I’ll be straight with it. I’m a smoker, I smoke inside, I have a PC that is also inside. I want to clean my PC thoroughly to buy it a few more years. I know about the q tip method, and the compressed air, and general methods of cleaning out gunk and junk from PC parts. But this boy is way too gunked up for a regular cleaning. So, I reckon, the easiest way to clean it is to dunk the dirtiest parts in a bath of isopropyl alcohol. I was considering acetone at first, but it’s way too strong of a solvent, and alcohol should be better at dissolving organic residues. Is this a good idea?
I hereby submit this query to the council, and await judgement.
Not to jump on the smoking hate train - I get it, smoking is very pleasurable and insanely addictive - but have you thought about just smoking outside?
I would never smoke in a room I spend any time in. It’s a funny mindset, as I used to smoke inside in my 20s, but when the ban in bars came along it just sort of became second nature.
These days I rarely smoke, but vape more than I should. The vaping is starting to give me a dry tongue that feels like a fading pizza burn. I plan to stop… Soon…
I haven’t been insulted like this in literal years. I did think of it. In fact, I would do it if it was possible.
You know what, I’ll just rant at you, because I can.
I live with two other smokers in an apratment that is around 28 square meters. I can’t convince them to smoke outside (I tried for years, actually decades). Me smoking outside would change nothing.
Just so you know, the two mentioned smokers are very upset to be mentioned here.
Smoke whatever you want wherever you want. Just don’t assume everyone’s situation is the same. I never asked for health advice, just tech advice. It is painful to read comments from all these self righeous pricks telling me how to live my life (no offense, your comment just happened to be the straw that broke the camel’s back). If I want to die from lung cancer, that is my choice. If I want to smoke inside an apartment that is already considered a “hotbox” by most standards (even without me smoking inside), then you can bet your pretty face I will.
Thank you for your imput. Hope it goes well with quiting vaping. Cheers.
I promise you, your mindset is going to change. Near the time I quit I was getting constant sinus infections. Wake up every morning coughing my lungs out. I knew if I continued not only would I most likely be gone in ten years but it wasn’t going to be a fun way to go suffocating. I’d miss watching my daughter grow up and walking her down the aisle. I could literally feel smoking starting to affect my health after 20 years. Vaping got me off and I feel great now.
Fair play, man. Like I say, I used to smoke indoors and it’s weird that, once society in my country changed, it started to feel really strange to smoke inside.
I wouldn’t be feeling insulted. Your life, your choice bud.
When I worked at an eltronics recycling center (we repaired and resold PCs and printers) we used isopropyl alcohol in spray bottles to clean pc parts. It worked really well. Don’t dunk anything! Just carefully disassemble, spray the part (let the run off fall onto a collection pad), and let it completely dry before reassembly. It may take a few rounds depending on how dirty the part is, resist any temptation to scrub off build up on electrical components. If contaminates absolutely will not come off use a circuit board cleaning “paint brush” with circuit board pcb cleaner to gently clear it or better yet, leave it be. The enemy of good is perfect.
WARNINGS: Wear gloves, eye protection, and a mask. Follow all ESD safety protocols to protect computer parts. If you disassemble the cpu add more thermal paste. DON’T SPRAY THE PSU, if necessary use alcohol on a wash cloth for the PSU exterior. You can speed up dry time by air blowing excess liquid off but be aware this may splatter dirty droplets around the space. Only clean your PC like this in a well ventilated space. Only attempt this if you are comfortable disassembling and reassembling your pc. However long YOU think your computer needs to be fully dry, double that time to be safe.
Also as a bonus. You can put non electric components in the dishwasher. No soap, no heat, as long as they fit and won’t get dinged up by moving dishwasher parts. SERIOUSLY DO NOT HEAT DRY OR WASH ON HIGH HEAT.
I also throw my mechanical keyboards in there but there’s always a chance they won’t work after - so far tho it’s been a success (obviously I make sure they are fully dry before I use them . If you attempt this - at your own risk.
I have an old mainboard from 1990 with emotional value and a leaked BIOS battery. And advice for cleaning that?
Wear gloves and eye protection. Remove that battery and dispose of it in accordance with your local laws.
Gently scrub off and any residual acid with white vinegar and a toothbrush. Brush away or blow off loosened residue until it’s gone, just be aware it’s acid and where you are are sending the particles.
Let it dry. If the rest of the board needs further cleaning you can use isopropyl alcohol to finish it off.
After it’s clean make sure to check for damage before you replace the battery. It’s likely fine, but if it’s been sitting in acid for a while it never hurts to give the board a look over for shorts, cracks, or solder points that lost contact. If it looks good replace the battery and see if she works.
If you decide to disassemble your board to make cleaning easier, I suggest taking a few pictures first. The old MBs don’t have helper notches to ensure parts are placed in the proper orientation and documentation may be hard to come by.
Thanks! The whole PC had a time (when its age was ~20 years) where it still booted, but with reset BIOS settings, followed by a time where it doesn’t boot up anymore. So I believe the most likely thing is that it leaked and caused damage. Retro computing community thinks that the most likely cause is battery damage.
Here is the exact model from someone else: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-3121-v3
Battery (top-left) already removed, but it shows that this one has leaked before as well. When you look closely, you see battery residue on the nearby 8-bit ISA (?), so it must have leaked a lot at some point and been cleaned up. Unfortunately, it came with a notorious Ni-Cd Battery; even for its time not the best.
You’re welcome! Wow I forgot about those batteries, they were the worst! That’s an awesome board. I hope you are able to repair it.
But in all reality, spraying the PSU with high concentration IPA is fine so long as you remove it from the power source and mobo, and discharge the caps.
That’s true. I usually don’t suggest it because when I worked on desktops I developed a philosophy with PSUs of leave them alone if they work and replace them if they don’t. In my experience PSUs are extremely tough, and even in the worst conditions rarely failed. It caused more harm then good to mess with them unnecessary.
That’s definitely fair. They do tend to be the most robust electrical component in a desktop.
Wow at this point id more seriously consider to quit smoking or at least stop doing it inside.
You know nothing about my situation. I can’t do that. If I could I would.
Wrong.
You can. You just wont.
You are speaking with an addictive mind that is left out of control.
That is how addictions work. That’s your ‘situation’. And yea, i do know. I know enough to know when im being bullshitted. I know the bullshit language we use to convince ourselves.
You are only bullshitting yourself here. Thats the situation. Im not the one who needs to be convinced for you to continue. Because im not the one making you smoke.
Youre already taken that job on yourself. Every moment of every day. Youre chosing it.
That is your situation.
I think alcohol may dissolve somethings that aren’t supposed to be dissolved, I wouldn’t risk it. If it’s working don’t fix it. But if you have to I would use contact spray instead, it’s made to be nonconductive and noncorrosive.
As a former smoker of 20 years and nearing 2 packs a day by the time I quit. Please do yourself a favor and try to quit. You will thank yourself.
Vaping got me off of cigarettes, it was the only thing that was going to be able to as I was hopelessly addicted. I always smoked regular cigarettes, but I found that I preferred menthol fruit flavors. The coolnes feeling made it feel more like a real cigarette.
I can get you off cigarettes in one to two week. All you need is a pen vape and a couple flavors of about .5 nic salt. Buy one pack of cigarettes.
First two days start vaping as much as possible whenever you have a cigarette cravig, but allow yourself a cigarette if you need one. After this try to skip one cigarette, by end of week you should still have a few cigarettes left. I kept two 9 years ago and I still have them in my truck dash kard. But seriously keep two on hand by end of week or second week. Keep them in vehicle house. I found that helped loosen my anxiety of not having cigarettes around physically. And now those two cigarettes are a memento that I won.
Bonus after a month or two of being strictly vaping. Quitting vaping cold turkey is much easier than normal cigarettes. I didn’t even have a problem quitting cold turkey. The only issue I had remaining is the physical mouth throat hit. So I got some zero nicotine menhol flavor. And would just take a light puff of that whenever that urge arrived and one would usually get me through the entire day.
Isopropyl alcohol damages certain plastics.
And metals
Won’t it just evaporate super quickly? I’m sure I left the cap off some isopropyl alcohol once and when I came back to it half the bottle hand gone! I say no.
If it was acetone I would believe it. Were you alone? Are you sure nobody drank it? Half a litre of alcohol won’t evaporate in just a few minutes from a bottle. Evaporation is related to surface area and temperature. So unless it was 40 Celsius or the thing was in an open container (not bottle) then it would literally be impossible. Unless it was for several hours, but it sounds like you just left it for a couple minutes.
It was more like half a day and I’m sure it was a warm day but you’re probably right, I’m also painfully unobservant and chances are I’d only just noticed the bottle was half empty.
Okay, half a day is more believable.
There is an easy solution: Do not smoke in the first place. Problem solved. Not only you do not have to clean your computer so often but you also take care of your body.
Now, it is easier said than done but it is doable.
I feel like that’s good general advice, but doesn’t address the question.
I’m not gonna shame people for their choices, but I guess that’s just me.
This is the first time I am cleaning my computer in almost 10 years.
Now tell me again how I should live my life. Please, educate me o wise one.
Actually, I retract my previous statements. Cleaning my PC once a decade is too often. I really need to stop smoking, and stop everyone else in my 28 square meter apartment to also stop smoking. Thank you. Another life saved!
I would, but evidence seems to suggest that is not a very good idea.
I want to clean my PC thoroughly to buy it a few more years.
You can buy yourself and your electronics a lot of years by cutting the smoking :)
Technically you could submerge parts in isopropyl alcohol. The concern with liquid is primarily corrosion and causing shortages. If there is no stored electricity in the capacitors, the isopropyl alcohol shouldn’t cause any corrosion. It would not be the best way to clean it, in reality, but you could probably do it. I would just spray some on and gently clean it with an old toothbrush.
Smoke, especially cigarette smoke, gets onto everything and is awful to try and clean. I won’t buy used electronics used in a smokers home, or much of anything for that matter.
When I used to do computer repair for work I had a hard limit against working on stuff from a smoker’s household or office. Not only am I too asthmatic to enjoy spending time in such a place, but the thick sticky crud in every nook and cranny of the machine made any hardware job far more trouble than it was worth to me.
I’m still willing to occasionally be the “computer guy” for certain friends and family, but smokers can figure something else out because I’m not touching it. (And yes, weed smoke counts.)
Okay. That does not answer the question. I mean, good for you, I guess.
Thank you! You’re nice.
Have you thought about FIRE?
All the time, every day. I LOVE fire. And I know a lot about fire safety. ❤️🔥
How is fire relevant?Nvm, I thought you meant it could cause a fire.
Mostly just leave it be. The smoke is on the outside and as long as it’s visually clean enough it’ll be fine.
Make sure that ventilator fans still run smoothly, and as needed, replace those, as cooling is extremely important
Dude. It made my graphics card burn. The residue conducts electricity.
Don’t a lot of modern boards have a sort of clear coating over the components anyway? Some sort of enamel like substance?
What is “Modern” to you? This is an important question. Are components originally made around 2008 still modern?
I would highly advise against this! That would be a health and fire hazard waiting to happen. Isopropyl is good for cleaning your electronics but I wouldn’t bathe them in it.
If you still want to try submerging your PC in some kind of liquid, you can try mineral oil. This was a trend in PC building back in the early-mid 2010s but seems to have lost momentum around 2017/2018. I’ve never done this myself so research thoroughly. Other than that, stick to water-cooling.
Also, at the risk of sounding like an asshole, I would advise quitting smoking.
My dude. How is mineral oil supposed to clean my PC? Is it a solvent? I don’t remember it being a solvent. I have a feeling people think I want to put a turned on PC in a vat of alcohol. Which is crazy.
And I respect risk takers. Doesn’t make you sound like an asshole. Just EXTREMELY annoying.
The idea wasn’t about cleaning your PC but rather cooling it. The idea was that since mineral oil hydrophilic (is that the right word?), it could do a better job than air or water cooling. However, as other have pointed out, it was a massive hassle with marginal benefits.
This was a trend in PC building back in the early-mid 2010s but seems to have lost momentum around 2017/2018
From what I recall, it stopped being a fad because outside of the cool factor, it was found to be horribly inefficient (cost/performance) at actually cooling the computer compared to air or water cooling.
I did the math on that a while back, and the one factor I don’t hear anyone mention is that you have to cool the liquid/oil as well.
Like, sure, a tank of oil can capture a lot of heat - you could probably max out several GPUs. But once that oil gets hot, it’s not going to take anymore heat away from the GPU, and it’s going to take a long time for a tank full of oil to cool down enough to provide proper cooling.
You’d basically have to have an additional heat pump unit transferring heat from the oil to the air if you wanted to run things long term (like crypto or whatever). So you’re basically just adding in an additional, unnecessary, very messy step.
Maybe datacenters should partner with fast food restaurant and use their waste heat to fry chicken nuggets.
Their post didn’t sound like they were going to RUN it submerged in alcohol… Just dunking in the alcohol to clean it off. I don’t think mineral oil is going to help clean the parts much.
Finally! someone with at least half a brain. Yes, I don’t plan to RUN a PC when it’s submerged in EXTREMELY flammable alcohol. Why would anyone think that, i have no idea. The post literally states that I want to clean the PC parts. You clean it when it’s turned off and unplugged. Or is that not how people do it?
How would cleaning your computer by dunking it in IPA cause a fire?
Lol smokers
Lol non-smokers
Ngl, I do enjoy smoking. But I just don’t because it’s so fucking bad for you. I do tease, but my heart goes to you. Seriously, if you can ever manage, do quit as soon as you can. If you must suck something regularly that’s much healthier and more fun, I suggest a nice clean dick.
Thank you but no thank you. Back where I’m from this would be seen as an insult, but I get the sentiment.
I should really switch to something else. I’ve been considering crack and meth, but that’s expensive. Although looking at the price of cigarettes these days, it might be a viable alternative soon. Cheers.
Real talk: have you seriously thought about a therapist? There are therapists that will do it for free or very very little money. Or you could reduce the amount you smoke, and spend that money on a therapist instead. Instead of 1-3 packs every few days and smoking whenever you think about it, only have a cigarette at most every three hours.
Also, do NOT start crack or meth. Those are not drop pits easily escaped, and starting either of those at all have dire, insidious, very real consequences. Take back power over your life in a more constructive way, like drinking orange juice and brushing your teeth and not smoking. Regain that frontal lobe control clarity that’s in there by getting your shit together. Take real steps that you’ve gotta do. Make changes, no matter how small or large. You can do it, nothing is written in stone and you have so much more power over your life and surroundings than you currently know. Take a deep breath, look deep down inside your heart and soul, and see the happy healthy future you that you know you are, and forcibly make that your reality. Fucking do it and don’t take pain as an answer. It’s never too late to stop, let it all slide off, realize this is not what you want, and take yourself in a totally different direction. You just gotta stand up and move your feet. And even if you don’t do it right now, know that you have, and will always have this power over yourself. Change is inevitable and the only constant of the universe.
As a guy who’s cleaned far too many smoker fucked PCs.
99% Isopropyl and a tooth brush is what you need. It won’t be fast, but you need that kinda precision and attention to make sure you got everything.
You might also consider just replacing any fans. I don’t know if you have a laptop or a desktop, but a laptop fan is a bitch to clean
Thank you. But why would I replace fans? They work fine. It hasn’t even been a decade.
Or do you mean replace as in with liquid cooling?
