OT: Removing Electrolytic cap residue

[Adrian Vickers]

A friend of mine has a problem with Electrolytic caps on his motherboard 
having gone "pop" & deposited their contents on some contacts...

Although this is a PeeCee (spit) that's affected, I thought I'd ask the 
assembled knowledgeable types here, as it's also a problem which COULD 
affect our Olde Worlde computers quite easily...


Quote

"Does anyone know how best to remove dried capacitor electrolyte from a 
surface? I have tried a number of solvents, including Ultrsolve and Super 
Servisol, but the stuff seems is set hard.

A couple of capacitors leaked on a motherboard and have dripped into one of 
the PCI slots. They are insulating some of the pins, so the slot cannot be 
used, but I need the slot. The capacitors were easily replaced (just 
pennies and half an hour in front of the TV) but I'm really not sure how to 
clean those PCI slot contacts.

The electrolyte dries to a brown varnish-like film. There seem to be a 
bunch of these exploded capacitors coming in from PCs manufactured around 
2002 (I reckon the worldwide supply of dodgy caps from the 1999/2000 
production were put in storage for a few years, then bought up by Packard 
Bell and friends)."

Endquote

Thanks in advance, all.


Cheers,
Ade.