I’ll be straight with it. I’m a smoker, I smoke inside, I have a PC that is also inside. I want to clean my PC thoroughly to buy it a few more years. I know about the q tip method, and the compressed air, and general methods of cleaning out gunk and junk from PC parts. But this boy is way too gunked up for a regular cleaning. So, I reckon, the easiest way to clean it is to dunk the dirtiest parts in a bath of isopropyl alcohol. I was considering acetone at first, but it’s way too strong of a solvent, and alcohol should be better at dissolving organic residues. Is this a good idea?
I hereby submit this query to the council, and await judgement.
Iso wouldn’t be good for things like thermal pads or thermal paste. You could probably dunk most other things in it (though I wouldn’t put fan motors in it).
If you know how to disassemble the graphics card, you could probably do that, save the thermal pads/note where the thermal paste goes and then submerge it. Though the best option for everything is probably a squirtbottle and a tooth/nailbrush. Just give it a day or two before powering it on to make certain that all of it has evaporated.
So messing with thermal paste should be avoided. Noted. I could just re-apply it after. I’ll be replacing the graphics card, so I thought I’d give the rest of the parts a cleaning. So, submerging/soaking = no, squirt bottle in strategic places = yes.
Thank you for answering the question in a comprehensive way, it is surprisingly rare, and I appreciate it very much.
One other thing - you might want to try putting a little iso on a hidden spot on any plastic pieces you plan on cleaning - iso can sometimes degrade/discolour plastics.