Gassing Off - Motherboards that Smell?

dmauer asks: "I recently purchased what ought to have been my Dream Machine. An uber-fast dual Athlon with oodles of speedy RAM, a Geforce4, and a hard drive big enough to choke a horse (all in a snazzy aluminum case, even). So I get the thing home, set it up, and proceed to install Debian, making sure all my hardware is working nicely, etc., etc., and then I realize that there's a problem I hadn't anticipated. It smells." Usually when consumer electronics have a distinctive smell, something is wrong. Has anyone else run into such a problem, before? Assuming this isn't a electronic or health problem, what can one do to eliminate the odor from the immediate area without resorting to periodic fumigations?

Smelly Athlons

[C0LDFusion]

I have an Athlon 1600. When I first got it, it had an odd smell, too. All I did was run it for 48 hours with lots of cooling. After that, no smell.

Try attaching a drive-bay fan, run the computer for a while, and see if it helps.

Re:Clean the board

[Cyrano_De]

Alcohol is fairly commonly used to clean board of solder resin from the manufacturing/repair process. At Motorola we used alcohol quite frequently to clean the boards of all the pagers that ran through. As long as there is no power going through it you can dip the entire board in Alcohol with no ill effects. I would take a small stiff bristled brush to the underside. I used to clean the inside of keyboards with this method before it became cheaper to buy a new one then pay me for 20 minutes of labor.

Plug in deoderizers = neurotoxin

[bbk]

(I know, offtopic)

Using plug in deoderizers is generally a bad idea. How they work is by spreading a chemical agent that overloads certain neurreceptors in your brain, the ones that sense the "bad smell", so you can't smell it. Using these can really mess up your brain chemistry over the long term, and cause headaches, etc, over the short term.

BBK

Re:smells like what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure that it is not your power supply? I have had "stinky computer" a few times before, and have noticed that it was the power supply burning in. It went away the more that I had it on. Another thing to try is a plastic straw on the rim of your nose and stick it around the case, breathing normally. You get the idea.

Re:Plug in deoderizers = neurotoxin

[3waygeek]

The Straight Dope [straightdope.com] on air fresheners.

use natural absortion materials

[Anonymous Coward]

Use charcoal or a box of Arm & Hammer baking soda. Leave it in the box and remove the lid.
Cheers

Re:smells like what?

[fean]

I agree with both parent posters :-)

if you're a do-it-yourselfer, try baking it... my girlfriend gets violently sick when she smells flux (therefore my bench is outside, which is a bitch in south dakota winters), so baking it should get rid of the offending oder....

Otherwise return it if you bought it locally, or try and get a RMA if you got it online..

I've baked a couple boards that didn't get the "de-fluxed" completely, with mixed results, but if you follow his procedure closely (keep an eye on the temps!!!!), you'll be fine

Probably P/S outgassing; use activated carbon

[hackshack]

The odor is likely coming from the power supply, which tends to be hotter, as a unit, than the rest of the case (CPU heatsink notwithstanding). The phenolic resin in the power supply's circuit board may be outgassing, or equally likely, the motors in your system's fan(s) may be outgassing, as the bearings are brand new.

Ideally, you should place activated carbon / activated charcoal around and inside the machine for as long as possible (a week or so is best) and, if possible, store it in a well-ventilated room with outside air circulating freely; the carbon will absorb 95% of the odor. You can pick up activated carbon at a number of places, including pet stores (it also comes in the form of "odor absorber" sponges, which I dislike because they are perfumed themselves!) I've also seen people purchase big bags of charcoal briquettes (for grilling) and place them in paper bags. They don't work quite as well as activated carbon / activated charcoal, but they are good for large spaces (if you've just painted a room, for example).

Your girlfriend seems to have a provocation specific to the type(s) of epoxy or resins used in this machine. Might want to see an allergy specialist. My English instructor back in grade school had a serious provocation to most any smell; especially prefumes. One student forgot my teacher's warnings and wore perfume to class one day; the teacher went into something similar to an epileptic seizure. Not good!