Guide Motherboard Painting

Motherboard painting *Updated June 8th*

* Work in progress *

OK, some of you have figured out that you can paint the parts of your computer, but there have not been any guides here that I can find [edit]I have been informed of another guide. I am not the first[/edit]. Before I start, I would like to give some credit to the first person that I saw do this:

lamcdonald

Unfortunately, his thread doesn't go into much detail about the actual preparation and painting of the motherboard and cards, so this thread is going to rectify that.

A few thing to keep in mind: this machine is going to be unavailable for a long time (3-4 days). Don't do this on a computer that you need. Also, don't try this on your best hardware!

Step 1
Preparation

This is the longest step of the whole process. You will need the following:

• Masking tape / Painters tape
• Blade / Scissors
• Flat head jewlers screwdriver

Remove anything that you do not want to be painted the base color. This includes RAM, cards (PCI or AGP), heatsinks, fans, and anything else that you may have.


Cover any open IDE or floppy connectors. This can be done by cutting a rectangle about the size of the connector and laying it over the top. Then, cut away the excess.


Cover power connectors in the same fashion.


To prevent the motherboard connection pins from getting painted, wrap a small piece of tape around them so that there are no openeings. Do this for any open pins that you may need to use.


Cover the memory slots by folding a piece of tape in half and sliding it into the slot. If it does not fall in easily, the use the flathead screwdriver to push it in.


Cover the AGP and PCI slots in the same fashion.


Next, cover all the I/O plugs on the 'outside' of the motherboard. These include the parallel ports, serial ports, PS/2 ports, USb ports, ethernet jacks, and audio plugs. Put a piece of tape over them and cut the excess away from around them, similar to what you did to the IDE, floppy, and power plugs.


Almost done! Now you have to remove any stickers that may be on your motherboard. This is not required, but it will improve the finished appearance. Use a knife and some Goof-Off to get rid of the stickyness.


Last step, for the motherboard. To make sure that there is as little 'stuff' on your motherboard as possile, use a soft brush attachment on your vacuum to get rid of any crap. Alternatively, you could use a cloth or paintbrush.


Now you have to cover the plugs on any cards or memory. This is very easy. Simply put a piece of tape over the connectors, then fold it in half.


Time to cover the logical devices, which include hard drives, CD-ROMs, and floppy drives. For these, just cover the connectors, jumpers, and the molex plug on the back. If you need it, cover the audio plugs on the CD-ROM.


Step 2 (painting), will probably come tomorrow. Be patient.

- tf

 

haha nice cant wait to see what it looks like

 

Would the vaccum brush not create ESD???

 

Yes, Im very Suprised people still use this meathod of cleaning computers, alot of people say that its fine and never killed my components -ive seen people that have and killed pcs, and if they dont kill it, it will get progressivly worse -about 6months from now all his kit will be dead.

ps, you should cover the top of the connectors aswell, the paint will find away down -when i sprayed mine with UV paint i used a very similar method to yours and some paint did manage to cover one or two pins

 

The vacuums have never had any problems with me

I covered the top of the connectors last time I did this, and it looked really tacky. If paint does get down into the slots, I'll just scrap it out.

- tf

 

*Update* Step 2

This is a mini-update for Step 2 (Painting).

The full step will be posted once the weather gets better or some of my old paint dries. Here we go...

Find a good place to paint your parts. Try to have a well ventilated and well lit location that is out of reach from grabby hands. I used a sheet, a light, and a clothes hanger for mine.


Set up your parts so that you do not have to move them that much. The more you have to handle them, the greater chance there is that something is going to go wrong. Everything should be taped off that needs to be.


From here on, everything is design and personal preference. You are probably going to want to go with a 2 color scheme for some contrast, but you do not have to. My scheme is a base color of green with white accents. This means that the motherboard is green, fans are wihte, cards are green, and RAM is green. You can design however you want to.

To paint a fan without removing it, just mask off the area around it and spray it. The bearings will not get touched, and you still get a nice coat with minimal effort.


Mask off one side of your hard drive so that it does not collect overspray. This is similar to masking the area around the fan.


Paint the hard drive using light coats. You can use as many or as little as you need for an even coat.


This is the RAM, prepared and ready to be painted in a different color. You are going to have to paint one side and wait for it to dry before you can turn it over and do the other. Or, you can hang it from something to get both sides.


The (half-)finished RAM module.


The motherboard will (hopefully) be done by tomorrow, and the rest of the components as well. They need time to dry

- tf

 

I hope the fan of your graphicscard still works after painting, most of the painting mods of fans removed that part before painting.

 

nice idea man, i'm going to do it (when u will post the sec guide) but i want to know first:
will the warrenty go off after i paint the mobo, v.card fan and memory?
the warrenty of each part i mean.
and u said that we need to cover the edge (don't know its name) of the ram with a maskentape, but after i will finisf painting the ram and then then remove the maskentape from the eddge of the ram, won't it do any harm to the ram?

 

About the warrantees, I am almost certain that they will be voided, although you might be able to get a refund if you argue that it does not say "You warrantee will be voided if you apply paint to the hardware."

The gold contacts on the RAM sustain no damage from this, and neither do the AGP and PCI cards. The stickiness of the masking tape is negligable, and the contacts are large enough that it doesn't matter.

- tf

 

How do you finish preparing the paint? dosnt it chip or flake?. also have u test the paint for conductivity ?

 

bleecher:

The paint won't be touched that much, so a good finish isn't that important. Also, extra coats (primer and clear) would just clog it up and make it get really hot.

No, I just started painting stuff and hoped it worked!

All kidding aside, it has been proven many times on many different forums and websites that spraypaint is not conductive.

L2wis:

Exactly. Primer would only make for another layer that heat might get stuck in. That, and I don't have any

- tf

 

what will happen if u will accidently spray some paint on the mobo chipset and stuff? i mean on the electronic places????

 

Wicked idea, can't wait to see the finished product
Just hope everything works

 

man, i just contact the store i bought my mobo from, and they told me that if i will paint the mobo the warenty will go off.
gues no painting for me

 

der.
do you see people returning painted TV sets to shops?

 

looks interesting, but i would never try this... too risky whatever people say... and i wouldn't say it looks any better painted either...

but i guess it's a matter of taste

 

Uhh...
Do you mean it I took the heatsinks off things like the CPU and NB? The only result of that would be very bad heat transfer.

That's too bad that it kills your warrantee

To everyone else:

I didn't just start doing this project after I saw lamcdonald's results. I did plenty of research on Google, and I tested on an old motherboard (dual PIII). I found that it did not harm the motherboard, so now I am trying to make it look good. I will try to find some pics of the PIII as soon as possible, but I seem to have forgotten where I put it...

- tf

PS: I will start painting motherboard / video card today. Be patient.

 

I found the old machine, and took a few pictures for you naysayers. By the way, these pictures are hosted off of my website, not Photobucket, so tell me if they don't work.


Here is the system, in all its naked glory. There are no expansion cards because I wanted you to be able to see the slots.


This shows off the RAM and IDE ports pretty well. On this one, I just taped straight over the top instead of covering the pins. That gave them the ugly effect you see here.


I did the same thing with the AGP, PCI, and other ports. Notice how they do not match at all...


Overview shot of the whole system. Notice how, if you do the IDE / floppy ports the way I did, paint comes in through the gaps.


This is to prove that it works. I Sharpied (its a verb now, hah!) a spiral on the fan so that you can see it spin.


And here it is spinning. It all works!

I applied the paint kind of heavy to this one, so those rings with wire around them get pretty hot (anyone know what they are called?). Eventually, the hot parts just melt / burn away the paint that is blocking them, so a 24-hour burn-in is helpful.

This is just to hold you over until I finish my guide.

- tf

 

Toroidal Coil ?

 

agh i'm too scared to try that with my system

but very nice work, i might try this with an old one if i can find it