STUDENT DATE PERFORMED

SECTION/ GROUP RATING

Activity No. 8
Cleaning a System

Purpose
The purpose of this activity is to be able to perform an active preventive
maintenance to a PC system. Proper procedures in cleaning the FDD and CDROM drive;
circuit boards; connectors and contacts; mouse and keyboard; and reseating of socketed
chips will be the coverage of the activity. The system will be partially disassembled to
clean the system. The students will use properly the different tools and chemicals in
cleaning the system.

Recommended Readings/ References

Upgrading and Repairing PC’s, 8th ed. Chapter 3- System Teardown and
Inspection

Materials
• 1 unit PC system • Canned air
• 1 PC Tools Kit • Silicone type lubricant
• Contact cleaning solution • Disk Drive Head Cleaner Kit
• Lint-free foam cleaning swabs • Computer vacuum cleaner

Procedure
A. Cleaning the FDD head and CDROM drive lens
In this procedure, the system should be running with at least keyboard and
monitor. The drives should also be working properly.
1. Cleaning the FDD head.
a. Apply approximately 5 drops of cleaning liquid to each of the cutouts
 on the underside of the diskette.
b. Insert cleaning diskette into drive, just like regular diskette. Activate
the drive for approximately 30 seconds.
c. Remove the cleaning disk.
2. Cleaning the CDROM drive lens.
a. On Windows 98 environment, insert the cleaning disk.
b. Open the CDROM drive just like a standard multimedia disk.
c. Select the clean.exe file and press <Enter>.
d. Wait until the program terminates and then remove the cleaning disk.

B. Cleaning the Keyboard and Mouse

1. Turn the keyboard upside down and shoot it with a can of compressed
gas. This will blow out the dirt and debris that has accumulated inside
the keyboard and possibly prevent future problems with sticking keys or
dirty key switches.
2. If a particular key is stuck or making intermittent contact, you can soak
or spray that switch with contact cleaner. The best way to do this is to
first remove the keycap and then spray the cleaner into the switch.
3. To clean a mouse.
a. Twist-off locking retainer that keeps the mouse ball retained in the
body of the mouse.
b. Remove the ball and clean it with an electronic cleaner.
c. Wipe off the rollers in the body of the mouse with the cleaner and
some swabs.

C. Disassembling and Cleaning Procedures

To properly clean your system, it must be at least partially disassembled.
1. Disassemble the system to where the motherboard is completely visible.
2. Remove all plug-in cards and disk drives.
3. Reseat Socketed Chips
a. Find all socketed components in the system (e.g. memory, ROM,
 CPU, etc.).
b. Reseat all socketed chips. To make sure that all components are
fully seated in their sockets, place your hand on the underside of
the board and then apply downward pressure with your thumb
(from the top) on the chip to be seated.
4. Clean the boards. For this step, use the cleaning solutions and the lint-
free swabs.
a. Clean the dust and debris off the board and then clean any
connectors on the board. To clean the boards, it is usually best to
use a vacuum cleaner designed for electronic assemblies and circuit
boards or a duster can of compressed gas. The dusters are
especially effective at blasting any dust and dirt off the boards.
b. Place the board on an antistatic mat.
5. Clean connectors and contacts. Cleaning the connectors and contacts in a
system promotes reliable connections between devices. On a
motherboard, you will want to clean the slot connectors, power supply
connectors, keyboard connector, and speaker connector. For most plug-
in cards, you will want to clean the edge connectors that plug into slots
on the motherboard as well as any other connectors, such as external
ones mounted on the card bracket.
a. Submerge the lint-free swabs in the liquid cleaning solution.
b. Wipe them along the contacts to remove any accumulated dirt and
leave a protective coating behind.
c. Use the solution to wash the dirt off the gold contacts in the slot
connectors, and then douse any other connectors on the board.
d. Use the swab and solution to clean the ends of ribbon cables or other
types of cables or connectors in a system.
Review Questions
1. What are the benefits of periodically cleaning a system?

2. How often will you clean the FDD’s head and CDROM’s lens?

3. What is “chip creep”? What are its effects to the system’s operation?

4. Why is it that you should use the proper lubricant for the drive’s mechanism?

Observation

Conclusion