Cleaning crap from ebay

[ratfink]

Just bought an old pc motherboard on ebay. Absolutely filthy, full of dust and gunge, the hsf's stink [smell permeates the air, almost like a bonfire], think it may be smoke, though no signs of burning [hoping the cpu's aren't burnt out but the smell reminds me of burning athlon].

Any good way to clean this up? I was thinking:

- soak in a bowl of warm soapy water
- maybe use some sort of brush
- hose it off with cold water
- pat dry, maybe air blast worst of water off
- ipa to drive out water
- leave a few days to dry out

Reminded me why I stopped buying old gear on ebay as far as possible.

 

[TjLaZer]

I don't understand how lazy some people are, selling filthy and dirty stuff on there. And it most cases if they took 5 minutes out of their precious busy lives to clean the stuff up, they could get much more $ for it. :double

On to your dilema. You can use compressed air to clean the dust off best you can, then a can of contact cleaner to clean it. It will evaporate pretty quick. You can also clean by hand with Q-tips and alcohol. And I also heard of people actually soaking the PCB in warm water or a disk washer and letting it dry for several days! (never done that, and dont know I would..) Good luck bro.

 

[keropi]

toothbrush + dish soap + good drying
that's what I do and it has worked so far very nicely...

 

[bebek]

brush wit window cleaner, then clean water and dry it, will be like new

 

[Turranius]

I had an ugly old A2000 motherboard I bought "not tested" so figured it was dead and I got it for spares / for fun. Removed all socketed chips and ran it in the dishwasher at low heat.

Couldnt be arsed to wait a few days for it to dry so I put the oven to hot air 50c and left it in there for 3 hours, upside down.

Came out looking brand new and hey, it worked =)

 

[owen2471]

eBay

eBay

eBay is getting a bad place to buy stuff from. People just trying to make a fast buck selling non working unloved stuff. I'm very wary about buying consoles or computers from there now. For untested read non working.

 

[demolition]

I can confirm the dishwasher+oven as well as I do this to pretty much all hardware I get. All my Amigas have been through it (case + MB), two Arcade joysticks and latest a bunch of C64s that I got. Some of them were quite nasty, but look almost like new now (it won't cure yellowing though, it's not magic ). Below is part of the C64s I got before the treatment.

Edit: Added pic of MB after wash.