Cleaning heavily rusted GPU ports

[Yashpashar]

I've salvaged a couple of mining GPUs that, due to the massive amount of dust covering them, combined the with insanely humid Singapore weather, have totally rusted out ports. They all seem to be working fine, but most of them only output through DVI, and not HDMI. Is there anyway that I can clean the rust out of the contacts and port housings without damaging the GPU components? 

 

[LIGISTX]

I’m just here to say…… wow. 
 

And maybe WD40?

[Yashpashar]

13 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

I’m just here to say…… wow. 
 

And maybe WD40?

I've seen a lot of rusted out GPUs in Singapore, but this is by far the worst I've ever seen.

WD40 seems like a pretty solid idea. I'll try spraying it on some toothbrush and rubbing it into the ports, thanks for the idea.

[Poinkachu]

33 minutes ago, Yashpashar said:

I've salvaged a couple of mining GPUs that, due to the massive amount of dust covering them, combined the with insanely humid Singapore weather, have totally rusted out ports. They all seem to be working fine, but most of them only output through DVI, and not HDMI. Is there anyway that I can clean the rust out of the contacts and port housings without damaging the GPU components? 

 

The metal bracket, easy to fix.

The rusted port however...

 

I'd say bring them to nearest repair shop and replace the ports with new one :x

Trying to clean the inside of those ports from rust gonna be either annoying, expensive, contact pads destroying, or all 3 combined.

[ThousandBlade]

there's actually a chance that those hdmi ports still work.

 

The housing looks rusty af, but the contact pins are usually gold plated and they dont rust.

 

BUT, it would be wise to check the back side of those ports by the contacts with the board area before trying.

[Blqckqut]

if this is this rusty id reccomend taking a look under the hood (remove cooler and if there is one, backplae too) and check if theres rust there too

[ThousandBlade]

if you must try to get the rust off, try it with light acidic solutions. and be very gentle with it.

rust cleaners are too harsh for this, either dilute it or use carbonated water mixed with a bit of alcohol

You'll endup dealing with drying the card, which is another can of worms in high humidity climate.

[Yashpashar]

40 minutes ago, Blqckqut said:

if this is this rusty id reccomend taking a look under the hood (remove cooler and if there is one, backplae too) and check if theres rust there too

A deep clean is definitely in order for all these cards before I flip them. But just peeking around the PCB and through the gaps, other than rusty screws here and there there isn't a trace of rust on the PCB. 

[Yashpashar]

26 minutes ago, ThousandBlade said:

if you must try to get the rust off, try it with light acidic solutions. and be very gentle with it.

rust cleaners are too harsh for this, either dilute it or use carbonated water mixed with a bit of alcohol

You'll endup dealing with drying the card, which is another can of worms in high humidity climate.

I tried vinegar on one of the cards that's completely broken and it had almost zero effect. Since I can't really get the rust off I'm gonna be buying some contact cleaner spray to see if cleaning the pads is enough to revive the port. 

[Blqckqut]

4 minutes ago, Yashpashar said:

A deep clean is definitely in order for all these cards before I flip them. But just peeking around the PCB and through the gaps, other than rusty screws here and there there isn't a trace of rust on the PCB. 

how did you even aquire these

either you bought them from an old man in a black wizard robe in exchange for 2.4 sheckles and a story about your birth in the darkest alley of your city

or you pulled it out of a litteraly trash dump

 

ngl this seems like a fun project, seeing it super rusty and then puttin in hard work to fix it or clean it up, then sell it

something id do for hobby, interesting, might have unlocked a new passion...

[ThousandBlade]

9 minutes ago, Yashpashar said:

I tried vinegar on one of the cards that's completely broken and it had almost zero effect. Since I can't really get the rust off I'm gonna be buying some contact cleaner spray to see if cleaning the pads is enough to revive the port. 

very likely it's the port to pcb part that's rusted dead.

[Mark Kaine]

6 hours ago, ThousandBlade said:

if you must try to get the rust off, try it with light acidic solutions. and be very gentle with it.

rust cleaners are too harsh for this, either dilute it or use carbonated water mixed with a bit of alcohol

You'll endup dealing with drying the card, which is another can of worms in high humidity climate.

honestly high percentage (20-25%) vinegar would probably work since it shouldn't damage the plastic... not guaranteed to work but cheap and definitely better than "wd40" lol (cause that isnt what people think it is, it doesn't really do anything against "rust") 

 

 

that doesn't even look like rust to me, but vinegar has still a good chance of working imo

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

5 hours ago, Yashpashar said:

I tried vinegar on one of the cards that's completely broken and it had almost zero effect. Since I can't really get the rust off I'm gonna be buying some contact cleaner spray to see if cleaning the pads is enough to revive the port. 

ah, k... well as said imo this doesn't even look like "rust" might be the pictures not showing it properly  

 

ps: also if u used high percentage vinegar and it did nothing then this proofs it isn't "rust" because vinegar works 100% for that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

[Yashpashar]

15 hours ago, Blqckqut said:

how did you even aquire these

either you bought them from an old man in a black wizard robe in exchange for 2.4 sheckles and a story about your birth in the darkest alley of your city

or you pulled it out of a litteraly trash dump

 

ngl this seems like a fun project, seeing it super rusty and then puttin in hard work to fix it or clean it up, then sell it

something id do for hobby, interesting, might have unlocked a new passion...

Found a man selling a mining rig "on behalf of someone" for 150usd because he was moving. Out of the lot there's two working 1070tis and one 1080ti so I've already got more than twice my moneys worth! I'm actually super excited about cleaning them out and making them look as presentable as possible but I'm genuinely stumped on how to deal with the rust.

[Yashpashar]

15 hours ago, ThousandBlade said:

very likely it's the port to pcb part that's rusted dead.

I can definitely spot some corrosion on the solder joins, I'll be going over those with some alcohol and a toothbrush soon. 

[Yashpashar]

9 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

ah, k... well as said imo this doesn't even look like "rust" might be the pictures not showing it properly  

 

ps: also if u used high percentage vinegar and it did nothing then this proofs it isn't "rust" because vinegar works 100% for that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

It's most definitely rust. 

The problem with vinegar is that for it to have effect you need to submerge the part in it for many hours. Just rubbing some on it wouldn't be nearly enough to remove all this, and I don't think it's the best idea to leave a gpu overnight in vinegar lol

[jaslion]

An ultrasonic cleaner is the best bet.

 

I've recovered some serious rust damage this way for data carrying parts.

 

 

[Blqckqut]

7 hours ago, Yashpashar said:

Found a man selling a mining rig "on behalf of someone" for 150usd because he was moving. Out of the lot there's two working 1070tis and one 1080ti so I've already got more than twice my moneys worth! I'm actually super excited about cleaning them out and making them look as presentable as possible but I'm genuinely stumped on how to deal with the rust.

sick man, sounds like fun

[Blqckqut]

6 hours ago, jaslion said:

An ultrasonic cleaner is the best bet.

 

I've recovered some serious rust damage this way for data carrying parts.

 

 

that sounds ike something you need to spend a lot of 0s on

[jaslion]

2 hours ago, Blqckqut said:

that sounds ike something you need to spend a lot of 0s on

Random phone repair shop and 25€ later. Usually fits like 5

[PriitM]

On 5/11/2023 at 9:10 AM, ThousandBlade said:

there's actually a chance that those hdmi ports still work.

 

The housing looks rusty af, but the contact pins are usually gold plated and they dont rust.

 

BUT, it would be wise to check the back side of those ports by the contacts with the board area before trying.

This looks so humid there might be OTHER metals reacting to form salts. Most notably copper salts aka blue and green "rust". Unless these GPUs run flawless as is there is no point on even attempting rust removal. And even if, the protective nickle layer is gone. The exposed iron parts need to be either painted or lacquer coated. Even better with conformal coating. 
I predict these are DOA