[ElijahTW]

Long story short: My girlfriend was drinking some kool-aid, and her cat knocked it off the desk, where the liquid proceeded to splash through the vent-holes on the side of the case, landing on the motherboard and causing a short that made the computer shut off immediately. I told her to unplug the PC, let it dry for a few hours, and hope it powers on. She let it dry for 8 hours, plugged it in and fired it on. Sure enough, it powered right on and proceeded to boot into windows. However, about 15 minutes later it shut itself down, but it started right back up, and did it over and over again. Trying to figure out what's wrong, I examined the motherboard and there was a thin layer of dried on sugary stuff on some of the circuits, which I assume is causing the problem.

Is there anything I can do to safely remove the sugar from the motherboard?

 

[nonoitall]

If it were me relying on my own limited knowledge, I'd try cleaning it off with distilled or deionized water, and of course letting it dry afterward before connecting it to power again. I dunno if that's good advice or not, but if I had no other suggestions that's what I'd try.

 

[Spyhop]

dishwasher with no soap.
Just make sure it's 100% completely internally dry before you plug it back in.

 

[ElijahTW]

dishwasher with no soap.
Just make sure it's 100% completely internally dry before you plug it back in.

I thought of something like that, but I was concerned that during the drying process, oxidation would occur. It wouldn't take much to rust a 0.2mm circuit trace.

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

oxidation is more common in area's with a high level of salt in the air.

 

[ElijahTW]

With some googleing, I found that rubbing alcohol is used to clean laptop motherboards exposed to liquids. I assume the same may apply to desktop motherboards?

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

it'll work.

 

[Lasnap]

thats what i use to clean all my electronic items like conelses and controllers. is rubbing alcohol

 

[ElijahTW]

Yep, just went over earlier and rubbed the sugary circuits down with some rubbing alcohol, and used a hair dryer to dry it a bit faster and let it set for an hour. Seems to be working great now.

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

don't have sex near the computer again!

 

[ElijahTW]

That would be an impressive misfire.

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

you can't say its impossible though

 

[Hatorijr]

yea alcohol is great to clean electronics. dumped a giant glass of tea on my $100 keyboard earlier this year and used that to clean it out really good and it worked like a charm.

 

[Spyhop]

LOL, sorry. I read "keyboard", not motherboard. Yeah, don't put your motherboard in the dishwasher lol sorry. Use isopropyl.