How to save electronic equipment from ants?

Asked Sep 01 '13 at 16:35

Active Sep 01 '13 at 23:09

Viewed 2,596 times

Today I brought out my external HDD and it was full of red ants. It took me an hour to remove the ants (it seems quite impossible to remove all of them; some are still inside). I always see some ants are coming out of my laptop. My sister's laptop is infested too. Some keys are not working. So, it's a big problem. I have two questions:

Does anyone know how to prevent red ants from entering electronic equipment like laptop, HDD etc?
How to remove the ant colony that are inside the laptop, HDD?

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask this question, but I don't see any other option.

edited Sep 01 '13 at 23:09

JYelton

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asked Sep 01 '13 at 16:35

sakibmoon

Ants **LOVE** EM radiation. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Sep 01 '13 at 16:47
Burn everything to the ground and start over? – Olin Lathrop Sep 01 '13 at 17:22
Have you tried ANTacid? – Anindo Ghosh Sep 01 '13 at 17:42
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Oh, wait, I get this... What you're looking for is an ANTidote. – Anindo Ghosh Sep 01 '13 at 17:43
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Did you try certain condiments such as pepper or cinnamon? some types of ants don't like them.. – Lior Bilia Sep 01 '13 at 17:49
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You need an in-circuit debugger. – Nick Alexeev Sep 01 '13 at 17:52
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1. Search for a cockroach. 2. kill it. 3. put it beside the HDD. 4. Wait for ants to move from the HDD to the cockroach and you're done! – Abdella Sep 01 '13 at 17:59
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Hire an aardvark. – Olin Lathrop Sep 01 '13 at 20:38
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Your question is about insects infesting things in your home, not about electronics design. By coincidence, they've found a home inside electronic equipment, but it could just as well be your furniture or food supplies. I would recommend asking on diy.stackexchange.com as I believe home pest control is on-topic there. See http://diy.stackexchange.com/search?q=ants – JYelton Sep 01 '13 at 23:13
"Cream of Tarter" may reduce their travel. "Torro" ant killer, they will take to their nest and kill the colony. They have a daily supply of water, remove it. Place the HDD in a ziploc bag when not on use. – Optionparty Sep 02 '13 at 06:03
The documentary film Phase IV has some pointers. The MST3K version is considered definitive. – John U Sep 02 '13 at 09:38

How to save electronic equipment from ants?

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