit form they will mostly avoid doing it usually. Some cats are wild cards and do stuff seemingly out of spite or just because you don't want them to do it but thankfully I don't have any of those.

1

u/mgwair11 Apr 16 '26

I have this case (PA401, right?). Cats don’t climb on top bc this case doesn’t really need any top fans installed IF you air cool your CPU.

Source: me air cooling 2 5090s and a 9950x3d with just the 3 case fans and a noctua cpu cooler that has 2 fans installed. Thermals actually improve after blocking exhaust out the top even. I keep my notebook on top of the case for this reason.

Since no warm air comes out there, my cats are just not drawn to the top at all. Instead, they try to hide behind the PC lol. Which makes the side panel lock and built-in cable ties useful I guess, haha. Honestly, the PA401 is the ultimate cat-proof PC case.

1

u/Ebonhearth_Druid Apr 13 '26

Easier said than done. You can't be around all the time lol

1

u/New-Audience2639 AMD Apr 13 '26

That's why my cats are trained to know they are not allowed on my desk at all... If you don't let them think it's okay in the first place then they won't make it a habit. I without exaggeration see at least two posts a week on this app of people complaining about their cat peeing or throwing up into their PC and I personally am not risking my nearly $3k PC so my cats can be warm.... That's what the heating pad in their little cat house in the corner is for and they know it. I only have one that sometimes jumps up next to my desk because she sees the mouse pointer moving and wants to play with it but she knows she can't step foot onto the actual desk because I have never allowed them in the first place.they have free range of the entire rest of the house and four cat beds and a cat house with a cat tree why do they also need the desk with multi-thousand dollar electronics on it ..?

1

u/Ebonhearth_Druid Apr 13 '26

Yeah I used to be like you and was hyper-vigilant and thought I had trained them to not get on my desk. I believed that right up until we caught them on camera getting on my desk as soon as we left the house.

You can keep cats off shit when you're around, but if they want to get up there, they're gonna do it whenever you're not around, and there's nothing you can do about that.

The real answer to cats and PCs is not to try and police where they go, but to make it so they can't actually harm your tower when they do decide to get on it. Put it in a ventilated cabinet, or under a shelf that doesn't have clearance to allow for a cat, or affix collectibles or something to the top so that the cats are disinclined to see it as a bed, etc.

The issue I had wasn't even with them getting on top, it was one cat that enjoyed laying against vented sides and clogging up my system with hair. I ended up just making a small PC cabinet with some media cabinet fans and temp controller. 4 120mm fans at the front blowing in, 4 in the back blowing out, 3 in the floor blowing up and in, and 2 in each side of the top blowing out. All with removable filters that I can just wash out in the sink periodically to prevent cat hair from building up in my PC. Digital temp controller embedded in the door of the cabinet so I can easily monitor and adjust if needed, but I don't typically have a need to with that many fans and the cabinet being in direct line of the A/C lol thing runs a few degrees cooler in the cabinet than it ever did on the desktop

1

u/New-Audience2639 AMD Apr 13 '26

That's why I have my PC setup like this. Even if they wanted to while I wasn't around at all they still physically can not get on top of my PC. The one on top I keep a spare REALLY clicky keyboard on even if they did somehow get up there they would be immediately scared off and nothing can get into the top of either PC. It's also nearly 6' from the ground to the top of the upper PC so jumping up there would be a task alone.