Zinc Whiskers Cripple Colorado's Computers

Mr. Christmas Lights writes "While zinc whiskers, small metallic fibers which grow on surfaces that have been electroplated with zinc, aren't a problem for Christmas lights, they can cause serious problems for computers. The Denver Post reports how they caused computer outages for the last three weeks in the Colorado secretary of state's office. This basically halted business and elections document filings. Zinc whiskers are becoming more of a problem as computers electronics get smaller. NASA has a good reference site which includes a interesting PDF summary paper complete with pictures. /.'ers with computer rooms might want to check this out."

Comments

Re:You can clean them off...

[JPriest]

Wash them off, the Zinc whiskers have less charge to the parts when submerged in water (as long as the water is not distilled). Once the parts are submerged you can remove the whiskers with a cloth. With idiots like that moderator fixing problems we would have computer salvage yards piled higher than Iraq's WMD caches.