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Advice on cleaning up a laptop Mobo?

yourepicfailureyourepicfailure
edited January 2015 in Hardware
I've got this old HP DV6T-2000, and it's clocking in about 3-4 years old. It's still my primary (it does what I need it to do) and one day, I decided to eval if I could pop in a separate gpu (I'll post off later).
I take off the bezels and covers, and I got a nice surprise.
The mobo appears to have gained so much dust over the years, it went from bright green to puke green. (I may post a picture sometime)
I've tried loads of safe ways to clean it, but those didn't do much (not really anything in the first place). Any suggestions?

And I'm not going to my local computer "specialists(s)" to have them clean it. Especially not when I ask for a DDR2 ram chip and the guy loses me at "Hello".

Comments

  • TCPMetaTCPMeta
    I prefer a sonic cleaner for stuff like this but you can do it this way.

    Distilled water, soft paint brush, 99% isopropyl alcohol and compressed air.
    Strip down the board, as in remove anything that can come off such as removable chips and jumpers. Scrub it lightly with the water and when finished just hose it down will the alcohol. Its better to use a fresh bottle so you can just poke a hole in the seal and use it as a squeeze bottle. then let dry in a warm area for a couple of hours so the alcohol can evaporate. For good messure use the compressed air around the large BGA chips to blow out any liquid that might still be under the chips.
    FYI, don't worry about going overboard with the alcohol. More the better because you want to displace much of the water as possible with the alcohol.

    I've seen people use a home dishwasher with medium heat and no soap to clean huge circuit boards. As long as you have no voltage going to the circuit you can wet it all day but make sure it's totally dry before you use it.
  • wingzeroisminewingzeroismine
    Other than a damp paper towel I can't say I'd bother trying to clean a laptop motherboard, if its working normally, don't start adding chemicals to the mix. The dust has been there for years, if it didn't cause problems before its not likely to do so now.
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