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The Lightning Stalker
Full Member
USA
747 Posts |
 Posted - 28 Sep 2002 : 20:56:14
One night a few years ago during one of my garbage rounds, I came across a Macintosh Performa 631CD. I don't know if the cat had found it before or after the person had thrown it out or what, but having had several cats over the years, I recognized that telltale aroma.
I'd never owned a Mac before, being a mostly PC user - except in school where it was all Mac Classic IIs - so this was my first shot. I was in for a real *job*.
Before I would even try to turn the thing on, I knew I'd better see if any urine had gotten on the electronic goodz inside. Sure enough, the motherboard was soaked. The unusual case design has the cooling fan right over the processor, RAM and ROM which vents out the top. When the cat sprayed it, the pee dripped down through the cooling fan and all over this area. The metal top and bottom of the case were also dowsed and were starting to corrode from the high acidity. Some of it had also ran into the power supply and under the motherboard to the metal backplate that attatches to it.
There was no alternative, so I began the unthinkable - washing the computer. All of the metal and plastic parts were pretty easy. I just used a lot of antibacterial and dish soap and a lot of scrubbing. Luckily, the disk drives were untouched, so I didn't need to wash those. On the electronics, I basically did the same thing as the rest of the parts, making sure to get around the chips the best I could with an old toothbrush. Then I rinsed it with distilled water with the hope it would rinse the minerals away that were in the tap water. Then I towel dried it as a final step just to make sure there wasn't much water to air-dry and leave minerals behind. The cooling fan was really bad, too. After washing it, I blew out the water from the inside with air. I let it all air dry overnight.
When it was all back to gether, it booted up to 7.5 just fine and everything worked! 8 Megs RAM and a 500M hard drive - Ah, the good old days. About a week later, it refused to power up. I later figured out that the Cuda processor reset button had been somehow fused, so it was continually resetting itself. I just pulled it apart to seperate the contacts and left it that way. I also needed to remove the backplate from the motherboard due to excessive corrosion threatning the motherboard itself.
It's still running today.The Lightning Stalker |
danamania
Official 68k Muse
Australia
1193 Posts |
Posted - 28 Sep 2002 : 21:02:03
quote:
There was no alternative, so I began the unthinkable - washing the computer. All of the metal and plastic parts were pretty easy. I just used a lot of antibacterial and dish soap and a lot of scrubbing. Luckily, the disk drives were untouched, so I didn't need to wash those. On the electronics, I basically did the same thing as the rest of the parts, making sure to get around the chips the best I could with an old toothbrush. Then I rinsed it with distilled water with the hope it would rinse the minerals away that were in the tap water. Then I towel dried it as a final step just to make sure there wasn't much water to air-dry and leave minerals behind. The cooling fan was really bad, too. After washing it, I blew out the water from the inside with air. I let it all air dry overnight.
Ugh - that stuff is -vile-. When I lived with my parents who bred cats, there was ALWAYS something rusting - however, glad to see the mac is working & doing its thing :D. I had a IIcx come from ebay, advertised as "as is" and no real likelihood of working. It had a mouse nest/droppings/mouse pee and had also been through a flood, with leaves & silt in just about everything. Same solution as yours! A soft paintbrush and dishwashing detergent, and a good scrubbing for a few hours. There was a little corrosion on some of the motherboard tracks, but after it was all dry I oiled the motherboard way lightly. It's still working and doing its thing also :). congrats! dana Quadra 605 Obsessions
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~Coxy
Leader, Tactical Ops Unit
Australia
2822 Posts |
Posted - 28 Sep 2002 : 21:22:03
I'm working on a Pro Keyboard that was left on a building site and is now full of sawdust. Water is OK, as long as you make sure it's all dry before applying voltage.  ~Coxy - Leader, Tactical Operations Unit
Mayor of NuBus City v3.0
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Slomac636
Junior Member
USA
103 Posts |
Posted - 29 Sep 2002 : 14:09:07
Hey, I guess I'm not alone in this thread after all, One day while screwing off from work ;P I was driving along a country road when I saw a large beige object in the ditch. Of course, I had to look - lo and behold it was a PM All-in-One (not G3), It had been tossed from a motor vehicle at high speed. The cathode tube was gone in a bazllion pieces, the MB was missing, darn!! but the floppy and hard drives were intact. I fought with the beast to extricate both drives (blood and cuts!) and went home. After some cleaning (mud, sand, leaves and grass...) I dried both with a hair dryer on NO HEAT (air only) until no visible deritus remained. The HD was a WD 850 Mb, I slapped it in my Performa 636CD and guess what!? "Welcome to Macintosh" appeared! it had Sys 7.1 on it. The floppy was not so lucky, I saved it for parts. That was almost 2 years ago, that HD is still in use today with Sys 7.5.5 on it and its used daily. I had 8.1 on it, but the Performa is just a bit poky for my taste with 8.1 on it."OOOH, AHHH, What is this thing? - OH, We gotta do somthing like that.." BG's first reaction to a Lisa |
catsdorule
Senior Member
Canada
1627 Posts |
Posted - 29 Sep 2002 : 14:37:03
Was there anything on that HD?
I wonder who left it there...-Danny
Forum: http://www24.brinkster.com/catsdorule1/
"Windows(win-doze): A 32-bit extension to a 16-bit graphical shell of an 8-bit operating system originally coded for a 4-bit processor by a two-bit company that can't stand one bit of competition." |
The Lightning Stalker
Full Member
USA
747 Posts |
Posted - 30 Sep 2002 : 05:44:38
ATTN: catsdorule
There was 7.5.0, like I said earlier, and like 3 or 4 badly misspelled 'redneck' love letters from some woman to her long distance relationship.ATTN: danamania
That oil thing is a pretty good idea. I might try that myself. ATTN: Slomac636
You might want to be careful there. It's the minerals in the water that are corrosive, and heat is okay as long as its <150 degrees. P.S. Just as a sidenote, I also had to fix the keyboard. It's an AppleDesign with the flexible circuit boards. To get at the traces, you just grind down the little plastic nubs that hold in the metal backing plate, and pull it off. After finding the breaks (usually around the contact pads) I replaced the trace using a Chemtronics conductive tip pen that can be found in the MCM Electronics catalog. The Lightning Stalker |
Slomac636
Junior Member
USA
103 Posts |
Posted - 02 Oct 2002 : 18:24:48
OOOPS...!Forgot to mention that...I used distilled water to clean the drive up, I remembered reading that somewhere once before. Also, there was a High School a few miles away, I'm pretty sure that's where it came from. There was System software and the usual Preforma software on it, Claris Works and stuff like that... I just wiped it and started over cos' I had a Preforma System disk that worked on it. I haven't had a lick of trouble with it in almost two years. "OOOH, AHHH, What is this thing? - OH, We gotta do somthing like that.." BG's first reaction to a Lisa Edited by - slomac636 on 02 Oct 2002 18:30:49 |
maclover5
LC Doctor/Hot Rodder
Australia
5830 Posts |
Posted - 10 Oct 2002 : 03:20:20
Eeep. What a liberation. Either way, congratulations on rescuing that poor thing and ressurecting it like you did. Sounds like that cat really wrecked the poor thing. Oh well, its in good hands now, and i'm glad to hear that you're still enjoying the 68ks as much as you did @ high school. Now, if only we had all Classic IIs here..... -------------------------- "I keep my friends close, but I keep my enemies closer" - Unkown Warrior maclover5
68k Macintosh Liberation Army
Number of 68ks Liberated: 6
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How to wash Cat Urine out of your Performa 631CD
68k of the Week: kastegir's PowerBook 180.