Cleaning A2000 motherboard

[pyrre]

I have an A2000 motherboard that needs cleaning. it is covered in dust and has some battery leakage. What is recomended for cleaning a computer motherboard?

Can i use acetone and a toothbrush?

[cv643d]

Unscrew the motherboard and remove every socketed chip, then you can soak it in normal-hot water with soap, get a stiff and soft brush and clean it in water. Let it dry for a couple of days or use hair dryer (be careful they can produce very hot air!). Hardware looks like new this way.

If there is green stuff around the battery area you need to neutralize it, there are various thoughs how to do it. Some people suggest using water combined with baking soda where the green stuff is but I have read other solutions, look up "how to clean car battery" for more inspiration reading about that.

[Orjan]

cv643d wrote:
Unscrew the motherboard and remove every socketed chip, then you can soak it in normal-hot water with soap, get a stiff and soft brush and clean it in water. Let it dry for a couple of days or use hair dryer (be careful they can produce very hot air!). Hardware looks like new this way.

Am I the only one who thinks its a bad idea to clean electronics with water?

[pyrre]

I use coca cola on car batteries... :-D

[cv643d]

Believe me, I thought the same five years ago when someone claimed they cleaned their motherboard in water but it is safe, at least my A4000 motherboard still works  :-)

[ChuckT]

I seem to think that using liquids on the computer is a bad idea.  I had to take seats out of a theater.  All of the bolts were in the floor had to be taken out.  You would think that they were strong but we bent them back and forth with hammers until they broke.  The physics of any metal is that it becomes weak over time and metal bolts in the floor bend and become rubbery because they are exposed to the air (humidity).

We have copy machines at work and one of them has plastic parts which broke over a period of time and the repairman said it was due to it not being in an air-conditioned environment because air-conditioning takes some of the humidity (moisture) out of the air.

I think that adding liquids to any material would degrade the material over time.  This isn't pure science but it is my opinion.

[cv643d]

You fill up a bath with hot water, add soap and scrub motherboard in it, take care not to scrub components to much. Then you dry it with a hairdryer so water disapears. Where is the danger? You expose motherboard to water for 15 minutes. More danger is a fried battery, even if you remove the battery small things will continue to eat away on the circuit board.

Off course you should not drop your Amiga PSU in the bath.

I just gave an A500 motherboard a proper wash yesterday, works like new today and motherboard is shining!

[Orjan]

cv643d wrote:
You fill up a bath with hot water, add soap and scrub motherboard in it, take care not to scrub components to much...

...Off course you should not drop your Amiga PSU in the bath.

I fail to see the difference?

Water corrodes the traces on the electronics. When you give it a bath, water may get under circuits, in between legs of sockets, connectors and so forth, and it takes an incredible amount of time for it to dry, and in the process eats away at the board..

I´ve seen this hundreds of times in cellular phones, granted, they arent as well ventilated, but most of them havent even been completely submerged. A few drops in the right position is all it takes.

[cv643d]

I meant its a bit difficult to open up the PSU, I would not recommend submerging an Amiga PSU with shell and expect it to be dry in a couple of days. You also risk getting an electric shock, thats why I never play with open power supplies.

A hair dryer is very efficient, at least a proffessional one as we have here, it can dry hair (or electric equipment :-D ) almost instantly and offers both plenty of heat and plenty of air so water that sits tight under components get pushed out or dissapears into air.

Or you could use distilled water.

[A6000]

Only a few days ago, I read on this site that tap water was not pure enough or something like that, and they recommended leaving boards out in the rain. now, maybe I'm just gullible, but it sounded sincere.

[amazing]

just put it in the dishwasher on 55 degrees celcius

then let it dry for a day or 2

or clean it afterward with contact cleaner from motip

[ChuckT]

There are impurities in water and even rubbing alcohol leaves a residue.  Some places like Indiana have hard water and some towns have soft water where the water is treated with salt.

[da9000]

There's enough said on the topic and the counter-topics so I won't bother (if you need the whys, search - this goes to anyone, not pyrre). All I'll say is that I've been doing and what works for me (and I'll add that I've searched the scientific answer as to the why, as well). What I do is more or less what cv643d says: first, use something acidic (a little vinegar) to neutralize the crap from the battery leak, submerge in warm water with a few drops of non-polar detergent (dish-soap), bursh thouroughly, but carefully not to get wires crossed/touching and capacitors flying off the board and down the drain, and then wash with clean water a few times. Shake the board to get most of the water off. Force-dry with a big fan (summer-type fan) for a few hours (I'm lazy, but if you want, leave it for the whole day or two or so). Works like a charm so far (in fact it even fixed a non-working video output on one board).