I tend to come across a fair few motherboards that are a bit grubby and have seen some attempts on older hardware to wash/scrub them down. Always been a little sceptical though. However when I saw a 5 litre bottle of deionised water for little over a pound I thought I would give it a go. The first board I thought I would give a good scrub down was a Gigabyte GA-PS5C-DS3R. It had clearly been used in a possibly dirty / moist / industrial environment and while it worked perfectly it did not save its CMOS settings despite a new battery. I simply took the CMOS battery out, put it in a clean sink and poured enough water over it to cover it. I then took a paintbrush and scrubbed all the muck off. Popped the motherboard in a 80 degree oven for half a hour, assembled it back up and it fired up. Looks like new and now it saves its CMOS settings Guess some of the muck was causing a short somewhere. So if anyone else has a board that's a bit minging I would say go for it.
It's supposed to be fine according to Coolit. This was their advice when their cooler leaked all over my parts but sadly I was too afraid to risk it.
As long as everything is dry before plugging it back in, there's no harm in it whatsoever. I've done it a fair few times Always nerve racking though with the first switch on lol
I get the same reaction when I tell people I clean my keyboard in the dishwasher - but it works. As long as it's completely dry, you shouldn't have any problems. Even though the same principal applies with a motherboard, I'm sure it takes massive cojones to try it the first time
Interesting topic. Does it have to be deionised water? I normally just use a dry 2 inch paintbrush to clean the dirt and dust from circuit boards, heatsinks fans, etc.
Deionized would be non conductive. Even if it was unplugged, I would be afraid of charge stored in capacitors shorting and causing damage if a conductive liquid were to be used. How legitimate that fear is, I don't know. It could be fine.
normal water is also not very conductive and would also not cause a short with a capacitor, the problem that could arise with normal water is that it has chalk in it which could deposit on your socket/connectors making them not able to connect propperly anymore. just make sure it is completly dry before you start it and remove the battery
Washing it in deionised water won't make any difference. you are washing a dirty board and therefore contaminating the water. It's the impurities in water that conduct electricity. You can wash it as normal but just make sure it's completely dry and free from any residue.
Yep done the keyboard wash and motherboard wash. Nothing fancy a drop of fairy liquid in warm water then thoroughly rinsed. Left in hot water tank cupboard for a few days. never had a problem. I used to be a heavy smoker so nicotine covered everything and it was the best way to remove it.
I had an open container (full of iced-tea) tip over onto the top of my PC which resulted in the LC rad spraying Lipton into every corner of my PC. I washed everything down in a vat of Isopropyl and got very merry doing so. Should have followed the advice and performed the operation in a well ventillated area, using protective gloves. It felt like 4 shots of vodka flowing through me after hte first 5 minutes, the rest was a blur. Everything was washed, Ram, GPUx2, Xonar, Mobo, PSU, and everything is still working to this day.
White cotton 95° washing machine cycle, scoop of stain remover - BAM! Done. Protip: put the motherboard in a linen bag to catch all the components as they break off during the cycle. Be ready with a soldering iron and a few days to put them all back on again...
I've been cleaning motherboards, graphics cards, sound cards - the works, like this for years too - I'll bear it in mind now though! EDIT: Never a synthetic paintbrush. Only a posh one, naturally
Posh ones are worse as they contain hair rather than plastic. It's rare but I have seen cases of people sparking components with a paint brush. TBH? components have become much more resilient to static over the years. I remember when it was a really big thing.
I've never washed my motherboard before. If it is dirty, I use a brush to remove off the dirt. The worst case I had is sticky gunk on the fans and heatsink, which I removed by wetting the brush with rubbing alcohol. The only major concern in washing a board is to ensure that the connectors (PCI, DIMMs etc) are fully covered by tape during wash, or after wash remove the water by spraying contact cleaner (or WD40) into the connectors. As for the static issue, this is a whole subject by itself. In summary, the components are secured on the motherboard which is grounded. Make sure that you are grounded before brushing.
Apparently there's a bunch of people with bricked Xbox Ones who might want to try this to get their Xbones working again
