I pulled a '94 era 486 board ("ExpertBoard" with Opti chipset) out of the mothballs the other day just for the hell of it. I stuck a CPU, 32MB RAM, and an ISA video card on it and the BIOS came up, but said there was a keyboard error. Uh-oh. Of course the 3.6V barrel-type Ni-Cd battery had leaked, and took some traces out. Not bad on the top of the board, but on the back under a "No CFC Cleaning - Semi-Aqueous" label the traces had all turned to green goo, right through the solder mask (it's the brown crap, not the better green mask, so it's really visible). This included two of the traces for the keyboard connector, so I had to repair them. I flushed and brushed with isopropyl alcohoI, then I had to use lots of flux to get the slightly corroded solder connections to melt. After bridging the ruined traces with wire it managed to boot FreeBSD 4.3 all the way up from an IDE hard disk.
I removed the battery that I believe was the source of the corrosion. How do I stop the corrosion from creeping further? Will the isopropyl alcohol do it? Or do I need to flush the board with something else? Or is it a lost cause?
Since the board is already hacked up I'm hoping to put a CR2032 battery and a 1N5817 Schottky diode in place of the original battery. That would only give me about 3 volts, though. Is there a better option?
Ideas and criticism welcome.
Please excuse thread placement (or move this) if you feel it belongs in the "Later PCs" category rather than as a general question.
I removed the battery that I believe was the source of the corrosion. How do I stop the corrosion from creeping further? Will the isopropyl alcohol do it? Or do I need to flush the board with something else? Or is it a lost cause?
Since the board is already hacked up I'm hoping to put a CR2032 battery and a 1N5817 Schottky diode in place of the original battery. That would only give me about 3 volts, though. Is there a better option?
Ideas and criticism welcome.
Please excuse thread placement (or move this) if you feel it belongs in the "Later PCs" category rather than as a general question.
Last edited: