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.
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.)
Wow at this point id more seriously consider to quit smoking or at least stop doing it inside.
Lol smokers
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.
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…
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
Don’t a lot of modern boards have a sort of clear coating over the components anyway? Some sort of enamel like substance?
Isopropyl alcohol damages certain plastics.
And metals
Now all you need is a lighter, which as a smoker I’m sure you have handy! 💥
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.
Isopropyl alcohol and a toothbrush. Turn off power to the PC. Hold power button for a minute. Unplug and disassemble. Get one of those chemistry squirt bottles (google lab wash bottle) to put the alcohol in, squirt it on the place to clean, brush with the toothbrush. Repeat until at desired cleanliness. Then take canned air and spray out under all the parts. Allow to dry. It’s dry when you can spray under the big components and not get any alcohol out.
I used to assemble, test, repair, and clean PCBs of all shapes and sizes. That’s what we did when we had to spot clean a board after a repair.
The jankiest way I’ve cleaned a PCB was to run it through the dishwasher without detergent, then wash it down with RODI water to demineralize, then alcohol to displace the water. It works, but you gotta be damn sure that you’ve washed away any mineral deposits and given it plenty of time to dry.
Extreme case story here…
I had a fella bring his computer into our shop for diagnostics and hopefully repair after a house fire. The case was originally light grey, but it was covered outside and even inside with nasty stinking black soot and the front panel was mostly melted.
We checked it out though, the PSU had failed. So we pulled out our test PSU and tried that, and the nasty stinking computer actually booted up!
Well, the boss didn’t want to be responsible for this mess, so he told me I could take it as a side job if the customer really wanted it fixed. He already knew that I’ve successfully salvaged flood damage computers, so why not?
Anyways, I took the motherboard and expansion cards out and took them to our local car wash. I soaked the boards with tire/engine cleaner, then pressure washed the crud away with plain water. Then I used an air compressor to dry it as best as I could, and then left it on the roof of my car in the hot sun for like 4 hours.
Everything worked fine after all that, so I hooked him up with a spare computer case I had laying around to replace his nasty half melted case.
You can actually pressure wash the circuit boards as long as there’s no power (do NOT pressure wash the PSU at all!), as long as the boards are completely dry and clean before reassembling and powering it back up. Just, be careful around any sensitive parts, and do not pressure wash the CPU socket, unless you like all your precious pins bent. Also, don’t pressure wash the fans or mechanical drives or such.
This technique isn’t for the faint of heart though, and I usually only reserve such drastic measures for boards that have already failed due to spill damage, corrosion, or other extremes where the board would otherwise end up in the scrap pile.
Water only causes and issue if there’s a charge and or minerals in the water making it more conductive. Plain water is actually quite a good insulator.
I washed a drone flight controller in deionized water after a lithium battery exploded on it and it got it back up and going
As bad as your computer looks your lungs are worse.
I dead ass though they were smoking ribs inside…
I’m not here to condone smoking, but OP isn’t here for unsolicited advice either.
You gotta be pretty dense or insane to think you can make a post on the open internet about smoking so much indoors that your computer needs to be submerged in solvent or something to get it clean, and not expect more than half the replies to be addressing the reason it got that way in the first place.
because squirrel
My lungs have a self-cleaning feature, and my PC doesn’t.
Feel free to roast me for my lack of tech literacy and dumb ideas, but not my health. I have calculated everything. My body will be fine for as long as it needs to be.
My lungs have a self-cleaning feature, and my PC doesn’t.
😂
Ending addictive behavior starts with admitting to yourself where your brain is lying to you about your habits and how gullible you are to accept those stories it sends you. You are not your brain.
You sound like my father, until he died from complications of COPD from smoking.
Good point. That’s why no one has ever died from smoking problems. You’ll be fine.
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It seems like we should be doing the opposite, you seem to understand tech just fine and are very ignorant about health.
Gotta get a lung flute. You’ll puke after you see what you cough out. Next smoke hits like a truck too
I don’t know what any of this means, but I can think of a much more effective solution for smokers.
I see lots of “brush it, it’s fine” posts, but if you want to dunk your components, that’s a whole different story. Alcohol is certainly going to dissolve something like TIM or thermal pads; that might not be a problem.
But it might?
One thing very oldschool PC builders did is submerge their PCs in mineral oil for cooling. This liquid is more innocuous, AFAIK.
So you could get some in a plastic tray and dunk your components in it. I have no advice for getting the oil off though.
Hmmm, you could just… leave them submerged in the oil? Would that protect them from the smoke? I don’t know. I’ll have to look into these “underwater” builds though because that does sound cool.
It’s very cool, but not cheap. If your goal is to save cash by extending the hardware’s life, TBH it’d make way more financial sense to just invest that cash instead.
Disassemble. Use distilled water and a suitable sized ultrasonic cleaner, with one component at a time. Air dry with clean compressed air, canned not compressor. Leave it to dry for atleast a day after. Reassemble, fingers crossed.
ultrasonic cleaner
Wont that destroy every soder connection in there?
You can even use water on most pc components and it will clean most residue- it’s called the universal solvent for a reason. The reason isopropyl alcohol is popular is that it is still a decent solvent but also will evaporate quickly, which makes it safer.
People have put PC stuff into a dishwasher (without detergent, on cold) but that feels kind of crazy to me still.
I’d be more concerned about soaking components in alcohol. Lubricants, adhesives, etc would all be at risk of being worn away. Definitely don’t do it to fans or anything else that moves. Pure hunks of metal (like a heatsink) or silicon are safer.
