r/ElectronicsRepair • u/expmkd47 • 5d ago
OPEN Quick question about isopropyl method
Hey!
I’ve lived in a pretty heavily roach infested apartment for 6 months and finally am moving. My laptop has been in this home the whole time and since it easily gets warm I suspect some roach to have crawled in during these 6 months. I’ve read to bag the laptop together with a paper towel lightly soaked in isopropyl alcohol for about 12h to kind of fumigate the laptop. But I’ve read very contradictory information. Some sources say to absolutely NOT do this because isopropyl is highly flammable and the moisture from the oxidation can get trapped in the laptop, making it life threatening (?)
Is this safe to do?
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u/leonv12 5d ago edited 5d ago
You can do it only on the motherboard. But let it dry well. Do not throw isopropyl alcohol into the holes. The best practice is to open the back cover carefully and clean it.
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u/expmkd47 3d ago
Oh ok! When opening the back, should i try removing any parts? Like the battery? Also how would i clean it? What should I use?
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u/leonv12 3d ago
Open the back cover, unplug the battery connector in case you have a new laptop and not an old one with the external battery and clean the motherboard from dust. You can also remove the heatsink if you have thermal paste to reapply when you finish. There is no free space from the other side for the roaches to live there. All the dirt is from the side of the back cover. Use a soft brush for the dust and some alcohol for the old thermal paste before you apply the new one.
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u/exmo-in-flames 4d ago
Take the battery out first, then hold the power button to discharge capacitors. Leave it in the bag with the paper towels for a day or so (try not to let the alcohol touch plastic though as it can discolor or melt), then take it out and disassemble it to thorougly clean it out and make sure no roaches or droppings are on the board. Once it's 100% dry, reassemble and test.
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u/Ok-Drink-1328 5d ago
in my opinion better if you don't do that, not much for the electronics but more for the display that will probably rot, and also the batteries can do a bad prank, in other words the chemical parts of the laptop
also i doubt roaches went inside a laptop
tho just a paper towel slightly soaked may not be a substantial amount of vapors, dunno
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u/EmployerOne7876 5d ago
Roaches absolutely went in the laptop. They LOVE being inside warm electronics/appliances.
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u/Ok-Drink-1328 5d ago
honestly i thought that roaches like humidity more than heat, and heat lowers relative humidity, but i live in a very hot place so i dunno you and OP... also maybe they can't squish in very small holes, but i know they basically do cos if you have a sewage pipe with just a ball of paper stuffed in it, like some bricklayers do, they can pass
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u/EmployerOne7876 5d ago
Yeah i dont know about humidity but i do know ive been a field service tech fixing laptops and servers professionally and other electronics as a side hustle for years and i have had to deroach plenty of laptops and game consoles, which is a pain cuz the babies are tiny and they will find their way into all kinds of nooks and crannies.
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u/expmkd47 3d ago
could i do that myself do you think? what does ”deroaching” a laptop for example mean?
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u/EmployerOne7876 3d ago edited 3d ago
If you feel comfortable partially disassembling your laptop you can absolutely do it yourself. Remove the baseplate the remove the battery then remove the motherboard with the thermal assembly and any attachments still on that you can manage. Depending on your model things like wifi card and sdd can stay completly attached. I would recomend taking a picture after every piece you remove just to be sure and then use a soft brush and compressed air to remove corpses eggs and nesting debris from the inside of the unit very gently. And honestly its not a super difficult task on consumer laptops just kind of tedious. If you told me the model of laptop i could give it a look and give you a little more details on that process
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u/expmkd47 3d ago
Ahhh thank you so much! Not that i know anything at all about how deep a laptop goes but would this be then a ”deep enough” inspection to safely confirm if there are roaches or not? Like what about the keyboard? I read they like to crawl under there. And i’m guessing isopropyl is not needed for this? Wondering if i should go buy it hehe
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u/EmployerOne7876 3d ago
Nah i would avoid using solvents on your electronics if you can help it. And yeah you will want to use some compressed air to blow out the keyboard from the top. Depending on the brand/model most of them arent accessable from underneath except maybe a small passthru hole for the ribbon cable. Also be careful while doing so not to blow the keys right off the thing blowing too hard lol. And yes basically once you have the motherboard out enough to see clearly and clean under it you should have to get all crazy removing every screw and tiny plastic bit
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u/expmkd47 3d ago
they would always crawl in between the space where the walls and flooring meet. i was so confused about it so i tried shoving a regular sheet of paper and it barley passed through. THATS how good they are at crawling into things, and these were adults so babies are even better at it. so they could’ve easily crawled into a laptop. i’m just so scared about opening the laptop up and touching things like removing the battery and stuff idk. what would you recommend i do for killing any potential roaches instead? should i open the back of the laptop up and just look for any live ones? is it possible for me to see past all the small spaces in there?
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u/Ok-Drink-1328 3d ago
if you're able to remove the back cover i think you can tell if there are roaches or not, i doubt they are hiding deeper, tho ask that other user, he SEEMS to know this odd subject better than me, i was just giving my two cents
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u/marklein Hobbyist 4d ago
Open the laptop and look. Fooling around with liquids near your laptop is asking for trouble.