Cleaning RAMchips and other surfaces

[harlequin2134]

hmm lol had some trouble with ramsinks for an 8800gt yesterday . got some methylated spirits and an eraser (recommended by arctic cooling site), and they did the job alright .

as for the water on hardware thing, ive put a sony ericson in the washing machine .. dried off in the next 2 days, good as new :P .

[MaDDN3ss]

Typically I use ether (starting fluid) first to get off any heavy residue. It smells brutal but it cleans very well and evaporates quickly. The only downside is it leaves a slight film behind.
To remove it I use isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs or lint free paper towel.

[trodas]

I use synteic alcohol only. Ether is harder to get... but I remember using it on telescope lenses when I was a kid

[Ugly n Grey]

I use varsol to clean off any tape like residue (thermal tape stuff) and then use 90% iso to clean that off. Never lets me down.

[Tazer-[X]]

You know, back in my old NT admin days, I used to have to rebuild everything from p2 and up to save the departments money.And considering that we only ran office and email, we never had any real power machines - save for an old NT workstation. And to be honest, after many complete tear downs and rebuilds, the easiest and most fail proof, and safest way to clean boards such as ram and vid cards was to use a pink eraser LoL. Strange as it sounds, but they always came back shiney and clean. No chemicals, no scratches.Just place the ram or cards on the edge of a table and press the eraser and erase away:xD

Oh yea, plus you dont get high from solvents, not that its a bad thing to alter the way you feel:p

[Infiniti]

Originally Posted by sswilson

AFAIC nothing, and I mean nothing cleans hard-to-reach surfaces better than a good soaking with an aerosol contact cleaner. Probably not the most environmentally friendly solution, but it does seem to do the trick.

I would have to say that aerosol contact cleaner is good too. I used it to clean TIM inside my CPU socket, and now my computer is up and running again. I haven't tried it to clean the ram and mosfets on a GPU, but I would think it would work pretty well.

[sswilson]

Originally Posted by Tazer-[X]

You know, back in my old NT admin days, I used to have to rebuild everything from p2 and up to save the departments money.And considering that we only ran office and email, we never had any real power machines - save for an old NT workstation. And to be honest, after many complete tear downs and rebuilds, the easiest and most fail proof, and safest way to clean boards such as ram and vid cards was to use a pink eraser LoL. Strange as it sounds, but they always came back shiney and clean. No chemicals, no scratches.Just place the ram or cards on the edge of a table and press the eraser and erase away:xD

Oh yea, plus you dont get high from solvents, not that its a bad thing to alter the way you feel:p

Pink eraser works great for cleaning contacts... we've actually got a few references in our technical manuals which describe using it for cleaning large contacts on connectors. :)

[BrainEater]

Here's the way I clean my dirty computer parts when canned air just won't do it.

I get a large flat pan , and I fill it with warm 99% isopropyl alchohol and in go the components.Swish em around for 2 mins , let dry overnight.

Other than water , isopropanol is one of the few solvents thats 100% compatible with electronic assemblies.Now , it might remove some stickers , but thats it.

The motherboard in my router (asus p3v4x) is from the original thintank.It sat in oil for 4 months , and has been washed in hot iso 3 or 4 times.Still works like a champ.

[Tazer-[X]]

Heres another thing that will make you all freak heheh. The first time I had a PC, I got a 5 gallons of DE-IONIZED water and pulled the mobo out, removed all the preipherals ( back than you preactically needed a hoist trucK to move em! ) and dunked my mobo - chip and all LOL and than let it air dry for two days:P Than I put a peice of plywood on top of the board, and stood on It LoL To seat the ole trusty 8086 chip.

[3oh6]

Originally Posted by sswilson

Pink eraser works great for cleaning contacts... we've actually got a few references in our technical manuals which describe using it for cleaning large contacts on connectors. :)

yup, when the SMD machines have trouble picking up the contact points on the board so they know where to center them for component placing, a couple quick passes with a pink eraser cleans the contacts right up and the machine can usually see them after that.