[Heli Pilot]

So, my father had a house fire a while back, and he said I could salvage whatever is still good on his new/old computer since he was covered. It was a XPS i7 with a ATI 4850, 1TB HHD, and I think 12GB DDR3, w00t.


The top of the case was melted a little bit, and I am not going to try it with the PSU that was in it, but I am going to transfer everything to an old case, and PS to see what works. Anyone think the cpu/mobo/RAM survived? There's eome soot, and a bit of "oxidation", BUT, nothing inside was directly touched by fire, or wet from the firemen. I am using CorrosionX to clean the GPU, but don't think I am going to use it on the mobo and components, even though it is total non-conductive.


The other question is, this computer didn't have an optical out, or a discrete sound card, how would I stream sound to my receiver? Through one of the 3.5mm jacks?

 

[Beefcake]

hrmmm...your plan sounds good. I would think that if it was off during the fire/watering you should be fine with the internal components. If it was on, then that may be a different story.


Good luck....

 

[Heli Pilot]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Beefcake /forum/post/16836452


hrmmm...your plan sounds good. I would think that if it was off during the fire/watering you should be fine with the internal components. If it was on, then that may be a different story.


Good luck....

Thanks,


I was wondering about that, he didn't remember if it was on, or off.

 

[candre23]

The first thing the fire department does when it gets to a burning building is kill the power. You can't go spraying large amounts of water in a building with live wiring.


A good cleaning and it should be ready to go.

 

[Heli Pilot]



Quote:
Originally Posted by candre23 /forum/post/16836504


The first thing the fire department does when it gets to a burning building is kill the power. You can't go spraying large amounts of water in a building with live wiring.


A good cleaning and it should be ready to go.

True

Think I should mess with taking the heatsink off, and RAM out, and spraying it all down with CorrosionX? Or should an air compressor get it good enough?

 

[candre23]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Heli Pilot /forum/post/16836869


Think I should mess with taking the heatsink off, and RAM out, and spraying it all down with CorrosionX? Or should an air compressor get it good enough?

I would, just to be sure. I'd take the CPU out of the socket and make sure there is no soot around the pins too. There was a fire in my building about 2 years ago and you'd be amazed how it gets into everything.


I'm not familiar with CorrosionX, but if you can get your hands on some high strength acetone (60% or better), that will really clean it up nice. Just be sure to keep it away from any plastic bits, as acetone will dissolve many plastics.

 

[Heli Pilot]

w00t The GPU fires up, and works perfectly!!! Played a 1080p clip in VMC perfect, no stutter, no sync issues.


Now, I fired up the mobo/CPU without it being connected to anything, just a power supply, and it turns on, nice and smooth, and quiet, till it starts complaining about not being connected to anything lol. So I am going to connect it to an old drive,monitor, M/KB and see what it does.


My question is, this mobo has no optical out on the rear I/O panel, BUT it does have a SPDIF header on the mobo. Is this there to plug in a rear panel optical? or something? I really need optical out for sound. I don't have HDMI on my receiver, and the GPU only has DVI, so no sound that way, even though it installed all kinds of HD audio drivers with the Catalyst setup.

 

[Heli Pilot]

Some pics. One shows the damage to the rear of the machine, the one with the RAM gives you an idea of the "damage" to the heatsink, and the other is the I/O panel, but as you can see, it booted up into BIOS, and tehn into Vista with Safe Mode. But there was some major conflicts since I used my Nvidia card, but the HDD I plugged in was set up with ATI drivers o.0. The mobo MAY have some issues, I couldn't get the mouse to work, and the KB was intermittently responsive, but that could have been because of the massive GPU conflicts.


Gotta love that RAM count in BIOS


So am I correct in assuming that if I had the ATI DVI to HDMI dongle, I would have 7.1 HD sound out? Too bad I don't have 7.1 receiver lol, I need optical

This is the header off the mobo...

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/imageview.php?image=202


Guessing I need one of these...

Anyone got one?

 

[candre23]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Heli Pilot /forum/post/16838902


Anyone got one?

Search for "spdif motherboard" on ebay. There's dozens of them for ~$10.

 

[vladd]

If you can figure out the pins, you can build your own coax spdif connection. The Power pin is only needed for an optical connection.


I'm guessing that the pin off by itself is a key pin. If it is, then the three (in order from the key pin are probably:

1. Key
2. Blank
3. Power
4. SPDIFO
5. Ground

If this is correct, you can connect a regular RCA jack to the SPDIFO and Ground pins. The outside connection of the RCA jack would go to the ground.


I could of course be wrong and the first pin could be the ground and the there could be an SPDIFI pin (SPDIF In).


Check the Dell forums to see if anyone knows the pin configuration before attempting any connection including a purchased header.

 

[Heli Pilot]



Quote:
Originally Posted by candre23 /forum/post/16839273


Search for "spdif motherboard" on ebay. There's dozens of them for ~$10.

Yea, I looked and saw those, but they are $9+ shipping. I am going to try finding one that someone just has laying around they'll let go for cheap, and I am a cheapskate .


Vladd, I may have a look into that if I can't find one.


Thanks guys

 

[MrBobb]

Haha, reminds me of my ole cash-strapped days.


B4r u spend tons of time mounting into the new case, why not just hookup everything al-fresco on top of a non-conducting surface? Make sure it boots, and able to run a few things. THEN go ahead and spend your time later.

 

[Heli Pilot]



Quote:
Originally Posted by MrBobb /forum/post/16839382


Haha, reminds me of my ole cash-strapped days.


B4r u spend tons of time mounting into the new case, why not just hookup everything al-fresco on top of a non-conducting surface? Make sure it boots, and able to run a few things. THEN go ahead and spend your time later.

I did

there's a pick of the BIOS screen linked above. The mobo/cpu/RAM/PS/HDD everything else stripped, with my old GPU in there, it booted into Windows, but my dad needs the HDD as is so I couldn't change the drivers from ATI to Nvidia, and it didn't like that one bit.


Once he images the HDD, I am going to clean the case frame from the, prime/paint it, and either run it in a skeleton, or use some plexi to cover it.

 

[nalawod]

Just a word of caution as I had an unfortnate experience with this myself. We had a fire in the phone closet of a private trade school I was the IT director for a few years back. Although the building power was shut off in minutes (fire dept was almost next door) and the fire was out in minutes, EVERY computer in the building (and I mean at least 1500 computers) had some soot infiltration. The reason it was so pervasive was that the HVAC ducting actually had friggin air intake in that phone closet (don't ask me why!) and thus all the soot particles were magnificently evenly distributed across 3 floors of our building- and even in the sub basement. You couldn't even see it in/on the the computer components - but we did a short test of even the furthest from fire computers and they seemed to boot properly. But we would get random errors all over the place due to shorts on the components and mobo AND you never knew when it was going to bite you. Our insurance company sent in a team that specialized in computer recovery after fires/floods. They took every PC apart and sprayed out the mobos and components with compressed air, then with some kind of solution (it didn't smell like acetone or alcohol -- seemed more like distilled h20 or something). They soaked all kbd and mouse/external components in buckets of this solution too. Then, after days of drying, put it all back together and after about 3 weeks of them working full time in recovering all the PC's, we were good to go. Had very few problems after that. We only completely lost about 5 computers.


Since you actually had fire scorch the case, if that PSU or the case fans were running at all for any length of time (even seconds), your system is going to be prone to shorting out. Could even be a fire hazard. I would highly recommend finding out just what the recommended cleaner is (I'm sure it can be found by googling it) and cleaning process and do a complete cleaning before you chance running this thing full time.

 

[Heli Pilot]

The stuff I am using is called Corrosion X. It is a non conductive penetrating lubricant. The company has a TV submerged in a tub of it that has been running for about a year. We using it on ESC's, and voltage regulators all the time in the shop. The only downside to it is that it never evaporates, so it will attract dust, but dust is more managable than corrosion. If anyone has a line on something else that could be used to clean the fine details on the mobo I am all ears.

 

[Bigbird999]

Your pictures show a huge amount of corrosion as if they sprayed water inside the case. Look at the rust on the hold down springs of the cpu and all of the "white specks" (corrosion products) on the aluminum components and even on the RAMsticks. For about $10 you can get electric contact cleaner in an aerosol can (any automotive store will have some - Permatex makes one). I would remove all of the components and clean them, one by one, contacts and all, by spraying them with the contact cleaner and manually rubbing them down with Qtips or a soft cloth.

This stuff will also remove the corrosion X residue.


FYI WD40 will work the same as corrosionX. WD stands for water displacement and was originally made for drying and lubricating water soaked mechanical/electrical components.


I applaud your efforts to salvage this machine.


BB

 

[Heli Pilot]

And that stuff is safe for the mobo and RAM, and slots? I talked to a local computer shop, and they said they had some (he didn't remember the name) stuff that was supposed to work like that, but when they finished a recovery, and plugged everything in it started smoking lol. I just really don't want this to turn to scrap, as it is a heck of a set-up, and worth every minute of cleaning needed.

 

[candre23]

I would not use WD40 on electrical components. It leaves an oily film that could have unknown long-term effects on the board. Acetone is the best, but if you can't get any then rubbing alcohol will do. Otherwise, use something that is made specifically for cleaning electronics, not something that is made for breaking open rusty hinges.

 

[Bigbird999]

I agree, corrosionx=WD40=lubricant. Not the best stuff to use because of the oils left behind. OTOH, contact cleaner is a solvent that totally evaporates very quickly. Spray lots on and let it drain and/or wipe to remove oily residue, soot, and corrosion products. Contact cleaners are made for what OP wants to do ie clean electrical contacts/components. They are safe to use, non-flammable and purpose designed. Used in industrial applications all the time. Acetone will work, but it can damage plastics and the vapor is dangerous and flammable, especially in the amounts need for cleaning this mobo.


Link to the MSDS for these materials
www.sciencelab.com/xMSDS-Acetone-9927062
http://www.permatex.com/documents/td...tive/24378.pdf



BB

 

[Heli Pilot]

Well, I removed all the RAM, and CPU, and started getting into the mobo...I think it is best to let sleeping dogs lay. I now think that the mouse wasn't working well when I had it booted up, not because of driver conflicts, but because the inputs are pretty...shot. The good news is that the CPU is pristine, and the RAM only has the faintest amount of soot covering that you can barely notice, BUT does come clean with alcohol.


So I have a really nice CPU, and some RAM, and a skeleton case, not too bad a start on a long term project