Need cleaning tips please

[Nik0laos]

Long story short, my gaming pc has smoke damage from a fire. What’s the best way to get rid of the smokey smell? Should I send my 1080ti FTW3 to a shop to get it cleaned? Do I need a new psu? It smells like smoke on the inside. 

 

I build the pc myself so taking it apart and putting it back together isn’t a problem. I’ve never taken apart a graphics card though and I really don’t want to mess it up. 

 

Any info is greatly appreciated. 

Apologies if this isn’t the correct place to post this. 

[HanZie82]

Im doubting you can get rid of the smell, but the black sut should be able to be cleaned away with some isopropyl alcohol.

And just hard work, looking and cleaning every part.

[MindServ]

Well if it's not too sooty inside you could get rid of the smell by cleaning it out on the inside with a very slightly damp cloth (not the components, just the case) and then put a bowl of baking soda inside the computer case for a while. (Baking soda absorbs the nasty smell quite effectively!)

 

Tips just like the ones you could get from mom! Hahaha

[AlexTheGreatish]

Well first step is just disassembly and hit it with compressed air.  From there I'm not so sure, 99% alcohol could be good for getting rid of the smoke and then it can just dry, although I'd be afraid it could hurt some things (plastics, thermal pads).  There are products for removing the smoke smell from cars, so maybe try some of those out?

[HanZie82]

1 minute ago, MindServ said:

Well if it's not too sooty inside you could get rid of the smell by cleaning it out on the inside with a very slightly damp cloth (not he components, just the case) and then put a bowl of baking soda inside the computer case for a while. (Baking soda absorbs the nasty smell quite effectively!)

 

Tips just like the ones you could get from mom! Hahaha

Ooh nice one, gonna try that this weekend on an old PSU that burned a little.  Thanks.

[Bitter]

I'm gonna be honest, PCB's hang onto smells badly for a long time, so do the wires. Take the heat sink off and take the whole system apart and wipe away any soot with 90% or higher isopropyl alcohol and then hang a car air freshener inside the case. The smoke smell will crop up each time the system gets hot but should fade over time. If the air freshener is very strong or designed to rid cars of smoke smells it may mask the smoke smell inside the PC fairly well and overtime absorb into the wires and PCB to displace/cover the smoke odors. You could try letting the parts sit in a warm (150F) oven on a pizza stone for a few hours to try to speed up the process of heat releasing the smoke smells.

 

My experiences with smells in PC's is first hand, I do some work for a family with odor issues (personally and in their home) so anything I get from them to work on smells disgusting when it gets hot. I've used the air freshener trick to try to make it less terrible to work on one of their PC's before and it did cover the odor of cat urine well enough that next time I got the computer to work on it smelled more like strawberry inside than it did a litter box. The rest of the computers just have a stench of bad hygiene, a kind of sickly sweet smell of human urine and body odor that's just absorbed into the plastics, wires, and circuit boards themselves. The power supply seems to be the biggest source or odors emitted when the PC runs, I suspect that smoke odor is likely concentrated into the PSU as well. Maybe replacing the PSU isn't such a bad idea, it may cut out a lot of the smell. 

[Nik0laos]

24 minutes ago, AlexTheGreatish said:

Well first step is just disassembly and hit it with compressed air.  From there I'm not so sure, 99% alcohol could be good for getting rid of the smoke and then it can just dry, although I'd be afraid it could hurt some things (plastics, thermal pads).  There are products for removing the smoke smell from cars, so maybe try some of those out?

I’ve wiped down the motherboard, ram, hdd/ssd, and the outside of the power supply with 91%  isopropyl alcohol and that did a good job of getting rid of most of the smell(yes I was very careful with the drives). I’ll have to do it a few more times. As for the gpu, I don’t have the tools to take it apart and the few computer repair stores around me don’t look all that good. And I’ll just buy a new case. I’m too impatient to clean that. 

[Nik0laos]

30 minutes ago, Bitter said:

I'm gonna be honest, PCB's hang onto smells badly for a long time, so do the wires. Take the heat sink off and take the whole system apart and wipe away any soot with 90% or higher isopropyl alcohol and then hang a car air freshener inside the case. The smoke smell will crop up each time the system gets hot but should fade over time. If the air freshener is very strong or designed to rid cars of smoke smells it may mask the smoke smell inside the PC fairly well and overtime absorb into the wires and PCB to displace/cover the smoke odors. You could try letting the parts sit in a warm (150F) oven on a pizza stone for a few hours to try to speed up the process of heat releasing the smoke smells.

 

My experiences with smells in PC's is first hand, I do some work for a family with odor issues (personally and in their home) so anything I get from them to work on smells disgusting when it gets hot. I've used the air freshener trick to try to make it less terrible to work on one of their PC's before and it did cover the odor of cat urine well enough that next time I got the computer to work on it smelled more like strawberry inside than it did a litter box. The rest of the computers just have a stench of bad hygiene, a kind of sickly sweet smell of human urine and body odor that's just absorbed into the plastics, wires, and circuit boards themselves. The power supply seems to be the biggest source or odors emitted when the PC runs, I suspect that smoke odor is likely concentrated into the PSU as well. Maybe replacing the PSU isn't such a bad idea, it may cut out a lot of the smell. 

Thanks for the reply. I have custom sleeved cables so I can just used the old original ones and just buy new cables for anything else. I’ll try that air freshener trick. I wiped down the motherboard, ram, my drives, and the outside of the psu with 91% isopropyl alcohol and that got rid of most of the smell. The case is ruined, or at least I don’t have the patience to clean it. 

[Bitter]

Clean the case with some 'retro bright', that should remove the browning from the smoke on the white plastics and white painted parts. Google up retro bright, lots of different formulas to try out.

 

It'll probably kill a lot of remaining smell too since it's got a lot of hydrogen perioxide in it which removes smells via oxygen/ozone like effect.

[HanZie82]

20 hours ago, Nik0laos said:

I’ve wiped down the motherboard, ram, hdd/ssd, and the outside of the power supply with 91%  isopropyl alcohol and that did a good job of getting rid of most of the smell(yes I was very careful with the drives). I’ll have to do it a few more times. As for the gpu, I don’t have the tools to take it apart and the few computer repair stores around me don’t look all that good. And I’ll just buy a new case. I’m too impatient to clean that. 

Ah well, as for the case (very nice case), just put it online for sale. I bet someone is willing to spend the time on it. And also means you have some extra bucks to get the thermal paste to open up the gpu...

[Nik0laos]

4 hours ago, HanZie82 said:

Ah well, as for the case (very nice case), just put it online for sale. I bet someone is willing to spend the time on it. And also means you have some extra bucks to get the thermal paste to open up the gpu...

I already threw the case out. It was too depressing to look at. Plus I already had all new thermal paste from Thermal Grizzly. I’m just waiting for pay day to buy an ifixit tool kit and maybe a Gamers Nexus mod mat to keep everything organized.