How to clean motherboard at home?

The motherboard is like the backbone of a computer, with all the necessary connections to accommodate a monitor, printer, mouse, keyboard, speaker, and other PC peripherals. It needs to be regularly cleaned to keep running for a long time and increase its lifespan. On the flip side, cleaning your motherboard can be tricky without proper knowledge, supplies, and patience. In short, cleaning your motherboard is essential to keep your motherboard looking and running like new.

Therefore, this blog post introduces you to how to clean motherboard at home and its precautions, methods, and more. We’ll discuss some most straightforward ways to clean a motherboard at home while taking care of its structure, ports, and other peripherals. With just a few simple steps, you’ll be able to ensure that your motherboard is clean and working correctly. Read on to learn the best way to clean your motherboard at home without damaging any of its components! If it damaged, orange or red light on pc case will blow.

Essential tools needed to clean motherboard

Here are the necessary tools you need when cleaning the motherboard.

Safety tips before cleaning motherboard

You must know a few precautionary/safety tips before cleaning your motherboard. These are as follows: 

1. Remove the PC power cables from the wall socket and shut down your computer.
2. Don’t use any liquid other than isopropyl alcohol with 99% purity.
3. You must contact the warranty provider if the board has some damage on it in case it’s in the warranty period.
4. Clean the motherboard in a safer-controlled or open environment.
5. Wear a safety mask, wear gloves, cover your eyes with protective goggles, and follow all the safety steps. 

How to clean motherboard at home?

Two methods are applied when cleaning a motherboard, depending on the board’s condition. Those include normal and intensive cleaning. Normal Cleaning should be done regularly as part of your computer maintenance routine. But Deep Cleaning needs the use of alcohol and some additional steps than normal cleaning, plus we take a few extreme cautions. Remember, such a type of cleaning is required when the motherboard has been in a dirty environment or spilled on it. Also you can get help from here if you need to clean graphics card.

Method 1: Normal cleaning

• Step 1: Remove the side panel from the computer. If there are any panels, remove them altogether. This step is required since there must be enough space for dust to escape from the machine.
• Step 2: Use the compressed-air can to blow the dust away. Continue to use compressed air on the motherboard until all loose dust has been removed.

Note: Direct air can pressurize air across the machine’s components to clear the dust. Your starting point will differ depending on how your machine is configured. Because dust will fall and settle on lower components as you proceed, it is best to start at the top and work your way down.

• Step 3: Carefully approach your motherboard while taking care of its components. 

Note: Work from the back of the case to the front when approaching your motherboard. You don’t want the compressed air cans to come into close contact with your motherboard.

• Step 4: Inspect the motherboard to determine if there is any remaining dust on it. Certain spots may be difficult to reach, or there may be stuck-on dust that has to be removed.
• Step 5: Gently clean any dust lodged on the motherboard with a soft brush. Spray forced air throughout the computer and its components, including the motherboard, one more time to remove any dust the brush brought up.
• Step 6: Assemble your computer components, connect the power cables, and turn your PC on.

Summary: Cleaning your motherboard is an excellent opportunity to do other computer maintenance tasks. The case fans may be removed, washed, and dried. Examine your wiring for any loose connections or overlapping cords. Cleaning your motherboard once a quarter is an excellent approach to maintaining it in good operating order.

Method 2: Deep Cleaning 

Deep Cleaning of a motherboard should be reserved for motherboards in critical condition, and severe dust smudged on it. Before you can help clear a computer, you must first remove the motherboard. Ensure you clean the motherboard, not the CPU, wires, or related equipment.

• Step 1: Place the motherboard on the lint-free cloth. Examine it to identify the sections you wish to clean and then clean them one at a time.
• Step 2: Spray isopropyl alcohol on the unclean places on the motherboard using a lint-free cotton pad. Wet a new pad and return to the board when you notice filth on each one. Continue to wipe the visible dirt until the pad is white.

Note: You can gently scrub any tenacious dirt on the motherboard using the nylon brush. Re-dip it into the alcohol and agitate it.

• Step 3: Let the motherboard dry before putting it on your computer.

Note: You must let the motherboard dry for at least 24 hours before reinstalling it on your computer.

How often a motherboard must be cleaned?

If your motherboard is covered and smudged with dust and dirt, you should only perform a deep clean. However, maintenance cleaning may be performed much more regularly. This will, as always, depend on your surroundings and how rapidly dust and filth build up within your computer. For a reasonable assumption, a motherboard must be usually cleaned once every three months. But suppose you work in a clean, dust-free environment. In such a case, a motherboard may survive for six months. Sometimes cleaning a motherboard affects performance.

Conclusion

According to most of the experts and our team’s observations, a motherboard must be cleaned once every three to four months. But it also depends upon your surroundings and how often the dust is collected on your motherboard and computer. Therefore, we have added two in-detail methods in this post. If the dust isn’t smudged on the motherboard and you just want to take care of the motherboard, you can try the first method. But the second method is to thoroughly clean your motherboard.