By A couple of years ago I bought a computer chassis for a lab server from BitFenix, the BitFenix Phenom Mini ITX. The surface of the chassis is treated differently than the "normal" chassis – mostly being made out of aluminium. The marketing of BitFenix calls this the "SofTouch" surface.
The subtle curves coated in premium BitFenix SofTouch™ Surface Treatment offer a luxuriously matte finish.
– BitFenix website
Sounds good, right? Who doesn't like a matte finish on the computer chassis…
The problem? After a certain amount of time, the surface becomes sticky, as if the surface is slowly disintegrating and leaving stains. Not even are your fingers sticky when touching the chassis, the stickiness also attracts dust and is almost impossible to clean.
Cleanup = Removal of the soft touch surface
I'm not the only one that ran into this problem. A quick research led me to a Reddit thread and a related discussion (in German), mentioning the sticky "rubber" surface of such computer cases.
The suggested solution: Use Cleaning or Isopropyl Alcohol to clean the surface. Important to know here is that "cleaning" the chassis basically means rubbing off the "SofTouch" surface.
So I used a common household cleaning alcohol with 95% grade. And started rubbing off the surface with household paper….
The good news: It works. The sticky surface disappears with the alcohol applied.
The bad news: The case looks pretty crappy afterwards.
But at the end I can live with this. It's definitely much better than being an un-cleanable dust-collector.
Maybe I could use a black surface spray to improve the looks. At least the chassis itself served its purpose well, just the surface caused problems.
Did you have a similar experience? Leave a comment :-).
