Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

It looks like an era ended!

A mouse in a computer or any electronics, is horrible news!

The American version of hantavirus seems to be getting more common and you must now bleach the system!

Even a mouse nest is dangerous, chiefly, because of the Sin-Nombre strain of hantavirus! As soon as you suspect mouse activity, bleach the entire proximity!

The noob mistake is to sweep or vacuum! You must wet it down with bleach and let it sit for at least 30 minutes!

It's also a noob mistake to use an air compressor!

I'm not kidding, you also need a mask when dealing with suspected materials.

I'm talking N-100 or P-100 filters.

[stj]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

white residue is flux still on the board, it turns white when it gets wet.

[mntegra01]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

Last night I went to clean the PSB for a TV with 91% isopropyl alcohol with a toothbrush to get the solder flux off and clean it up in general. I read most of this 7 page thread but I did not see anyone mention this.. But after scrubbing board and rinsing it down with more alcohol, it left a white residue that would disappear when you touch it with your fingers. Is that normal? Or do I need to rinse with distilled water afterwards and let dry?

[Jonny Accelerant]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

I naver seen to washing of motherboard , it dosent' harm your motherboard, once by mistake fall of teas was damaged my motherboard?????????????????/

Sweet Tea? You spilled sweet tea into the motherboard? The sugar is probably what caused the problem, and that might have been removed if it were cleaned. Also, water/liquid on the CMOS battery is bad.

[stj]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

the important part is the drying.

[KatherineGutierrez]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

I received this Abit KT7R a couple days ago, and before I got it out of the box, I could smell that nasty stale-ness that's always present on a piece of hardware that comes from the home/business of a smoker. Some are more mild than others, but this was a bad one.... The stench almost made me gag, and the board was sticky to the touch (almost didn't want to handle it). I put it on the test bench to see what it would even do before recapping it. I fired it up, it POST'ed, counted 319mb of RAM (out of 512mb), started to boot into my diagnostics, and froze up. The freeze was most likely the bad caps, however, why 319mb of RAM>!??!? LOL They're Crucial DIMM's, so its highly unlikely they're bad. I removed the DIMM's from the slots, and they were caked with nicotine crud, badly! I stuck a 256mb stick of my own RAM in, and it counted 192... I know for sure that stick is good, so this board left me no alternative...............Hotwash in the deep sink!!!

If any customers see this and wondered why their extremely disgusting board came back looking brand new, this is how it's done. I normally don't divulge this secret, as most don't realize its not harmful if its done right, they just panic and think their board will melt when wet.... 99% of the boards I get for repair do not get this done to them, a blast with the air compressor and dust brush and they're good to go. There's the remaining 1% (like the one demonstrated below) that need far more detailed cleanings. I thought this would make an interesting writeup for those out there that want their boards looking good again, especially those with windowed cases.......

Anyway, here it is:

Things you will need for this:
1) Deep sink or any sink the board can sit flat in
2) Mean Green available at any Dollar General store(Mean Green works the best) or Simple Green.
3) Hot water. Cold water isnt as effective.
4) Air compressor
5) Box fan or similar source of moving air (I use a heat register in my house or shop).

BEFORE:
Owner is obviously a heavy smoker. The pics don't bring out how foul this board really is, but it is absolutely AWFUL! You will note the brown scum on the DIMM holders, CPU socket, PCI slots, and just about any white surface on the board.





-------------------------------------

MAKE SURE the CMOS battery has been removed before doing this!!!!! VERY IMPORTANT!!
Remove all perifs, CPU, RAM, and CMOS battery. You can also wash the CPU, cards, and memory, just do them separately.

Spray the board down good with Mean Green on both sides, making sure everything gets coated good. If your board is really foul like the one I received, you can hold it up and watch the nicotine just drip off it.....



Let it sit for a few minutes, then turn the hot water on it to rinse it off.



If you see spots that are still stained, wash it again and scrub it with a toothbrush if you need to.

-----------------------------------

To dry it:
Let it drip dry for about 30 minutes. Then you need to take your air compressor and blow out every crevise of the board. This includes under all the chips, under and inside all slots. These include CPU socket, PCI, memory, AGP, BIOS ROM, northbridge, southbridge, VRM(s), FET's, caps, and anything that could hold water under it.

Final drying phase: (VERY IMPORTANT)
I've fired up boards I washed only 5 hours after washing, and not had any issues with them. I definitely don't recommend doing it that soon!! Place the board in front of a fan. I always put it by a furnace heat register. In the summer, I place it in front of a box fan. Let it slow dry overnight just to be sure.





Of course, I now have to recap this one.... However, just to illustrate my point, I fired it up, and all the memory showed up, and it actually booted just fine. If you smoke, go outside with it!! Nicotine is even more harsh on your optical drives!!

I naver seen to washing of motherboard , it dosent' harm your motherboard, once by mistake fall of teas was damaged my motherboard?????????????????/

[cdicky]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

Hi, Im in the UK. (funny how most forums originate in the US)

Anyway yet another place that doesnt do meangreen or whatever.
Never heard of the stuff. That said, the Nazis in the EU have banned almost everything usefull.

However, experience briefly working for HP and a semi conductor research institute at a local uni, allows me to share this info.
Remember all chip / si devices are not affected by water. And even after each process stage from mask aligining, etching, thin film coating etc. all get a good wash.
Basically a 3 stage clean.
Acetone, methanol, ipa. And a good dunk in each.
After which, a good thorough rinse inDE IONISED water.
Then a good blow dry from dry nitrogen.
1/2 or so on a hot plate (in laminar flow bench to out gas anything?) some processes use nasty gasses and even cyanide.
Then couple of hours or more in an oven at 75'C

But at home for phones or similar I use lighter fuel to clean pcb, or just ipa, then a modified toaster oven.

However to clean any beige pc plastics, there's a product called Mr Muscle kitchen cleaner. Comes up like new.

[desert-rat]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

the smoke part of the title of this thread brought back some memories of old radios and t.v. sets where when you opened them up you knew it was from the house of a smoker . I am glade I never got that bad habit .

[Ed Herdman]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

>is it ok to do that with a nintendo ds or not?
probably not, casing traps water. Maybe with its circuit boards tho.

Old post here, but the actual touchpad is separate from the screen - and they will easily trap water inside. I've got to pry mine apart, because that last bit of water refuses to go

In fact, this can happen even when the water is applied from the outside - I had just a tiny bit with soap on the outside to clear up the screen. Didn't quite do what I wanted this time, but it provided a good opportunity to clean up the buttons and d-pad.

Older Game Boys are much better in this regard - you can get steamy water in behind the screen of a Game Boy Pocket and it dries out just fine.

[goontron]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

i have built a rack for my dryer that keeps the board suspended in the center (not tumbling) and it drys the boards (and occasional radio chassis) very fast.

[whyexactly]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

I once repaired an XBox 360 that was clearly owned by a chainsmoker, when I popped the top off the case you couldn't see anything as every surface was covered in this nasty brown dust/smoke fuzz that had a horrendous smell. You could probably have gotten cancer just looking at that thing.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

i did not find a single cap in it that would be considered good.

Wow! The only arcade game I saw that even compared to this was Vapor TRX, at the arcade in downtown Bellows Falls, Vt, IIRC.

It literally crashed like a PC! I kept seeing an error message on a black screen, (and sometimes may just crash without an error message) like a X86 PC crash, LOL.

Acted like a PC with a bad overclock!

Just like someone getting kicked in the nuts for expecting a 5.5+ Ghz OC on a cheap ass CPU core, LOL.

[kc8adu]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

just did a sink wash job on a power supply,mainboard,and monitor for a sega choplifter.
while i had it torn down for the overhaul the games owner washed the cabinet inside and out.
looks and plays like new now.it goes down in the record books as the nastiest arcade game i have seen.and i did not find a single cap in it that would be considered good.
this thing must have never been turned off from new and played by a mob of chainsmokers!

[rboyer]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

I've had to tear down and clean plenty of Megatouch and JVL games before. Those things sit in a bar for 24 hours a day and some of them get hammered so hard with cigarette smoke that you literally have to take out the cooling fans, lay them on a paper towel, and bathe them in 409. If left unchecked for too long you're guaranteed failure because the layer of nicotine will build up to the point where it will load down a fan and destroy it.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

started to boot into my diagnostics, and froze up.

In this case, I wouldn't be surprised if the crashing was because of the filth!
At least based on my experience on my Asus P5QL Pro board, which out of the blue got random and frequent freezes when booting the Parted Magic Linux distro. I was like, "what the bleep?!"

And it was actually crashing when I wasn't even close to running anything demanding!

So I cleaned the board with a moistened paint brush and reseated all the RAM and cards. Since that, the P5QL Pro board has always been normal. But, I noticed one of the Fujitsu cap leads bridged with dust!

[tablet3rs]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

nice... tnx for the info sir

[sscharlie]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

I had one with the case cover off for awhile and a mouse pee'd on the MB. Wasn't a good MB after I fired it up...LOL

I thought the minerals in tap water was a problem??? I used distilled.

[Dan81]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

RAID! NOW!!!!!

RAID on RAID arrays!

[Nitro468]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

I have tossed my keyboard in the dishwasher, They come out NICE... People online thought I was joking. It was really bad, the cat knocked over a can of soda right into it. I didn't see it until it was VERY sticky. Just use some care and common sense.

I had nothing to lose... It was a Focus programmable keyboard, sigh.. I wish I could still get them.

[vmartins45]

Re: Cleaning Motherboards - ATTN SMOKERS!!

I only use isoproply alcohol and a a brush antitastic.