Anybody ever wash their mobo in soap and water?

[joeeye]

This is so crazy, you'll never hear anybody but me do this.... :)

My motherboard went bad about two months after I upgraded the CPU, so I know I got sloppy with the Artic Silver 5 Grease, but I didn't think anything of it because it wasn't like it went into the pin holes, I really didn't see any of the holes get plugged up with CPU grease.

So as I was diagnosing what went wrong I blew up my HDD, so I'm waiting for another one by mail.

Mean while I finalized that it was my motherboard that was no good, so I figured it won't hurt to wash it because where the CPU pins touch when the locking arm is down those contacts were black, so I didn't know if it was burnt out or just dirty, so after spraying solvents in the pin holes, and washing it all over the place, from the top to the bottom, also tooth brushing the pin holes over and over, rinsed it all then blew dry it with an air hose and it looked great.

Then I took another look thru a strong magnifying glass at the socket pin holes and this time the contact that the CPU pins touch looked a little shiny where before I didn't see anything like that.... not to be confused with them guide pins that steer the CPU pins to the contact, those all ways looked clean, so this is why I'm baffled on why the contact pins cleaned up to where the mobo turns on now, so of course I can't run it yet to see if its completely working because I need to get the HDD, but at least its alive now where before it was stone dead.

It never occurred to me to keep an eye on the CPU pin contacts to make sure they are clean. I can imagine how many mobo's have been RMA'd when the only thing wrong was dirty CPU pin contats.

I really didn't feel that my CPU socket was that dirty from the CPU grease (Artic Silver 5) but I believe I know how this may have happened, even tho the grease was put on okay and looked good doing it, and the top of the CPU socket was clean, it was when I was handling the CPU, I was getting grease on the bottom of the pins from my hands that had some grease on them, so thats why there was never any trace of being sloppy, over time from taking out and replacing the CPU each time upgrading and diagnosing problems over time the motherboard CPU contact pins got dirty over time, it was my dirty hands getting only the very bottom of the CPU pins dirty, so everything all ways looked clean going together....

Geeeze!!! :fighty:

[Thanatos]

Im surprised that cleaning it actually didnt ruin the mobo. Thats why i NEVER touch the Pins on the CPU or the socket. Good Luck with all that.

[joeeye]

Yeah I hear you..., I think why I didn't ruin the mobo was because I didn't soak it, I was using the water conservatively as I was running it under water, then I paid attention to the key areas that I thought would soak up water, then very quickly I blew it with the air hose, so each time it was hit with water it wasn't even for a minute.

[Zefram]

The motherboard didnt ruin because you dry it throughly. If there's still moisture or water resides anywhere on the mobo then you're in for a suprise :p

Anyway newer mobo which follows RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Material) didnt get bleached thus if you get those RoHS mobo the PCB will feel sticky....... that's the residue from the glue used for soldering processes.......

But, i wouldn't use water because it could rust any metal on the mobo. Even the capacitor could get rusted. I'd would use either distrilled water, or alcohol as an alternatives.........

[joeeye]

This is a good subject, who else finds dirty CPU Socket pin contacts? and how do they clean them? I can't be the only one that just starting to look at them when they find the mobo is not working.

I know from using break clean thats a great solvent that don't eat plastic or ruin any other type of materials.

[Joe]

i always grease my cpu after i install it into the socket. so I have never had this problem.

[Zefram]

i always grease my cpu after i install it into the socket. so I have never had this problem.

And i thought only people who use LN2 system do this trick :p

Well i dont have fan blowing dust into my CPU socket thus i dont have problem with my AMD socket 939 contact pins.

And from observation, i note that majority of the AMD socket is made by Lotes. Intel socket 754 is made by both Lotes and Foxconn. But Foxconn dominates the socket stuff lol :p

[joeeye]

I do the same thing, put the grease on after CPU is installed. and with the 5 or 6 CPU's I first installed worked out great.

It was that upgrade CPU I installed, got grease on the bottom of the pins, then the contacts became dirty, I also seen the CPU it self with dirty tips, at first glance you would never see it.

[Rudegar]

problem with too much water is that small amounts of calcium and other materials which may conduct and in doing so shortcurcit 2 lanes

another issue is caps the electrolyte kind if they get water inside they are likely to take damage

[joeeye]

I was worried about the caps, still am a little....... then I figured the board was no good to me anyway, believe me the whole time washing it I was saying I have to be dreaming..... I can't believe I'm doing this.... then of course afterwards I thought I should have been more careful around the caps... :)

At least I know to keep an eye on things for a while, then hopefully everything will be okay.

I really like this mobo, not one problem for the two years, it was my first build, I had taken a very long time to build this unit because I took such a long time to find hardware that had all great feed back as well as good reviews. So it paid off in the end, I think this PC would have lasted for ever if I wasn't so blind to what I was doing with getting the CPU socket dirty.

[Zefram]

problem with too much water is that small amounts of calcium and other materials which may conduct and in doing so shortcurcit 2 lanes

another issue is caps the electrolyte kind if they get water inside they are likely to take damage

that's why we dont use normal tap water in watercooling system, the amount of impurities (minerals) inside the water could corrode the watercooling system and normal tap water had higher electrical conductivity........

This i recommend distrilled or deionised water...........

BTW with normal capacitor i would be worried, as the water could seeped inside the capacitor. With newer sold capacitor however, i could see a day where people washed their mobo every 6 months :p
Sounds like cleaning up the basement :eek:

[3DGuy]

I Vote you should have used the dishwasher ;)

[joeeye]

If anything the mobo handled drying very well with just blowing it with air, no water stains or white powder, nothing, blah blah blah....

I don't know what is in my water tho, but it eats up any new plumbing I install, the old existing pipes are not effected by what I'm seeing with any of the new plumbing I install, its where the soldered joints are, plus the shut off valves go bad fast, I need to use the all brass valves when installing them otherwise they stop working fast, but with the outer soldered joints grow this white acid all over the place around the joint, not sure what the deal is because its on the out side, inside the pipe looks okay, guess with the water running thru it takes care of that.

I think the solder is the problem, quality of silver in it is gone to prevent any acid and or deterioration's growing that will weaken the joints and leak in time, crappy alloy mix for plumbing, I forget what the % of silver is to be, but with the change its not for the better.

Hey there 3DGuy, do you remember seeing the older IBM mobo's? I was looking at one of the 233MHz CPU socket and there were no caps the way we see them today, there were about 7 of these tiny all metal caps that just may have been able to touch water.... ??