Hi, so I had this falling apart laptop and I wanted to repair it. First thing I did was take it apart and clean it thoroughly, using ethanol 96%. I applied ethanol to the mobo with the help of a toothbrush and rubbed, as it was kind of dusty and dirty. Then, after cleaning it, I used a hair dryer to evaporate the probably already evaporated ethanol, had the motherboard naked over the bottom case/chasis, connected all the cables and everything, naked/without the rest of the case, and proceeded to turn it on. It turned on and was working fine, the laptop screen as well as the external monitor via HDMI, so I shut it down.
Today I noticed the HDMI port was kind of rusty and dirty as well (green and brown stains here and there), so I poured ethanol in the hole and rubbed. I poured it vertically, so the excess of ethanol run all the way through the motherboard, although there was "only" the RAM slots in the way. They could have soaked a little bit, or not, I don't know. This time I hadn't the hair dryer accessible so I blew a little bit the area, which evaporated whatever I could see quite quickly. Waited for a few minutes and tried to turn it on. This time, it's not responding at all. I've checked for 30 min every cable and the plug and everything, nothing, no sign of life.
So, my first question is... can you short the mobo by deep submerging it in ethanol?
If the answer is "no, ethanol 96% can not conduct electricity at all, you can literally put a turned on PC inside an ethanol tank and it will work fine", then I must look for the solution. If the answer is "yes, if it wasn't gone and you did not dried it properly, it's possible you short it", well, I could be the idiot of the month.
I've checked the volts, 20V on the motherboard itself, so it's being fed. I've reset the BIOS battery. Don't know what else can be. May be some weird security circuit that closes if you have the case on or something?
Today I noticed the HDMI port was kind of rusty and dirty as well (green and brown stains here and there), so I poured ethanol in the hole and rubbed. I poured it vertically, so the excess of ethanol run all the way through the motherboard, although there was "only" the RAM slots in the way. They could have soaked a little bit, or not, I don't know. This time I hadn't the hair dryer accessible so I blew a little bit the area, which evaporated whatever I could see quite quickly. Waited for a few minutes and tried to turn it on. This time, it's not responding at all. I've checked for 30 min every cable and the plug and everything, nothing, no sign of life.
So, my first question is... can you short the mobo by deep submerging it in ethanol?
If the answer is "no, ethanol 96% can not conduct electricity at all, you can literally put a turned on PC inside an ethanol tank and it will work fine", then I must look for the solution. If the answer is "yes, if it wasn't gone and you did not dried it properly, it's possible you short it", well, I could be the idiot of the month.
I've checked the volts, 20V on the motherboard itself, so it's being fed. I've reset the BIOS battery. Don't know what else can be. May be some weird security circuit that closes if you have the case on or something?
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