The cleaning the inside of the PC it is a maintenance task that should be periodic for everyone, if not the dust it will settle inside the PC causing potential noise and temperature issues. But, when it comes to doing a thorough cleaning, you have to keep in mind that the motherboard is perhaps the most delicate element due to its large number of components, ports and connections. , then how should you clean the motherboard not to spoil anything?
Cleaning the motherboard is not a very complicated task, but it is much more laborious than, for example, cleaning a simple fan. It has a multitude of components, connection ports and sockets, which means there are also plenty of nooks and crannies where dust gets in and is difficult to get out. Many of you might think that plugging compressed air into the board will be enough, but in most cases not only is that not the case, it’s also somewhat counterproductive.
The art of cleaning your motherboard
Let’s start with the obvious: to properly clean your motherboard, you’ll need to completely remove it from your PC and disconnect any cables or devices connected to it except for the CPU (and this also includes the CPU heatsink) . . We do not recommend that you disassemble the processorOtherwise, the dust and dirt that we will try to remove from the board could end up in the socket, so it is better to leave the processor mounted to avoid this.
That said, with everything already disassembled, the first step would be to try and remove most of the dust using a compressed air sprayer (don’t use industrial compressed airits pressure is too high and you could damage something) or a vacuum cleaner, but in any case always being careful to place yourself at a certain distance from the base plate, because we repeat that too high a pressure (i.e. a expulsion as in compressed air or suction in the case of a vacuum cleaner) could damage the components of the motherboard.
With this you will have managed to get rid of about 80% of the dust and dirt but it is not enough if you want the motherboard to look brand new so the next thing you should do is to get a brush with soft synthetic bristles. In other words, the paint brushes They are NOT recommended as the bristles are too stiff, but a makeup brush Yes, she would be ideal for this job. The size and shape depends on you, but its thing is that the hair area is about 2-3 centimeters, and its shape is elongated, to be able to get it into the nooks and crannies of the plate.
Using the dry brush, make a passage over the entire surface and the cells of the base plate, front and back, with fluid movements always in the same direction and never squeeze, by simply brushing over it. We recommend that you support the motherboard diagonally on a cloth so that it does not get damaged and always move it downwards, so that the dust falls towards there.
Once done, you will have already gotten rid of 95% of the dust and dirt on the motherboard, but there is one last step to take if you want it to be as clean as possible. Prepare ear swabs and Isopropylic alcohol, lightly dip the head of a cotton swab in alcohol and rub it over RAM sockets, PCI-Express sockets, etc. Since the motherboard is usually mounted vertically in a PC case, the tops of these sockets tend to collect a fair amount of dust, so this is a surface you’ll want to pay special attention to when cleaning.
Once you’re done, you’re ready to reassemble the motherboard into your computer, reconnect everything, and boot up.
