Construction dust causes motherboard short

[Crash2009]

Last few months I have been busy sanding oak wainscotting here at the house. While we were cleaning up all the dust, I noticed the computer room was dusty too. Opened up HTPC and there was a lot of dust plugging the radiator on the Antec Kuhler H2O. So I took the HTPC out in the back yard and blew the dust out with the compressor.

When I brought it back inside and set it up, HTPC wouldn't start. No beep, no fans, no nothing. The only indication that there was any sign of life was that the green light was lit on the motherboard. Initially I suspected that I had been a little too energetic blowing out the power supply, so I jumpered 15 and 16 (on the 24 plug) and tested all the wires. Power supply checked out fine. Next I checked the power switch, that was fine too. Oh $#%! (I FRIED THE MOTHERBOARD) DRM is going to eat my movie collection. Tested the Pheonom in another box, OK, well that's a relief, saved a hundred.

Pulled the motherboard and inspected the topside. All the caps looked OK. Called up Computer Alley to find out if there was anyone in town that repairs motherboards. They give me the number to MCRS Computer Repair. This guy gets on the phone (I'll edit his name in later), He listens to my DRM tale of woe, and asks me a surprising question. Have you washed it yet? I replied that I usually don't wash my electronics. He goes on to say that there are 2 kinds of shorts, those that you can see, blown caps, etc., and those you cant. For those you cant see you need to wash the board. Not the topside, the bottom side. He explains how to wash a board using Windex, 99.9% alcohol, and an air compressor with 120 lbs of air. (Not 90 or 99, but 99.9%)

Anyway, I take the board, a switch, power supply, toothbrush and Windex, out to the backyard, and plant an old CPU in the board. I'm still not quite sure about this, so I just dry brush the bottomside of the board and blow it off. With my left hand on the CPU and my right on the switch, I turn it on. CPU got warm then went cold. I start thinking maybe there is something to this, and I had a hard time to make myself do it, but I removed the battery and power supply and sprayed the board with Windex, and scrubbed it with the toothbrush, then dried it off with the compressor. While wetting the board with Windex, I remember thinking if its not dead yet this will surely finish it off.

This is unbelievable, HTPC is working again, I am ecstatic. Just thought I should share this with ya. That dead board might not be as dead as you think.

[erkotz]

As a hobby, I repair arcade machines. Typically they are filthy with dust and I normally wash all boards just because the dust is caked on everywhere. As long as you let everything dry before powering it up, it's typically a non-issue.

[dmagerl]

As a safety measure, you should also remove the bios battery before doing this. Conductive green crud will quickly grow between any points with a voltage potential across them and rapidly destroy the board.

[Crash2009]

As a safety measure, you should also remove the bios battery before doing this. Conductive green crud will quickly grow between any points with a voltage potential across them and rapidly destroy the board.

Yes, I did remove the battery before spraying with Windex. As a matter of fact, I stripped it down to a bare board. No ram, CPU, battery, etc. Then scrubbed it with a toothbrush and blew it off with the compressor set to 120 psi. The windex left behind a slight white residue. To remove the Windex residue, spray with 99.9 % pure alcohol and blow off again with the compressor. After the alcohol treatment the board looks brand new again. For drying, I left it in the truck for a couple hours on a sunny day.

It's been running great for 5 days now. Thanks for convincing me I'm not as NUTZ as I think I am.