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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."
Zinccccccc Zinnnccccc! Oh my god what have I done!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I guess we have to shave all zinc cats before we let them into the building.
Never attribute to stupidity what can be construed as a monopoly preservation tactic.
(rolls eyes)
Where I used to work, we had this issue - in our case they grew from the cheap computer floor panels in the room. The case was so bad, you could see them in direct sunlight, and the flowed in the breeze like grass.
We had no choice but to go through cleaning, as the underfloor was about to be used for blowing air to new systems, without it, the zinc whiskers would blow free and cause hell on all our systems. As it was, three systems failed in the week after the clean. We don't want to think what would have happened if we didn't clean it.
It's not bullshit. Get over it. Interestingly, there are very few people who know of this issue, but knowledge is spreading.
Robert Anton Wilson
The metal frames for the raised floor are where the zinc whiskers are coming from. They get sucked into the power supplies and short them out.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
We are in the final streach for replacing the entire datacenter floor where I work because of zinc Whiskers. We had the underfloor area cleaned for the new A/C that blows from the floor up. We promptly lost 11 power supplies and the total count is up over 20 now. We did verify the presents of zinc whiskers in the dead powersupplies thanks to the onsite electron microscope.
Thankfully the high temperature never got above 85 degrees so the old A/C was able to keep up.
I work in a large midwest hospital, and we've got a constant issue with Zinc whiskers in our network jacks in operating rooms. Supposedly the origin is the cleaning solutions that they use for the floor.
I so agree with you.
back in college I paid my way as a maintaince guy at a foundry. we had rackmount Pc's that would have almost 1/4 inch of metal/sand dust on the motherboards and the computers were STILL working.
Cince then I have worked as a freelance consultant and specalist for many different companies that certianly do not have their computers in a "clean room" (machine shops for the best example) and they never EVER have these problems and they are exposed to nasty air + metal. The worst was a water filtration plant I worked at for 7 years where a workstation for monitoring the vats of hydro-flouro-sisicilic acid ( what they put in your water to add flouride) a product that is so corrosive that it eat's through the rubber lined fiberglass tanks within 3 years had, just by the amount released in the air during tank inspections, had eaten almost all the legs off the surface mount chips on the motherboard and it was STILL operating.
Maybe some really REALLY old mainfraime computers might see the problem in a 20-30 year lifespan that the article suggests, but even the PDP-11 I saw back in college that was retired in the basement but still maintained operating by students did not have any problems like this.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I know I speak against my own name, here. But:
Living by the sea, especially with the high humidity that comes with it...and the salt...can give your more than just a few zinc whiskers on the PC board.
Salt oxidation--depending on how long the windows are open--can really eat a PC in two years or less; never mind the quality of the MB.
Sea salt is hydrophilic. If it accumulates on something, episodes of high humidity will attract moisture from the air, and add the basis for typical corrosive effects. I have had containers with dry sea salt, which have pulled moisture out of the air on their own.
(Most acids need water...so does salt to release it's own ions, which can have a corrsive effect similar to an acid on metallic equipment...usually involving the non-metal in the salt. Sea salt has lots of chlorine, a very strong oxidizing agent.)
You can conformal-coat boards yourself, using Fine-L-Kote spray. We use this stuff on the Overbot.
It's a flammable, toxic chemical mixture until it dries; you need gloves, goggles, a respirator mask, and proper flammable liquid storage. Cover connectors with masking tape before spraying. It's a clear coat, but glows in UV, so you can check for missed spots.
and therein lies the problem: you just asserted that this is an item of faith for you, not reason; facts be damned, you cannot be convinced.
Never mind that there are several companies who do raised subfloors who've been addressing this problem for some time. They're all peddling snake oil, and NASA is helping them do it.
Never mind that Zn whiskers grow slowly, Zn-electroplated subfloor panels in data centers aren't that old, and PC board density has been increasing. Or that they only occur on electroplated zinc, and only grow long enough to be problematic in very low traffic areas. Nope, must be bogus.
Never mind that hospitals are affected as well and take this seriously. Or that the condition is well known among electroplaters and materials engineers, and was discussed at least ten years ago in the literature. Or that it's been involved in at least one product liability case. Or that Bell Labs has known about it for over fifty years (since 1948).
And never mind you could have found everything I mentioned above within the first 30 google results for "Zinc Whiskers". Nope. It must all be a myth, because there's no such thing as newly discovered age-related problems.
(Oh, and I hear that automobile corrosion is a myth too ... I went to the new car lot and looked around and didn't see any, so it must not exist)