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i got another old PC and the lady that owned it was a smoker it seems, i did vacuum it some but i want to strip it down and clean it really well.

on the heatsink i can remove it and clean that, but what about the dvd drive and mobo, can i use electrical contact cleaner and let it dry really well before powering it back on ?

or even soap and water, assuming i let it dry for a week or 2 after blow drying it, how do you guys deal with this nasty stuff ?

Holy crap!

yiiiiike!!!!

I bring my pc's outsite like you have it with the main panel off and use a air compressor with a nozzel to blow it out good. Be Very careful of the video card fans. I did blow the blade right off on one of them a few years back.

The other fans are pretty rigid. You may even have to wear a dusk mask with that one. It will produce a pretty good dust cloud.

Do that outside the garage. At least about 10 ft away. Seriously it will make a giant dust cloud.

I've seen many like this... looks like someone took a burnt cat and ripped it up and then stuffed it up inside. That picture is pretty good compared to a few I should have taken a picture of. I've just taken them out side and hit them with a can of air..usually the whole can and that's about it... most of the time the computer is too old to fool with it too much. But turning it on even after cleaning it inside is a mistake cause it will stink up your home.

I charge them for the clean job too... money for the can I used and the time I spent cleaning it.

ya i plan on stripping everything out of case and blowing off what i can with my compressor, washing the case sounds like a great idea too.

i may make this a media PC for me, the original owner just gave it away, everything seems to work, but windows is ****ed, so i can re-install that or whatever OS i need.

i suppose i should remove the CMOS battery before soaking the mobo if i do that huh ?

i did have it running for 10 minutes and had to shut it off, smells something awful i tell ya.

if i wanted to open the power supply to clean it, how can i discharge it so i don't get zapped ?

If you are brave you could try putting the motherboard in a dishwasher, minus battery of course. If you are a none smoker the stink can realy be a problem. For something that dirty I take it outside and put my shop vac in leaf blower mode.

Yup...the dishwasher is a valid method for some components. Years ago when floppy drives were common, and you ran across some that never seemed to be able to read a disk, putting them in the dishwasher (remove front faceplate) would often cure them.

As long as there's no electricity/current going through them at the time they get wet..until they're fully dried, you don't harm them.

I haven't read about putting motherboards through the dishwasher, I'm not sure about that since the capacitors can hold some charge for a while.

Could always do it with the case. I wouldn't do the power supply though.

That PC is your pic isn't too bad though. yeah nasty compared to how we may keep ours, but I've seen which are absolutely puke inducing, you don't even want to touch them or service them.

YeOldeStonecat wrote: That PC is your pic isn't too bad though. yeah nasty compared to how we may keep ours, but I've seen which are absolutely puke inducing, you don't even want to touch them or service them.

Maybe soak it in distilled water.

well i blew out most of the dust with my compressor, and have taken everything apart, washed the case with soap and water and cleaned everything else with paper towels and isopropyl alcohol and blew that off, now letting everything dry really well.

wasn't as bad as i thought it would be.

Take out all of the components.
Use a small soft bristle paint brush, and a vacuum and be very careful of the capacitors also use compressed air.
Take the fans out and use damp "q-tips" to clean the dirt off of the front and back of each fan blade. Do not forget the power supply.

In the case itself. Use a damp paper towel for the bottom and sides of the case.

okay one other question, this PC has a 200GB drive in it, it had a small recovery partition on it but it would not reinstall windows for some reason, maybe the recovery partition was 4ucked, either way i blew out all that and messed with unbuntu for a day or so but now want to reinstall XP media center like it had from the factory.

i have the OEM COA sticker on the side of the case, but where can i get a .iso of media center that isn't full of viruses and **** like that.

Best cleaner for case tough spots is Fantastic or 409. Cuts thru almost anything but sharpie matker.

Mark wrote: i have the OEM COA sticker on the side of the case, but where can i get a .iso of media center that isn't full of viruses and **** like that.

Hmm... I have pro and home OEM iso's I don't think I have a Media Center iso since I thought Home would work with the key?

wow looks old but I see it has pci express tho

after cleaning