Re: Anti-freeze for Apple IIgs

[toddpw@ugcs.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel)]

One thing I did not see on your list is dust maintenance. Especially with
the unsocketed high-pin-count chips in the IIgs, a few years' worth of dust
can cause problems much like the ones you get with sockets that need
reseating.

Your major concern is dust accumulation on/around the teeny pins of the
bigger chips. When enough dust builds up, it creates conductive paths
between the pins that is just like dropping resistors into the schematic
of the IIgs and connecting them to randomly chosen signal wires. Not good.
This dust is not directly visible on the pins themselves, so your best way
to judge it is by looking at the total dust buildup on the motherboard, and
clean the whole motherboard each time you do it.

Usually what I do is get one of those high-pressure air cans which are sold
as dust remover. Your local electronics/electricians store will probably
carry some. The dust is usually plastered on pretty good so I go at it with
the toothbrush and a lawn-mowing algorithm to get everything pretty evenly.
Then I use the dust remover spray to blow any remaining loose dust bits off
of the motherboard.

Anecdote time: when I was in college a guy in the next dorm over had a IIgs
that was crashing more and more and finally couldn't boot 2 times out of 3.
We opened his case up and the dust was so thick you almost couldn't read the
numbers on the chips in some cases. After a good thorough toothbrush attack
his machine was happy.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ ugcs.caltech.edu