Sweat on a motherboard (MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC)

Dec 22, 2018
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I was building my first custom built PC today and when I had finished laying out cardboard (cause apparently it is a good anti-static material, correct me if i'm wrong) I had taken the motherboard and I didn't notice my hands were so sweaty so now there is sweat on the CPU side of my mobo and the underside of it on my mobo. I tend to get sweaty ALOT when I am nervous. What should I do? I'm thinking I should wait and let it dry or something like that.
 
Solution


Don't overthink this.

It creates a long-term potential problem, and by no means a short term sure-thing problem. It could be a couple years of high-humidity exposure to see anything. And it would have no effect whatsoever on overclocking.

Just clean it with some isopropyl alcohol and all will be well...and in the future follow good practice (like) handling the board by it's edges. Oh yes, and watch out for and avoid any 'rubbing alcohol' that has oils dissolved in it.


Ok, Thank you. Would it be a good idea to put a fan on the motherboard and my whole direction when i'm building so that if any sweat does drop it would dry alot quicker. I definitely am not gonna handle the mobo myself and ask someone else to do that stuff and i wont turn it on for like 3 hours after I build it but is that an option?
 


My components are:

MSI B450 gaming pro carbon ac
16GB corsair vengeance LPX 3000
WD Blue M.2 SSD 500GB
2TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM
Ryzen 5 2400G
be quiet! Pure Power 10 500W PSU
NO GPU

So far I have only put the m.2 drive as I heard that should be put in early on in a build but other than that nothing else. I became to scared that i might do something to the hardware so after i had installed the drive i put it back in the anti static bag and left it ever since

EDIT:

Forgot to say that CPU was on it's way and i did not have it yet
 
I suggest this: wait for the CPU. Until then, check some videos on youtube for how to install the CPU and the CPU cooler, and read the board's manual.
When receiving the CPU, post back and, even if it might not happen immediately, wait for my reply. Then we can go together through the entire process.
 


k thank you
 


The body oils and salts are ionic contaminant and are something we worried a lot about during CCA processing; all operators had to wear finger cots and gloves to prevent contamination from this. Salts are especially bad as they absorb moisture from the air and this helps lead to subsequent damage in high humidity areas, which i suspect is typical of where you live since you brought this up. Of course, we also worried about subsequent processing where it made for sub-optimal results with soldering or adhesive and coating applications.

That said: casual touching with dry hands shouldn't be a problem especially since you're not likely to be worrying about soldering or adhesive applications. But to be safe, and if you made assembly during a hot humid spell with sweaty hands, you might carefully wipe up the areas you touched with clean isopropyl alcohol moistened lint-free cloth or towelette even if just to feel a bit better.

In the future handle boards by the edges only.
 


Ok thank you I will try that but there is still one question: Is there a chance of the motherboard being damaged from this?
I live in London by the way so that is the humidity part done. I'm srry i am just too worried
 
OK so was not able to get the alcohol today. I decided to do a breadboard with what i already had to see if any damage was done... THANK GOD IT TURNED ON. There we 3 red flashes of light but i suspect that was because there was no CPU but please justify my conclusion and then I'll be sure thank you.
 


Don't overthink this.

It creates a long-term potential problem, and by no means a short term sure-thing problem. It could be a couple years of high-humidity exposure to see anything. And it would have no effect whatsoever on overclocking.

Just clean it with some isopropyl alcohol and all will be well...and in the future follow good practice (like) handling the board by it's edges. Oh yes, and watch out for and avoid any 'rubbing alcohol' that has oils dissolved in it.
 
Solution


Ok that I will definitely try, one thing though is that when i was breadboarding with what i had, my PSU fan was not moving. Could thi mean i have a damaged/dead PSU? Also when i was searching about my board flashing 3 times on start up people have suggested that it could be something to do with a faulty PSU so that further implies a faulty PSU
 
Honestly i think MSI did themselves a huge favour of putting FLASHBACK+ on this board. Looking on the amount of people with the problem and be able to fix it with that feature, it really is a nice feature