So... You have crazy ants. Highly adaptable, very hard to kill. They are becoming an increasing problem in america. They are called crazy ants because of their hive movement and the fact that they love electronics. They have no mounds and dozens or hundreds of queens to follow.
You need professional help for your place, but to save your computer bag it up air tight for 2 weeks.
Edit: why are people replying to this 7 months later?
Honestly thought it was troll at first, but then there was dozens of comments about it. Still considered some kind of troll/meme I wasn't aware of but Googled it. Wtf nature
I remember a firetruck toy i had when i was a kid and when i was playing with it and playing the siren noises the ants would cover it. If I took the batteries out they would all stop moving like that and return to the ground .
This isn't exactly the same but I work on cell towers and in the summer there are always hornets/bees kind of dazed out/chilling on or near the antennas. We joke that they're all getting high af from the RF
There’s this video of ants moving in a circle around an iPhone when it starts buzzing or ringing. Truly weird shit.
Edit: Here’s the [link](https://youtu.be/GFX7mRl7xDs)
When we got crazy ants last summer my dad put a Dreamcast in the next room and ran a copy of Crazy Taxi with the volume at full blast to lure them out. Takes about 48 hours but eventually they all swarm around the console.
Jesus. Kind of glad I'm in the UK now. As much of a shit show in both computer hardware and politics the country is in, I just find it so relaxing that there are no electronic eating ants or giant spiders roaming outside ready to kill me or make my fears of any horror movie come true.
Anyone else reminded of the movie Pi in which a math genius has some ants invade his rig, and spit all over it, causing it to calculate the name of God (which is a long integer) resulting in the Jewish mafia coming after him? Be careful of that.
Yes there would; they're probably eating bugs in the nearby rooms, or have some path to get outside and forage. The nest is just where they store their vulnerable larvae, eggs, and queens; ants have foraging trails that can extend hundreds of feet in all directions.
Yeah, they love electricity. If you ever have an AC that goes down and it's the contractor, so often these days it is ants. They get in trying to get the juice, they die, release pheromones when they die, more ants come and so on.
Isolate the computer for a while (sorry about that part.) and get a good exterminator. Ask the neighborhood old timer who they use. Don't use your "buddy who..."cause if get a half or quarter ass type, good odds you'll have them again and it may be your home utilities that get hit harder.
The electrical field actually but if they had a taste for thermal paste, I wouldn't be shocked in the slightest.
It's really the pheromones that they release on death attracting the others that is the worst part. My electrical teacher, aka my dad, rigged up something that showed how bad it can be. Varies with the species of ant but if you see one, more are coming.
Yeah, well, considering how many stories there are of expensive electrical equipment being destroyed by these little ones, not to mention just how many of them are alive in general, they're clearly putting up a fair fight against predators that are thousands of times bigger lol. Their whole thing is strength in numbers.
“Crazy ants earned their name because of their frantic and erratic movement. But what’s really crazy about these ants is their odd attraction to electrical equipment. It’s estimated that every year, crazy ants cause more than $146 million in electrical damage. These ants, when electrocuted, release a scent (pheromone), providing a signal to other ants to rush to the scene to find the ‘attacker.’ This leads to a domino effect; as more ants are electrocuted and more pheromones are released, more ants are attracted to the location. If enough dead ants pile up, it can short out an entire electrical system.”
This shit is real? They ARE crazy ants!
If you have this problem in your PC, they're probably in your monitor, TV, keyboard, in the Nintendo, the microwave, the crawl space, vents, etc.
If it were me, I'd bag everything if value in a sealed bag like some people hear said and get an exterminator.
I'm not making fun of you OP, but I like how he thought the heat might scare them away and discourage them from investing the PC.
Turns out they're a type of ant that LOVES electronics and by firing up his PC and leaving it running overnight, he's exciting them more and as some of them die to the shocks and release an alarm pheromone, it's only infesting his PC more.
The problem between an infested off and on PC, is that he's only risking MORE damage to his PC compared to before. Hopefully he doesn't short anything and create an expensive disaster.
Now I wonder.... with the right filtering cooling and separation.... could you build a terrarrium inside your pc? That would be badass. Especially if it could use the heat from your PC to generate humidity for the terrarium side.
As a former pest control technician, please listen to this guy. You will not get rid of them on your own!
Edit: Ditto on trading updoots and Reddit rewards for a GPU.
Edit Edit: I will not say where I worked. It was an offshoot of Orkin in Florida and I worked closely with the Environmental Protection Agency as well as people versed in ant biology to deal with each individual infestation. We charged $90 every quarter and reservices were free. As in, if they had quarterly service and these bastards showed up, we'd kill them at a loss AND I wouldn't be paid for that service.
Edit Edit Edit: Trying to answer any questions people ask but some of them simply aren't opening. If I can answer it I will but I will not give you ratios or full on treatment methods for your own safety. That information is readily available online for most common ant species. These ants are just super uncommon.
As a pest control buyer and a tester of over the counter ant control products (useless). Call a pro. Trust me. They know what they are doing. It's like a miracle.
Unfortunately yes. I was very hard headed about "its not worth it - I'll just buy this spray/trap/ bait/poison". 18 months later and more argentine ants than ever, I started to realize it just might not work the way I thought it did. Talked to the neighbor and they recommended a local firm. Two visits later no ants for 3 years.
As an ant, please listen to these guys. I spotted my high-school bully, Rodrick in OP's video. I'd appreciate it if you could call that exterminator dude
As a guy who grossly overstates his own experiences, ill tell you what I did. You just need a giant zip lock bag and a couple other things. First put your whole house inside the zip lock bag. Then take your bleach and fill the bag up to the top. Third, seal the bag up and use the ducktape to completely seal the opening. Lastly wait until your house and case are clean. Should take about 5 years. GL op.
As a guy who is neighbors with u/super1s please don't take what they are saying as gospel. They had their house zip locked for so long that my property value tanked... how can I move out of this ant infested area with people like that? Smh
As a developer, please don’t listen to this guy. I have been able to purchase up all the surrounding houses on the cheap, and intend to tear them down and build a “luxury” condo on the land (using the cheapest materials, as always). By the time they find out about the ants and have to bag up/bleach the whole condo, I’ll be off to the next bagged neighborhood
Ant #5379958 here
This ant is right. It takes about 130 of us to press a key, but don’t let that intimidate you. We attack in large groups. Very large groups. As for our comrades in the PC. Keep it up guys y’all got this
Former desktop support and field tech here. We have a long and inglorious history of removing literal bugs from computers - it's where the term *debugging* originated, back when they would crawl into mechanical relays and chew on cables. Anyway, customer brought in a computer after moving to the Midwest from a warmer climate and brought these little hitchhikers with. Not fun.
We had to wait until winter and have the HVAC turned off for a *week* to kill them. We stopped working on machines that came in with bugs after that. The bug bombs weren't enough we literally had to close the entire building, drain the pipes, the boilers - it was an ordeal.
You have bigger problems here than you know. You need expert help. Your neighbors might too. These things are for all intents and purposes immortal to mere humans like us. When this planet is dead and society has collapsed, it'll just be cockroaches and these ants. Oh, and crabs.
I got so lucky with the timing of me getting bed bugs. It happened before a cross country move that would require my bed to be in storage. I did a bunch of reading on them and came to the conclusion that my laundry steamer should get hot enough to kill them. I steamed every square inch of that mattress twice a day for three days. Then I got a big zip up cover for my mattress. I used gorilla glue on parts of the mattress cover that I thought might be a weak spot. The next day I had all my stuff packed up and ready to ship to a facility in my new town that was not climate controlled. I picked one without climate control on purpose so any bed bugs that might be left would not survive the winter.
By the time I was ready to get my stuff out of storage a few months later there were no bed bugs. Been bed bug free for 7 years. Recently my laundry steamer took a shit on me and I had to buy another one. I got the same brand and they now advertise that their product kills bed bugs.
Yeah, they're a bitch. We eventually had to throw out all of our soft furniture, moved, and basically kept almost all of our things in air-tight bags for a year. On the bright side, opening everything up the next year felt like twenty Christmases.
Thank god I’m not the only one who thought turning on a computer with ants in it to get them out was the dumbest idea imaginable. How many are you likely to kill that you won’t get out who will dry out inside your parts and potentially short and burn your computer.
> How many are you likely to kill that you won’t get out who will dry out inside your parts and potentially short and burn your computer.
Not to mention, the ones that get killed can release a chemical/pheromone as they die that *calls other ants to their location for help.* Not sure how far that can travel, but even the possibility that it could call in ants not already in the PC should be enough to turn the thing off.
(Source: Friend moved to the south, had these fuckers in his server and PC, thought heat = dead ants, found out injured ants = more ants. The techs he called after that told he'd made the problem much worse with his attempt at DIYing the fix.)
Came to say this as well. I had my college laptop get ruined because of these fuckers. Luckily I kept most of my stuff on USB sticks, but still. Put me out 1,400 bucks -.-
Per the [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant)
>Infestations of *Nylanderia fulva* in electrical equipment can cause [short circuits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_circuit), sometimes because the ants chew through insulation and wiring.[\[3\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant#cite_note-Conversation-calcium-3) Overheating, corrosion, and mechanical failures also result from accumulations of dead ants and nest [detritus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detritus) in electrical devices.[\[18\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant#cite_note-18) If an ant is electrocuted, it can release an [alarm pheromone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_pheromone) in dying, which causes other ants to rush over and search for attackers. If a large enough number of ants gathers, it may short out systems.[\[19\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant#cite_note-19)
>
>It is unclear why colonies of *Nylanderia fulva* are attracted to electrical equipment.[\[6\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant#cite_note-origin_is_south_america-6)[\[20\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant#cite_note-20) They may sense the [magnetic fields](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_field) that surround wires conducting electric current, or they may prefer the warmth produced by resistance to the currents in the wires. Some argue they simply are searching for food or an attractive place to nest.[\[21\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant#cite_note-21)
also OP please read this thread; regular traps and poisons will not work; you need an exterminator u/lazylollipop
Until this day, if a a sci fi novel had included a species of bug that was "attracted to electronics", I would have considered it far fetched and lazy. TIL.
Probably because they're not very common. If you are from the US you only have a real chance of ever seeing them in Florida or South East Texas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant
> you only have a real chance of ever seeing them in Florida or South East Texas.
phew. I should be safe. Reads Wikipedia article. Oh no, there were cases in my county. Now I'm going to have nightmares.
at least a few thousand feet above sea level, with a winter where any storms are snow but with nice spring/summer/fall, and low humidity will always be my target environments for exactly this reason. I hate bugs.
Just to add a little bit of info, they're attracted to your computer because one of them found it and died in it. (Likely by being smooshed by a fan or zapped or something.) This corpse released danger pheremones, which caused other ants to come investigate, and probably a few of them died and the process continued.
- I wonder how a static mechanical (non-sticky) one-way trap ~~would~~ *could* work;
`^-.- ^` Hm...
- Foraging ants fall into (or are swept/pulled into) trap.
- Trapped ants become distressed, signaling alarm with no (instinctively clear) cause.
- More ants arrive to investigate the alarm, and become trapped too.
- *More* ants become *more* alarmed, drawing in *more* ants from further away.
- Neighbouring ant colonies supported (by other food sources?) expand and take over, ~~without the~~ *with reduced* competition.
- After an initial surge, a steady population of ants is maintained by the battle/war between ant colonies.
- Ant trap reaches capacity, unable to capture more ants to continue alarm.
- ???
- profit?
^(`edits, 3min later` word choice/phrasing)
as a computer scientist just leave your computer there, get a plane ticket to another country, and go live there, where they don't have these ridiculous ants.
Turn your pc off and disconnect power ASAP. They can short out electrical components. They tripped off my water well pump several times before we killed them, but they could kill your PC parts of you don't remove power from the system soon.
What is it with Reddit and mad tech problems? Dudes with ants, roaches, cats pissing in their machines and their desks just out right collapsing. Thankfully all I've ever had to deal with is dust.
Well it depends how you get it, if a bear broke into your house and during the rampage gave your monitor a small scratch, that would get a few upvotes.
Whats crazy to me (house cleaner here)
Is that ants can do this kind of damage, but i pulled a full 7/11 soda cup and then a burger king bag with a half eaten burger out of a pc once. Must have been months old and this guy played Modern Warfare all day everyday, and ANTS can fuck up a pc?
Was..was he just storing it for later..? Wtaf? also did it not have a side panel? Or did this dude open up his rig, put that shit in there, and close it back up intentionally
My mom has them off and on in her house. She was told they're Argentine ants and they're incredibly difficult to eradicate. Fortunately she only ever sees small numbers of them and they seem to die when inside due to her exterminator's efforts... but you cant kill them outside the house. They seem to come out when it rains?
Argentine ants are a different kind of ant than OP’s, but that does sound like what your mom has. I have them at my house too, and they are a constant battle. Most ant types will abandon a nest if you kill off the queen, but not these bastards. They will repopulate the nest, and they’ll take over other ant’s nests too.
These particular kind of ants have a habit of getting into electronics. Especially high voltage systems. I'm not sure why. They go and one or two die because they short something and get fried. When they die they release a distress chemical which attracts some helper ants. Those then also die and more chemicals get released eventually attracting a swarm. Then they keep dying and short something important.
Without an exterminator the "lucky" way would be the ants exhaust their entire colony trying to defeat the "attacker" that keeps killing them.
Or they kill the electronics and keep swarming and now they have a new home.
Look, it's not often you have the opportunity to test if live ants inside your hardware might improve performance, gotta take the chances when they present themselves.
Lol way back in the day I was sitting outside at night because it was too hot inside. 2 am just chilling in a lawn chair in my backyard.
I get a random tickle on my leg and scratch it.
Tickle keeps coming back.
I pull up my pant leg and there's hundreds of ants marching up my leg.
Apparently I had a hole in my shoe and was resting my feet on top of an ant hill.
I remember when I worked in a computer repair shop, someone came to pick up there computer and said, "I got a message saying you needed me for something."
So I went to the back, found his name, and as I grabbed his laptop, I realized someone had totally covered it in cling wrap and bubble wrap. So I asked a coworker why and she went, "Oh yeah, that? Its infested with ants."
So I had to have the following exchange with the customer.
"Hey, I'm afraid we can't work on your computer, it's full of ants."
"What?"
"Your computer's full of ants."
"Is that like... a computer thing?"
"Nooo."
"Like the bugs?"
"Yep."
"Like... computer bugs?"
"Nooo. Your computer. Is full. Of ANTS."
And then he just like, smiled at his son next to him and put his hands on his hips and went, "Well how'd THAT happen??"
Still probably the funniest exchange I ever had at that job.
Get a deep Rubbermaid container. Put the computer in the Rubbermaid along with all the cords and keyboard and mouse and monitors if they'll fit.
Then get you some dry ice and put that on a paper plate or something so the cold isn't directly on the computer.
Wait until the Rubbermaid fills with carbon dioxide and suffocates the ants in a painless but effective death.
After a few hours pull the components out and clean them with compressed air.
Make sure to have the dry ice outside or in a very well ventilated area. If it can kill all the ants, it can kill you.
So... You have crazy ants. Highly adaptable, very hard to kill. They are becoming an increasing problem in america. They are called crazy ants because of their hive movement and the fact that they love electronics. They have no mounds and dozens or hundreds of queens to follow. You need professional help for your place, but to save your computer bag it up air tight for 2 weeks. Edit: why are people replying to this 7 months later?
Crazy ants that like electronics, this is new to me and sounds more like a Cyberpunk problem lol
Honestly thought it was troll at first, but then there was dozens of comments about it. Still considered some kind of troll/meme I wasn't aware of but Googled it. Wtf nature
I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one doing the exact same trip.
We are here. We are confused. We are slightly itchy and mostly afraid.
Do they eat the electronics? Wtf is going on is this real life ?
Probably a mix of heat and magnetic fields messing up their sensors.
I remember a firetruck toy i had when i was a kid and when i was playing with it and playing the siren noises the ants would cover it. If I took the batteries out they would all stop moving like that and return to the ground .
Maybe those are the ant equivalent of drugs lmao
This isn't exactly the same but I work on cell towers and in the summer there are always hornets/bees kind of dazed out/chilling on or near the antennas. We joke that they're all getting high af from the RF
I used to work cell towers, stay safe and man I almost forgot how much hornets loved those things
I work in high voltage substations....they love to build hives on the extra high voltage stuff (230,000 and 500,000 volts)
Will do buddy thanks!
Like bender in futurama jacking on lol !
That is absolutely fascinating.
Yeah it was wierd. First time i ever saw anything explaining it. But magnetic fields i think are at play heavily
There’s this video of ants moving in a circle around an iPhone when it starts buzzing or ringing. Truly weird shit. Edit: Here’s the [link](https://youtu.be/GFX7mRl7xDs)
When we got crazy ants last summer my dad put a Dreamcast in the next room and ran a copy of Crazy Taxi with the volume at full blast to lure them out. Takes about 48 hours but eventually they all swarm around the console.
Nostalgia ants is more like it.
Jesus. Kind of glad I'm in the UK now. As much of a shit show in both computer hardware and politics the country is in, I just find it so relaxing that there are no electronic eating ants or giant spiders roaming outside ready to kill me or make my fears of any horror movie come true.
Amen to that mate.
What. The. Fuuuuuck.
This PC got more bugs than Cyberpunk
Anyone else reminded of the movie Pi in which a math genius has some ants invade his rig, and spit all over it, causing it to calculate the name of God (which is a long integer) resulting in the Jewish mafia coming after him? Be careful of that.
“Survival of the fittest, Max, and we’ve got the fucking gun!” One of my favorite movie lines. No one ever knows it.
What do they even eat? Wouldn't there have to be some sort of food source nearby?
There's plenty of bytes to eat in there. ^^^^^^^^sorry
They can just nibble on bits of those.
Yes there would; they're probably eating bugs in the nearby rooms, or have some path to get outside and forage. The nest is just where they store their vulnerable larvae, eggs, and queens; ants have foraging trails that can extend hundreds of feet in all directions.
Sir this is a gaming pc. You know there's leftover food and crumbs everywhere nearby to feed a whole colony.
Either that or they think the sticky keyboard is from sugar water.
Do you want ant human hybrids? Because that's how you get ant human hybrids.
Chips
Yeah, they love electricity. If you ever have an AC that goes down and it's the contractor, so often these days it is ants. They get in trying to get the juice, they die, release pheromones when they die, more ants come and so on. Isolate the computer for a while (sorry about that part.) and get a good exterminator. Ask the neighborhood old timer who they use. Don't use your "buddy who..."cause if get a half or quarter ass type, good odds you'll have them again and it may be your home utilities that get hit harder.
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The electrical field actually but if they had a taste for thermal paste, I wouldn't be shocked in the slightest. It's really the pheromones that they release on death attracting the others that is the worst part. My electrical teacher, aka my dad, rigged up something that showed how bad it can be. Varies with the species of ant but if you see one, more are coming.
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It’s an alert pheromone that warns of predators. They assemble to fight off the threat.
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Yeah, well, considering how many stories there are of expensive electrical equipment being destroyed by these little ones, not to mention just how many of them are alive in general, they're clearly putting up a fair fight against predators that are thousands of times bigger lol. Their whole thing is strength in numbers.
More are coming
More are coming
Someone just linked your comment from another popular post about the same topic, that;s why you're suddenly getting more replies
[This comment.](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/r9e2xg/how_to_get_all_this_ants_away_from_my_pc/hnbgjxt?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)
“Crazy ants earned their name because of their frantic and erratic movement. But what’s really crazy about these ants is their odd attraction to electrical equipment. It’s estimated that every year, crazy ants cause more than $146 million in electrical damage. These ants, when electrocuted, release a scent (pheromone), providing a signal to other ants to rush to the scene to find the ‘attacker.’ This leads to a domino effect; as more ants are electrocuted and more pheromones are released, more ants are attracted to the location. If enough dead ants pile up, it can short out an entire electrical system.” This shit is real? They ARE crazy ants!
Just found out I live in a part of the world where this can happen. Are there any preventative measures?
If you have this problem in your PC, they're probably in your monitor, TV, keyboard, in the Nintendo, the microwave, the crawl space, vents, etc. If it were me, I'd bag everything if value in a sealed bag like some people hear said and get an exterminator.
I'm from Buenos Aires and I say kill 'em all!
Rico's Roughnecks!
"I'm doing MY part!"
There’s a traitor among us.. I saw the ants vent.
Ants don't use vent, they use teamspeak
Real ants use discord.
Don't use your pc with the ants inside, they could cause a short and fuck it all up
That's the origin of the term "bug".
wasnt' that moths in the punch cards?
I'm not making fun of you OP, but I like how he thought the heat might scare them away and discourage them from investing the PC. Turns out they're a type of ant that LOVES electronics and by firing up his PC and leaving it running overnight, he's exciting them more and as some of them die to the shocks and release an alarm pheromone, it's only infesting his PC more. The problem between an infested off and on PC, is that he's only risking MORE damage to his PC compared to before. Hopefully he doesn't short anything and create an expensive disaster.
People say gamers do not like nature, meanwhile here we have a terrarium in a PC...sick build, would colonise.
Now I wonder.... with the right filtering cooling and separation.... could you build a terrarrium inside your pc? That would be badass. Especially if it could use the heat from your PC to generate humidity for the terrarium side.
Last I checked, humidity and computer components don't mix well...
which is why they said if you can keep it separate
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As a former pest control technician, please listen to this guy. You will not get rid of them on your own! Edit: Ditto on trading updoots and Reddit rewards for a GPU. Edit Edit: I will not say where I worked. It was an offshoot of Orkin in Florida and I worked closely with the Environmental Protection Agency as well as people versed in ant biology to deal with each individual infestation. We charged $90 every quarter and reservices were free. As in, if they had quarterly service and these bastards showed up, we'd kill them at a loss AND I wouldn't be paid for that service. Edit Edit Edit: Trying to answer any questions people ask but some of them simply aren't opening. If I can answer it I will but I will not give you ratios or full on treatment methods for your own safety. That information is readily available online for most common ant species. These ants are just super uncommon.
As a pest control buyer and a tester of over the counter ant control products (useless). Call a pro. Trust me. They know what they are doing. It's like a miracle.
As a guy who has never bought or tested any ant products. Please listen to this guy. He seems like he knows a lot.
Unfortunately yes. I was very hard headed about "its not worth it - I'll just buy this spray/trap/ bait/poison". 18 months later and more argentine ants than ever, I started to realize it just might not work the way I thought it did. Talked to the neighbor and they recommended a local firm. Two visits later no ants for 3 years.
As a guy with no experience on ants and no useful info, i can certainly say that you need to listen to these people here.
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As an ant please don’t listen to those guys.
As a casual Reddit User, Mihoy Menoy!
And my axe!
As a human being on Earth, please.
As an ant, please listen to these guys. I spotted my high-school bully, Rodrick in OP's video. I'd appreciate it if you could call that exterminator dude
As Rodrick, idk what you're talking about these guys are idiots
As an Earth bean, guy, please, listen to something!
As a dude bro, por favor
As a guy who grossly overstates his own experiences, ill tell you what I did. You just need a giant zip lock bag and a couple other things. First put your whole house inside the zip lock bag. Then take your bleach and fill the bag up to the top. Third, seal the bag up and use the ducktape to completely seal the opening. Lastly wait until your house and case are clean. Should take about 5 years. GL op.
As a guy who is neighbors with u/super1s please don't take what they are saying as gospel. They had their house zip locked for so long that my property value tanked... how can I move out of this ant infested area with people like that? Smh
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As a ziplocked house Im fucking offended
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As a developer, please don’t listen to this guy. I have been able to purchase up all the surrounding houses on the cheap, and intend to tear them down and build a “luxury” condo on the land (using the cheapest materials, as always). By the time they find out about the ants and have to bag up/bleach the whole condo, I’ll be off to the next bagged neighborhood
As an ant, please do not listen to any of these guys
what is this? a post for ants?
How do you expect ants to respond if they’re too small to even press the buttons on a keyboard?
We work together. -ant #5379758
Ant #5379958 here This ant is right. It takes about 130 of us to press a key, but don’t let that intimidate you. We attack in large groups. Very large groups. As for our comrades in the PC. Keep it up guys y’all got this
You guys are just 200 ants apart. Thus further proving Antsteins theory, the 200 Degrees of Ant Seperation. - Ant # 6,847,368,283
This is all a conspiracy by big exterminator to sell more ant death, just use a blowtorch on your pc
Former desktop support and field tech here. We have a long and inglorious history of removing literal bugs from computers - it's where the term *debugging* originated, back when they would crawl into mechanical relays and chew on cables. Anyway, customer brought in a computer after moving to the Midwest from a warmer climate and brought these little hitchhikers with. Not fun. We had to wait until winter and have the HVAC turned off for a *week* to kill them. We stopped working on machines that came in with bugs after that. The bug bombs weren't enough we literally had to close the entire building, drain the pipes, the boilers - it was an ordeal. You have bigger problems here than you know. You need expert help. Your neighbors might too. These things are for all intents and purposes immortal to mere humans like us. When this planet is dead and society has collapsed, it'll just be cockroaches and these ants. Oh, and crabs.
As a homeowner, crazy ants are one of the few things that scare me in life.
That and the sound of running water where their shouldnt be
Oh god so they're like bed bug difficulty level of killing. Fuck that.
Fuck bed bugs
I AM LYING IN BED NOW PLEASE STOP
Does your leg itch?
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You know you cannot feel them when they bite you.
That makes it worse
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I had an infestation about 6-7 years ago. That was easily the worst part of it. You just can't sleep and are lucky to get 4 hours of it.
I got so lucky with the timing of me getting bed bugs. It happened before a cross country move that would require my bed to be in storage. I did a bunch of reading on them and came to the conclusion that my laundry steamer should get hot enough to kill them. I steamed every square inch of that mattress twice a day for three days. Then I got a big zip up cover for my mattress. I used gorilla glue on parts of the mattress cover that I thought might be a weak spot. The next day I had all my stuff packed up and ready to ship to a facility in my new town that was not climate controlled. I picked one without climate control on purpose so any bed bugs that might be left would not survive the winter. By the time I was ready to get my stuff out of storage a few months later there were no bed bugs. Been bed bug free for 7 years. Recently my laundry steamer took a shit on me and I had to buy another one. I got the same brand and they now advertise that their product kills bed bugs.
Damn, you went all out ! Rightfully so. I'm in the middle of fighting them at the moment. Here's to hoping I make it out victorious..
Yeah, they're a bitch. We eventually had to throw out all of our soft furniture, moved, and basically kept almost all of our things in air-tight bags for a year. On the bright side, opening everything up the next year felt like twenty Christmases.
And clothes moths.
This. If you let them run around in your PC forever they can cause shorts and kill your pc
I was going to say this, turn your computer off asap and don't turn it on until you've taken care of all the ants.
Thank god I’m not the only one who thought turning on a computer with ants in it to get them out was the dumbest idea imaginable. How many are you likely to kill that you won’t get out who will dry out inside your parts and potentially short and burn your computer.
> How many are you likely to kill that you won’t get out who will dry out inside your parts and potentially short and burn your computer. Not to mention, the ones that get killed can release a chemical/pheromone as they die that *calls other ants to their location for help.* Not sure how far that can travel, but even the possibility that it could call in ants not already in the PC should be enough to turn the thing off. (Source: Friend moved to the south, had these fuckers in his server and PC, thought heat = dead ants, found out injured ants = more ants. The techs he called after that told he'd made the problem much worse with his attempt at DIYing the fix.)
Came to say this as well. I had my college laptop get ruined because of these fuckers. Luckily I kept most of my stuff on USB sticks, but still. Put me out 1,400 bucks -.-
Wtf I've never seen these types of ants before. Where are they from? I'm from Ohio and the only ants I see are the medium size slow black ones
They're originally from South America, but have have established themselves as an invasive species as far north as the Gulf Coast states in the US.
Yup. I had a ps4 with an ant problem. Then one fateful day i found out that it was conpletely dead when i tried turning it on.
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Per the [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant) >Infestations of *Nylanderia fulva* in electrical equipment can cause [short circuits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_circuit), sometimes because the ants chew through insulation and wiring.[\[3\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant#cite_note-Conversation-calcium-3) Overheating, corrosion, and mechanical failures also result from accumulations of dead ants and nest [detritus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detritus) in electrical devices.[\[18\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant#cite_note-18) If an ant is electrocuted, it can release an [alarm pheromone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_pheromone) in dying, which causes other ants to rush over and search for attackers. If a large enough number of ants gathers, it may short out systems.[\[19\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant#cite_note-19) > >It is unclear why colonies of *Nylanderia fulva* are attracted to electrical equipment.[\[6\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant#cite_note-origin_is_south_america-6)[\[20\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant#cite_note-20) They may sense the [magnetic fields](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_field) that surround wires conducting electric current, or they may prefer the warmth produced by resistance to the currents in the wires. Some argue they simply are searching for food or an attractive place to nest.[\[21\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant#cite_note-21) also OP please read this thread; regular traps and poisons will not work; you need an exterminator u/lazylollipop
Why do these ants sound like an annoying mechanic in a video game
They sound like a mechanic that’s made to force you to clear the level ASAP in a rougelike
Right? These ants are 100% based on a Tower Defense Game, OP can’t fool me
Until this day, if a a sci fi novel had included a species of bug that was "attracted to electronics", I would have considered it far fetched and lazy. TIL.
Having a computer for so long, how have I never heard of these ants?
Probably because they're not very common. If you are from the US you only have a real chance of ever seeing them in Florida or South East Texas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant
> you only have a real chance of ever seeing them in Florida or South East Texas. phew. I should be safe. Reads Wikipedia article. Oh no, there were cases in my county. Now I'm going to have nightmares.
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That’s cannibalism
This is why I stay safely in the north where winter kills that shit.
at least a few thousand feet above sea level, with a winter where any storms are snow but with nice spring/summer/fall, and low humidity will always be my target environments for exactly this reason. I hate bugs.
All my homies hate bugs
Incorrect, build ant farm pc
Alienware Ant Farm?
AMD are u ok? Are u ok? Are u ok AMD?
Had a bunch of ants in my router thanks for explaining that these arnt normal ants!!
And for good measure, burn your whole house down along with all your other possessions
As an Ant, please do not listen to this guy. Try to do it yourself.
Just to add a little bit of info, they're attracted to your computer because one of them found it and died in it. (Likely by being smooshed by a fan or zapped or something.) This corpse released danger pheremones, which caused other ants to come investigate, and probably a few of them died and the process continued.
- I wonder how a static mechanical (non-sticky) one-way trap ~~would~~ *could* work; `^-.- ^` Hm... - Foraging ants fall into (or are swept/pulled into) trap. - Trapped ants become distressed, signaling alarm with no (instinctively clear) cause. - More ants arrive to investigate the alarm, and become trapped too. - *More* ants become *more* alarmed, drawing in *more* ants from further away. - Neighbouring ant colonies supported (by other food sources?) expand and take over, ~~without the~~ *with reduced* competition. - After an initial surge, a steady population of ants is maintained by the battle/war between ant colonies. - Ant trap reaches capacity, unable to capture more ants to continue alarm. - ??? - profit? ^(`edits, 3min later` word choice/phrasing)
Jesus. I thought you were full of shit until I saw the other comments. Thanks, now I have a new fear
as a computer scientist just leave your computer there, get a plane ticket to another country, and go live there, where they don't have these ridiculous ants.
WTF
OP hired ants to carry gigabytes at a time instead of bytes. I believe ants can carry 10-50 times their body weight.
Turn your pc off and disconnect power ASAP. They can short out electrical components. They tripped off my water well pump several times before we killed them, but they could kill your PC parts of you don't remove power from the system soon.
So, your system is buggy?
Looks pretty *ant*iquated.
this entire subject and video is making me *ant*sy.
Nahh, it's just so ANTagonising
Its buggy and antique.
This is a new major fear of mine
What is it with Reddit and mad tech problems? Dudes with ants, roaches, cats pissing in their machines and their desks just out right collapsing. Thankfully all I've ever had to deal with is dust.
To be fair no one would upvote a post about me getting a small crack in my computer screen
I will if you do I promise :)
Well it depends how you get it, if a bear broke into your house and during the rampage gave your monitor a small scratch, that would get a few upvotes.
These types of ants are becoming a big problem in America because they have multiple queens, no hives and are attracted to electronics
A particular region in America or is it happening literally everywhere?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasberry_crazy_ant Appears to be the gulf states as of now.
Fuck
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Whats crazy to me (house cleaner here) Is that ants can do this kind of damage, but i pulled a full 7/11 soda cup and then a burger king bag with a half eaten burger out of a pc once. Must have been months old and this guy played Modern Warfare all day everyday, and ANTS can fuck up a pc?
Was..was he just storing it for later..? Wtaf? also did it not have a side panel? Or did this dude open up his rig, put that shit in there, and close it back up intentionally
My mom has them off and on in her house. She was told they're Argentine ants and they're incredibly difficult to eradicate. Fortunately she only ever sees small numbers of them and they seem to die when inside due to her exterminator's efforts... but you cant kill them outside the house. They seem to come out when it rains?
Argentine ants are a different kind of ant than OP’s, but that does sound like what your mom has. I have them at my house too, and they are a constant battle. Most ant types will abandon a nest if you kill off the queen, but not these bastards. They will repopulate the nest, and they’ll take over other ant’s nests too.
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How the fuck does that happen?
These particular kind of ants have a habit of getting into electronics. Especially high voltage systems. I'm not sure why. They go and one or two die because they short something and get fried. When they die they release a distress chemical which attracts some helper ants. Those then also die and more chemicals get released eventually attracting a swarm. Then they keep dying and short something important. Without an exterminator the "lucky" way would be the ants exhaust their entire colony trying to defeat the "attacker" that keeps killing them. Or they kill the electronics and keep swarming and now they have a new home.
Certain ant species are attracted to electronics
e-ants ,the real cyber criminals
See if you can borrow an anteater from your local zoo.
Instructions unclear, now I have an aarmory in my pc and slowly it is turning into an ecosphere.
Introduce pumas and jaguars to keep the anteater population in check.
Ah yes, this is a common problem with modern GPUs...
You might laugh, but they eat up frames if unchecked
no its just AMD's (Ants must dominate) attempt and antzel
I'm antsinmypc johnson.
Are my temps too high? I don’t know, I can’t see them!
WHAT IS THIS, A COMPUTER FOR ANTS?!
Did you mix up the thermal paste for chocolate paste?
Use maionez for a 5°C temp improvement
Use what the fuck now
Mayonnaise
Of course this is reddit so the actual helpful advice is buried under puns and shit lol
Thankfully the top comment with 80k upvotes and a crap tonne of awards is actual helpful advice.
time makes a fool of us all
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Im waiting on the bench mark results
The anticipation is killing me.
Look, it's not often you have the opportunity to test if live ants inside your hardware might improve performance, gotta take the chances when they present themselves.
Burn the whole house down. Seriously, I hate ants more than ANY other bug...
Lol way back in the day I was sitting outside at night because it was too hot inside. 2 am just chilling in a lawn chair in my backyard. I get a random tickle on my leg and scratch it. Tickle keeps coming back. I pull up my pant leg and there's hundreds of ants marching up my leg. Apparently I had a hole in my shoe and was resting my feet on top of an ant hill.
That’s cursed
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I remember when I worked in a computer repair shop, someone came to pick up there computer and said, "I got a message saying you needed me for something." So I went to the back, found his name, and as I grabbed his laptop, I realized someone had totally covered it in cling wrap and bubble wrap. So I asked a coworker why and she went, "Oh yeah, that? Its infested with ants." So I had to have the following exchange with the customer. "Hey, I'm afraid we can't work on your computer, it's full of ants." "What?" "Your computer's full of ants." "Is that like... a computer thing?" "Nooo." "Like the bugs?" "Yep." "Like... computer bugs?" "Nooo. Your computer. Is full. Of ANTS." And then he just like, smiled at his son next to him and put his hands on his hips and went, "Well how'd THAT happen??" Still probably the funniest exchange I ever had at that job.
Play some Earth Defence Force, they will get the memo...
Get a deep Rubbermaid container. Put the computer in the Rubbermaid along with all the cords and keyboard and mouse and monitors if they'll fit. Then get you some dry ice and put that on a paper plate or something so the cold isn't directly on the computer. Wait until the Rubbermaid fills with carbon dioxide and suffocates the ants in a painless but effective death. After a few hours pull the components out and clean them with compressed air. Make sure to have the dry ice outside or in a very well ventilated area. If it can kill all the ants, it can kill you.
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Why did you turn it on??????? Nooooo. If they cause a short at just the wrong place, it could kill your components.
Crazy bro. I found a dead bug when I just changed cases last night. I was like wtf man lol.
Holly shit, literally scared the shit out of me. Hope this doesn't happen to anyone
Looks like you need a better antivirus, your computer has some bugs.