Teo Zenios wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 12:38 AM
Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20
So I get this pair of free SS20s today at the
weekly geek lunch at the
Chinese restaurant down the street - one nice, clean one, and one
that, um... well... was corroded inside due to an unfortunate meeting
with a dog, I'm told.
I was wondering what you people think about machines that have been used as
a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them?
While looking around for a spare Mac IIfx I ran across a person who had a
Mac IIx (he thought it was a IIfx) with a DOVE accelerator card in it and
the pictures he sent looked decent from the outside (Mac IIs tend to
discolor badly). Once he opened it up he found out a mouse had made a nest
and used it for a latrine. The guy said he would clean it up, but while I
have dealt with some smokers tar and dust bunnies that look older then I am
I never had to deal with pee and poo in a machine before.
So what do you guys do in a situation where this has happened? How toxic
would the bodily fluids be to chips and circuit boards? I hear rat excrement
can carry some nasty deadly diseases. Any opinions?
I personally have only dealt with this 3 times....
1 time for a friend with an IBM PC portable... and the electronics didn't
get touched... but the cat urine corroded the shielding.... he never
completed the project (and the computer belonged the school he was working
for even when at home his cat peed in it !). I still have the computer
guts...
just not the case/kb/etc....
The second time was inside a all in one mac (early powerpc generation...
the ones where the mainboard slid in from the rear).... I scrapped it...
saving a few parts from it.... it was free... so I didn't particularly care.
The most recent time was I was driving by a home on trash day and saw a
computer and monitor at the side of the road. I stopped, and decided to
grab the computer (for parts only... it was a bit beat up).... after I
got it
home... I discovered it was urinated on by an animal (in the trash, in the
home ? don't know). I wanted parts only... so I gutted it (the pee never
made it into anything except possibly the power supply). Everything worked
except the power supply... which made a very nasty noise when I tested it...
(it got scrapped). But I did end up with a mainboard, Celeron 1100, a 256MB
PC100 or PC133 DIMM (I forget the speed), a CD-ROM drive, and a floppy
drive (there was no hd). As I had been looking for some 256MB modules,
I was happy to get one for free... and the mainboard was transfered into an
old e-machines PC that I obtained for free... and lives on.
My general take... unless it has particular value... I wouldn't give
urinated on components any of my time.... it does a number on the metals
used in circuits/boards if not immediately removed.
-- Curt
TZ