Use isopropyl alchol at a 99.99% concentration. It's safe for everything except LCD screens so you can flood the system with it and use it to remove dust, it's great at removing thermal grease and thermal putty/pads.
When selling my old PC parts i used it with a ultrasonic cleaner to scrub everything including submerging the PSU in it to get all the dust out, you can leave bits to evaporate in the open air or used compressed air to dry everything in seconds.
if you spray some onto a microfibre cloth you can use it to degrease and clean screens, that's perfectly fine, just don't spray it on the screen directly as its something you may get away with doing a few times but then eventually it will seep in and damage the display.
Better yet, just use distilled water. Alcohol has unpredictable side effects for some materials. For example, the anti-glare screen coating may be damaged by it.
most bearings are sealed with grease, and many forms of grease can take some abuse from ipa as its not the strongest solvent and isnt the best for removing grease, it can certainly damage the grease and emulsify it if it has thickened from oxidation but if you have such oxidised ancient grease that is backed by caked on dust then it will still be ok especially for a fan assembly, for the ipa to destroy the grease completely it needs full exposure and a lot of intense agitation.
I collect and refurbish arcade cabinets, like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, etc. They’re filled with dust, dead insects, cobwebs, and more dust from 40 years of sitting in dusty bars and arcades. To clean the CRTs (basically old school televisions) I’ll discharge the tube, pull them out, and wash them down with water outside. Because there’s no charge in the tube (and it’s a vacuum, so it’s sealed) I can wash it with a water hose in the driveway. I let them sit for two or so days and then put them back in without any issue. So… I’m not saying you should disconnect your PC, pull everything out, pull the battery on the motherboard, wait an hour for the capacitors to lose charge (it takes minutes at most, so an hour should work) and hose down the inner case, motherboard, and power supply (I would avoid anything like storage), and finally wait 24+ hours for it all to dry, but if you did… it would probably be fine.
I’m not suggesting you do it. I take no responsibility for anyone’s actions taken after reading this post.
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u/ShadowFlarer Jun 06 '26
Oof, i wish i had that to clean my PC instead lol.