On Monday 20 October 2008 21:43, Mike Kershaw - [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > "We just completed having our basement gutted and our house > decontaminated from mold. The finished basement is gone, my office floor > has been removed as well as 24' of drywall around the base of the room. > So, we had a full home theater downstairs along with a couple of > computers in the electronics closet that were completely immersed > (rainwater, not sewage). We moved them to a sheltered area outside and > covered them with a plastic tarp. Since the electronics were off when > the water hit them, 1) do I have a chance of recovering them?
Small chance. Unfortunately, some of multi-layer motherboards are very intolerant of water, which can separate the different layers. Also, some things like hard drives are not water tight, and once the heads get wet with anything but the purest distilled water, it's over. If you want to try your luck, open the machines and vent them with a fan in a dry room (with a dehumidifier or a small heater running). Don't blow hot air directly on the systems. Make absolutely sure that the power supplies are dry. Disconnect them from their boards and see if they don't blow when you connect them to the 110 V. If so, try them on. If there is still water in the power supplies, you risk getting nasty shocks, and fire is also a possibility. So please be careful. > 2) If so, > is there a way to clean them with some sort of liquid bath that would > not damage the electronics? and 3) I don't want to bring moldy pieces > back in the clean house." It used to be that you could buy freon-based cleaners that were totally inert and evaporated without any residue. I haven't seen a good replacement since politicians saved the world by banning freon and replacing it with instable and toxic compounds. There are circuit board cleaners on the market, but they are outrageously priced. Google for "circuit board cleaner" and see what you can get. _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium Sep 3 - Porkchop - The Areas of My Expertise Oct 1 - Ubikeys Oct 4 - Linux Fest Nov 5 - Releasing Open Source Software Dec 3 - TBD
