Is vaping near my PC bad?

There are many cardinal sins when it comes to looking after your precious personal computer: Not cleaning it often enough, leaving it on the floor, placing a tempered glass panel anywhere near ceramic surfaces, etc, etc. The list truly does go on, with each sin creating its own community of Redditors willing to die on that particular hill.

However, there is one sin that rises above the rest in terms of severity: smoking near your PC. This likely won't come as much of a surprise to most people, and as the rate of smoking indoors, and indeed smoking in general, has decreased over the years, it’s become less of a problem.

Of course, as the rate of smoking has dropped, the rate of vaping has risen. It’s supposed to be better for your lungs, but is it better for your PC? Let’s take a look.

Short answer: Yes, but it will take a long time.

Long answer: the reason that smoking has such a bad effect on you PC is that cigarette smoke actually contains tiny particulates. It’s not just “smoke” that fades away into nothingness. Some of these particulates get caught in your PC's fan filters and build up over time, causing the grossness. Some do not get caught and settle on your components, making them far harder to clean.

Vaping, on the other hand, creates liquid vapor. There are no physical particulates in there, so there's nothing to get caught in and clog up the fan filters.

However, vapor of any type, including that watermelon-raspberry stuff that comes out of a vape, will condense to some degree. This means it hits a surface and turns back into liquid. You probably already know that liquids and electronics do not mix well, so this is bad. That being said, any liquid that builds up will be in such small quantities that it will take an extremely long time for it to accumulate to noticeable or harmful levels.

No, but there are so many things that are worst for your computer so try not to worry about it too much. We recommend that you vape out the window or outside entirely, but if you do need to vape at your desk, it will be a while before you notice anything untoward happening inside your PC. Just don’t exhale the vape too hard when you’re on discord. That’s super annoying.