Flood damage

[Gariarto]

After over a year since hurricane Irene hit us, flood damaged PCs, monitors and various hardware are still turning up for evaluation.. Back then the wet ones were easy to resurrect with careful cleaning and even more careful drying out. New hard drive and back out again. Though NOW the offerings are dried out and crusted with river sediment inside and out. The six I just got delivered are, well, needing chisel work to free parts from the 'mud matrix'
Question is, do I even consider spending the time trying to super-clean a motherboard/CPU/RAM combo. Then super dry it and wince as I apply power ?
I'm expecting contact tarnishing, corrosion and at least plenty of oxidization growth between IC legs.

Think I would be wasting my time trying even one ?

[momaka]

Re: Flood damage

You'll never know until you try. I would say just dump one into a large water tank and let the mud soften well. Then clean it.

Like you said though, I think many parts will have quite a bit of corrosion. The case and PSU for sure. Probably will have to be changed. Optical drives will also likely rust, but they can still work like that. Of course, they will look ugly so might as well change them.

Try one and see, though.

[mariushm]

Re: Flood damage

I would actually think the crap they're in has protected the items from corrosion to a certain degree.

Maybe you should give them a quick wash in distilled water or even regular water, then clean them a second time in isopropyl alcohol.. let them dry up in the air after and see the state of the traces/pads etc

Worst case, you should be able to recover the processor, memory, whatever had the contacts protected by the slot/socket they're in.

[Gariarto]

Re: Flood damage

OK guys, I finally made some time to play with one of these "fossilized computers". Its what they look like ! Petrified !

Now, what my customer said (which I didn't share before) is that they really don't care what happens to these units if its going to take too much time/$ and don't go crazy with them. They've been replaced by insurance months ago. So basically I'm under no pressure to perform here. The HD's were sent out to a data recovery center which charged them $1400 to recover a recycle bin and a few random files.
So that's why I've been in no hurry to tackle one. My 'back burner' thought train was as I stated, "could this be possible ?"

SO. on this nice warm sunny day I disassembled one completely. Yuk ! What a mess ! I concentrated on the high dollar parts and took the Motherboard, CPU and Memory inside to get cleaned and rinsed under warm regular faucet water and a little detergent as a mild surfectant. Gently using a toothbrush to get in between pins etc I scrubbed and jetted warm water repeatedly until I was satisfied I'd got as much of that superfine clay-like silt off the board.
Then I blasted water out of places where capillary action would hold it with canned compressed air. It took 2 cans before I was somewhat happy I'd gotten all I could. After drying in the sun I can see a fair bit of tarnishing and mild corrosion but nothing terrible. (Thats visible that is)

Not a bad score if they work and I keep them. They are Dell Vostro 410's by the case logos. Inside they are...

Motherboard - Foxconn DG33A01 rev A
CPU - Intel Q6600 Core 2 Quad 2.40 GHz
Memory - 2x 2gb sticks of memory

If all this works its going to be quite a little score. But the work involved is very prohibitive judging by just this one. I spent another 2 hours tonight going round the board with alcohol on Qtips trying to 'polish' off some of the remaining corrosion..

This is getting too long winded isn't it ?

I'm coming to a question or two.. That processor cleaned up quite nicely but theres a little gap on one side of the heat distribution cap. I'm assuming it lets air expand ? Ergo, water and crap probably got inside.
Then there's the socket pins. They are all lined up OK and no bent ones but there's a big tarnished patch on one side. Not horrible, just discolored. Do you think its possible to polish the contact tips somehow ? Or would I need to ? would tarnishing impede contact so much ? Any thoughts ? It would be a shame to come this far and miss something.

Yeah I know, I'll find out when I add power..

You are right about everything else, there's no way I'm going to try and recover anything else. Too much red rust on metal casings and forget the DVDRW's.

[momaka]

Re: Flood damage

Seems to me like you're putting too much effort with your method.

I'd just soak the motherboard, CPU, and memory in the bathtub with water for a few hours. After that, spray the crap out of those components with water from a hose. And only then, if there is still any mud left anywhere I'd use a tootbrush and warm water + a mild detergent.

If using that method, though, let all of the components dry for a couple of days afterwards (at least). Alcohol + q-tips??? Forget it. It's too much work and the corrosion will likely come back again. I use alcohol only to remove old thermal compound. Everything else just gets warm water + detergent.

[kaboom]

Re: Flood damage

Seems to me like you're putting too much effort with your method.

I'd just soak the motherboard, CPU, and memory in the bathtub with water for a few hours. After that, spray the crap out of those components with water from a hose. And only then, if there is still any mud left anywhere I'd use a tootbrush and warm water + a mild detergent.

If using that method, though, let all of the components dry for a couple of days afterwards (at least). Alcohol + q-tips??? Forget it. It's too much work and the corrosion will likely come back again. I use alcohol only to remove old thermal compound. Everything else just gets warm water + detergent.

Also pull the CMOS battery. In the remote possibility of it still holding charge, you'd have electrolysis once you wet the board. But this is moot if traces are gone from getting wet initially.

Simple Green and almost hot water multiple times has never failed me. For nicotine and similar trash, you'll probably need an "orange cleaner," citrus based spray.

I hold boards with their corners down to drip off most of the rinse water, then place them in front of a small fan for 8-24 hours. I used to use alcohol, but get good results from the above procedure.

Two smokey, dusty, smelly CRT TV board sets came back like new, with no afterwards.

[Gariarto]

Re: Flood damage

I guess if this first one works out I'll do the soak method with all the boards at once. Guilty.. Yes I've been a bit over-cautious with it not knowing what to expect, trying to give myself every chance of success. I've 'washed' PCBs a couple times before but to remove lighter contamination than this ! I've never seen so many tiny surface mount resistors etc on a board as this one, I didn't want to knock one off.

You're right, pulling the CMOS battery was the first thing I did when it was still dry. Now I'm at day 3 of the drying process, perhaps another day, then a final check and assembly.

[momaka]

Re: Flood damage

Also pull the CMOS battery. In the remote possibility of it still holding charge, you'd have electrolysis once you wet the board. But this is moot if traces are gone from getting wet initially.

One of my trash-picked computers was completely wet from a heavy rain (the owner must have removed the sides before leaving the PC by the dumpster). When I found it, everything inside was wet - even the CMOS battery. Yet it held (and still does) a good charge. Don't know if the CMOS got corrupt, though - I reset it anyways. After that, I jet-sprayed the whole computer with a hose, including the case. Surprisingly, the case still hasn't rusted, though. The computer has been in my possession for 1 year now. I guess those cheap computer cases with the galvanized coating aren't that bad after all, at least rust-wise. Motherboard is fine too.

That said, I still think it's a good idea to remove the CMOS battery before washing. Also, if the motherboard uses an LGA socket for the CPU, you should NOT take the CPU out when washing. Those LGA sockets are very fragile. Brushing over the socket without the CPU in there will ruin it for sure.

Two smokey, dusty, smelly CRT TV board sets came back like new, with no afterwards.

You still fix CRTs? If so, I'm glad there's someone out there still doing that.

[Gariarto]

Re: Flood damage

That saga turned out to be a waste of time..

Got it all set up to run on the bench and applied power. Encouragingly the "power present" LED lit on the board but that's all, it doesn't fire up. Tried using both the case-front start button and bridging the start pins with no result. HD didn't spin up. Not even a fan twitched. New CMOS battery. Good PSU. Visibly clean connections. OK, well that's it I can't afford to spend any more time on this project. Nice try but no cigar.

Thanks for all your help guys.

[momaka]

Re: Flood damage

Interesting.

You can also try forcing the motherboard to turn ON (short green wire to ground with the PSU connected to the motherboard). Should take a second to do. If that doesn't work, then yeah, it's probably good only for tinkering.

If it were me, I'd try more things, though. It's a quad-core PC after all. Maybe at least see if the CPU and memory work on other boards. I don't see why they shouldn't.

[Gariarto]

Re: Flood damage

Been a while now, I know but there it is. .. On a final note, I tried forcing the issue with the PSU as you suggested but still to no avail.

What I DID succeed with was the CPU, that little guy is worth around $90 so on a chance I ordered a cheap P5 board to try it in. It's now running in a new home. The original memory worked too.
The non working motherboard will be a parts donor for the future.

Thanks for all your support and comments guys.

[momaka]

Re: Flood damage

Nice! Good to hear you got something working out of it.