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Cleansing Hardware Of Dead Pig Odors?
Chagatai writes "My company is one of America's largest beef and pork producers. Recently I took a trip to see a new computer room that had been built at one of our abbatoirs. While the new environment is nice and sanitary, the old computer room had air intakes that were adjacent to the rendering portion of the plant, and everything smells in an almost unholy way. Management is curious if there are any cleaning agents or means of deodorizing this equipment before moving it into the nice, new office. The only products I could find would clean the outside of the hardware, but the internals would still possess the lovely aroma of boiled dead pig parts. Of course, this is a race against time, as I am sure someone will inevitably squirt Pine-Sol into the system to try to make things better. Does anyone have any recommendations to remove the effluvium of post-mortem porcine matter from our machines?"
Back in the early 90s, my dad bought me My First Computer. It was an Macintosh IIcx which was a big, beige rectangle box. Had neat stuff like NuBus and about 12 SIMM slots. I lived in Europe at the time, and the computer was purchased from a graphic design house where *EVERYONE* chain-smoked at their desks. The machine had the most disgusting tar-like filth on *EVERYTHING* inside the chassis. The upstairs of my house reeked of cigarettes.
I literally chipped away tar, vacuumed it, put Bounce sheets over the power supply fan, to no avail. The machine still sits in my closet to this day, and having given it my best efforts over 10 years ago- it still smells of stale cigarettes.
Because of the small nooks and openings in your average computer, I honestly don't think you'll be able to do much about the smell. Unless there are some new commercial/industrial agents that can do the job, you might be SOL. Guess it's time for 3M to create a solvent version of Fluorinert.
You're missing a prime chance to pull a real stunt.
One word: Ebay.
Put it all up for auction simultaneously, and watch the fun as people get their newly won purchases. I'd love to read that feedback. "Great PowerEdge, but I've never had computer equipment smell unholy before." And then, watch mass psychology at work as people read each other's feedback from the same vendor and start to put two and two together.
The only thing funnier would be to work at Paypal and hear people squirm as they try to justify asking for a refund. "You gotta believe me, this disk array smells bad. Really bad. Like dead meat bad."
What's your damage, Heather?
This has worked for me many times before, and I can vouch for it, but the obvious disclaimer is that there are a number of reasons why it's a bad idea, as I'm sure any replies to the post will inevitably explain. But it's worked for me before.
Power down all your machines and unplug them. Set up adequate ventilation (I use several cheap desk fans). Wipe down your hardware with rubbing alcohol using a lint-free cloth or a few old t-shirts; don't worry about your own, buy a big bag of them at Goodwill.
When you get tired of that, or you pass out from the fumes, just pour it in. Yes, I'm serious, you'll want to trickle it over the green hardware and get everything generally soaking. (Not the power supply or hard drive, just PCBs and the like. This is already a dumbass idea, so you don't want to be much more stupid about it.) Then leave, otherwise you'll probably pass out.
I discovered this trick while given the task of cleaning a friend's laptop. He smokes, a lot, and had quit and didn't want the smell. He also had sticky keys from God knows what, so I honestly just said "fuck it" and turned the laptop on its side, open, and poured rubbing alcohol into the ports, taking care not to let it get near the screen, which rubbing alcohol can damage. Using a lot of it allows the liquid to remove dust as it flows by. The excess flowed out the other side and into a few paper towels.
Rubbing alcohol is a great solvent and evaporates quickly, so the ventilation is more for the computers, not you. Make sure the insides are aired out before powering up, or you may find yourself battling a quick-burning alcohol fire.
Have fun!
This is one of the best ways to remove stuff down to the molecular level, and involves no chemicals.
It truly is "the hot setup" ( pun intended ).
Google "vapor cleaning" for more info.
Bravo.
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
Or maybe a little bowl of baking soda in each case. :-) The ozone's probably better though.
Haida Manga
There are activated carbon pellets that are designed to absorb odors. They do a pretty nice job of it.
I suggest cleaning up the equippement as best you can and then placing a few of these in or around the offending hardware.
You can't take the sky from me...
I'd suggest turning the 'puter off, laying the case on its side and pouring in a box of baking soda for a few days. Dump out the baking soda a few days later and blow out the residue, and your computer should smell remarkably "less bad." Mixing a little alum with the baking soda can't hurt, either.
The smell of a rendering plant will be hard to remove, but this is how I remove the "beef scent" from tallow when I'm making soap.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
Febreze is the key.
It really works on dead things.
I got this tip from a ratcatcher called Sid, who cleaned out a dead raccoon from our crawl space. It worked.
I just used it to nullify the odour of a deer mouse that crawled into my truck's AC and helpfully died.
Go Febreze!
I'm not wrong. You haven't thought about it hard enough.
If you can't come up with a solution, I suggest donating the equipment to PETA...
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
A commercial ozone generator should work. I've used them on used cars owned by sweaty curry eating smokers, and it works great. The car smells like a meadow after a thunder storm after treatment.
What you need is an ozone generator. Park the equipment and the generator in a closed room for a few days, or weeks. Most ozone generators are built from a short-wavelength ultraviolet lamp in a box, sometimes with a fan. (Don't confuse ozone generators with negative ion generators. Ozone causes permanent lung damage, over time. Ozone generators also produce ions, but so what?.) The ozone will oxidize the aromatic organic molecules, over time.
If it's not too much hard work, then take them apart and wash them, hot soapy water should do, perhaps with a mild bleach.
As long as all the parts are *throughly* dry before reassemble, the water is no danger.
Once watched a sun engineer do it to an IPC after a colleague spilt hot chocolate into it...
Gives new meaning to the phrase Render Farm, now doesn't it?
Why not indeed.
A question whose answer cannot be found by googling.
Truly a worthy "Ask Slashdot".
That man tried to kill mah Daddy
I work for Servpro, so sadly, cleaning is something that I know how to do fairly well. Your best bet would probably be to do some research into ultrasonic cleaners. It might be cheaper to buy the equipment yourself depending on how much stuff you need cleaned. Protein odors are pretty hard to get rid of though, definitely one of the worst.
E pluribus unum
I had a problem somewhat like this at one point. In my case it wasn't pig odor but my solution should help.
The first thing I did was to pull the systems apart and to lay each interface card separate from eachother. I then used denatured alcohol to clean each card. I did the same thing for the motherboard and the rest of the components that would be harmed by more invasive cleaning methods.
The cases themselves(sans power supplys) were cleaned using pinesol, then alcohol to make sure all the residue of the pinesol would be removed.
Once I was done, I layed everything out on an anti-static mat and aimed a high powered fan at them to air everything out for any further odor that could be detected.
This wasn't a perfect solution, but it cut the smell down by at least 95% and prevented the parts from being at high risk for damage.
Obligatory nitpicking: the word you probably want is "odiferous", not "aromatic". "Aromatic" has the specific connotation of containing benzene-style aromatic rings, which not all odiferous compounds contain.
TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.
Whenever I encounter a system that smells of dead meat I just wipe it & install linux.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. for the humour impared: this is a joke.
Actually it doesn't matter whether it is conductive or not. The real idea is to keep it powered down while it is still wet.
There are sometimes capacitors on circuit boards.
There are sometimes batteries on circuit boards - for example to keep track of the wall clock time when the machine is off.
How do you ensure there is no risk of shorts when those two items are present?
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Twenty some odd years ago, one of my sons left the door to our freezer open. The freezer was located in the basement and the felony was not discovered until after a week had passed. Poultry, fish, pork and beef along with assorted vegetables were the main products in the decaying mass that was removed.
I tried:
Washing with soap
Washing with TSP (20 years ago it was the real stuff
Baking Soda in small containers on all shelves
Charcoal ( Charcoal Briquets broken into small chunks and scattered on the shelves
Then as I was bemoaning the fact that I would have to purchase a new freezer, a Salesperson in the local Montgomery Ward Store said "Newspaper", (She lost the sale but gained my everlasting adoration); it absorbs the odor. Wad it up, but not tightly, fill the freezer, and change it every few days.
Within a week to 10 days, the odor was gone. The stupid freezer is still in operation, probably keeping my electric bill higher than it needs to be.
But, it is odor free!
Newsprint may have changed in the past 20 years, but it worked once (for me).
Ozium is a commercial air freshner, odor killer. It has worked in cigarette/cigar smoke impregnated rooms with limited success for me recently (Real Estate Sales).
Good Luck!
Ever seen the TV show mythbusters? It's like snopes for TV. Anyway, they took the myth about the Corvette that smelled so bad that no one could clean it or sell it. They took two dead pigs and sealed them up in a Vette and sealed the whole thing up in a shipping container for a few weeks. Then tried to clean it.
They got a professional crew in, guys that clean out ambulances, crime scenes, etc. The car still reeked at the end of the show, and wound up getting sold for the engine & transmission.
You may be stuck with the stench. OK, random bad jokes : give them to PETA/ADL/vegan society. Give them to Cowboy Neal, no one will notice them over his stench.
There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
Really, it's the only way. Nothing smells quite like a rendering plant and nothing gets it out. That smell is composed of volatile hydrocarbons which come out of the meat when it's cooked, and they get into anything porous -- even the surfaces of "solid" plastics. Insulation, wood, sheetrock, and even plastic that has been around that smell for any length of time will have that distinctive smell forever.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Isopropyl Alcohol (Rubbing Alcohol): This attacks some plastics. Figure out what kind of plastic the Socket for the CPU is made of, and then look up the chemical compatibility of that plastic with Isopropyl Alcohol. Repeat for all the other plastics which are in the computer. Don't forget, we are talking about immersion of all the parts into a giant VAT of Alcohol. You are not going to get anywhere trying to wipe the system with Q-tips or wipes.
Ozone. O3. This is harmfull to humans, causes respiratory problems. It is used to salvage expensive items which smell of smoke. The "ITEM" is put into a sealed chamber and Ozone is put in at high concentrations. Find out if Ozone will Oxidize the electical connections in the PC (you know, like where the RAM plugs in :)
The Solution: In the good old days, you would take the pc apart, and have the pieces vapor degreased using one of the CFCs that are now banned.
Nowdays, you are going to have to use some sort of water based wash, which is how computer parts in the USA are now cleaned. I'm sure if you ship them to Russia or India they are still using CFCs for this kind of work.
If you are serious about making this work, you are going to have to strip down the system completely, take out the ram, cpu, every connection which is going to trap water and not dry out properly before the corrosion starts on the contacts. Get some of the correct detergent for washing PC boards after soldering to remove flux, dip and agitate the parts in the (heated) detergent solution, rinse with clear water, dry in an oven, (or your attic in the summer for a week), reassemble, etc.
Whatever you do, don't just go slatering on rubbing alcohol, or other stuff which has not been tested and used on PC boards.
Don't immerse the disk drives, either, just wipe them down.
Here is a Google Link to get you started .
This is a serious amount of work, so I hope these systems are worth the labor that you are going to put into it.
Ozone eats certain rubber parts in your computer.
A friend of mine was having CD-ROM drives die every two or three _months_. Seems that his consumer ionizer was putting out enough ozone to eat the belts away. He stopped using the ionizer, and the problem went away.
My guess is that ozone would also kill off hard drive gasket seals and even certain types of insulation material.
Bad idea. Don't go here.
You make your own soap?
I think we need to swap recipes. I've got some other things you might be interested in.
E-mail me a tylerdurden@aol.com
Hope to hear from you soon.
The few times I've had to "disinfect" computers and other electronics with "creative" fragrances, I've used pure (reagant grade) ethyl alcohol [in a well ventilated and grounded work space] with solvent resistant gloves, an ultrasonic bath of coating safe electronics cleaner, tupperware dishes and miscellaneous hand tools (brushes, ball peen hammer, cold chisels, etc).. Ball peen hammers are very useful for removing encrustations and cooked on stuff.. You don't wanna know. Trust me.
If you can replace the cases, do so. If not, dissasemble, remove power supplies, remove encrustations, and wash with bleach and hot water, then surgical soap and water.
Standard floppy drives are replaceable. Too much of a hassle to clean.
Harddrives are basically going to have to be removed, wiped with alcohol wipes, and then wiped down with some odor-neutralizing spray. Replace the drives after you get complete backups if any have errors.
Powersupplies, if not replaceable, should be discharged (those caps can kill), blown out with compressed air, and then wiped down with alcohol wipes.
CRT Monitors are going to be a bitch to clean. Replace if you can. If you can't replace, discharge all the capacitors, coils and the tube. Blow out with compressed air. Wipe down any sealed board level components and sealed surfaces with alcohol wipes. Don't get anything on any coils. Allow everything to air for 24 hrs before reassembly.
LCD monitors should be disassembled, their cases washed with alcohol. Spritz down the electronics with coating-safe board cleaner. Use monitor-wipes on the LCD itself.
Cables can either washed by hand, in a dishwasher (NOT HOT WATER! Max temp about 80F) or replaced. Replacement is easier.
Keyboards, if replacements are not available, should have all batteries removed, large encrustatios removed by hand (use gloves!), blown out with compressed air, and be run through a dishwasher, again with no hot water, or washed with large amounts of alcohol. Allow to drain for at least 24 hrs (alcohol) or 48 hrs (water) under a fan before reusing.
Boards: Remove any major encrustations of hardened tiss.. err.. organic matter by shaking, scraping, or chiseling. Soak in ethyl alcohol to loosen clotted material (in my case, literally.. again, don't ask) enough to brush/wipe most of it off. Immerse in electronics cleaner in ultrasonic bath on low. Board comes looking almost brand new. Allow to dry under a fan for several ours. Test, and reinstall.
Replace all fans and filters if possible (easier than cleaning the damn things). Reassemble. Before closing the case, hang a couple of those pine-tree shaped air fresheners in the case.
There are also a lot of forensic clean-up information websites out there.. Google is your friend. Hope this helps..
ACL Staticide is the stuff you're looking for. It is just as good as isopropyl as a solvent but is also an antistat... computer shops use it to clean computers (we use #1010 where I work). If you have any left over, you can mop your floors/clean your carpets with it to make them static-free.
And it's even cheap!
My email is real.
My dad ran a business cleaning up after floods, fire damage and crime scenes (mostly suicides). Some things smell bad. Some require vomiting (like rotten meat). Some are just unpleasant but linger (like the acrid smoke smell from a fire).
Things you can't clean by washing can be put in a tent with an ozone (O3) generator. Ozone is what you smell after a lightning storm: the clean rain smell. Concentrated, it smells sort of like bleach, but sharper.
It's both toxic and cleaning because (as I recall) Ozone happily oxidizes anything it contacts, preferring to be regular O2 + a free radical oxygen atom. The free Oxygen can bond with a molecule of stank and modify it to something less stanky, or it can, say, attach to a molecule in a cell wall and kill the cell.
It's like an efficiently burning fire in slow motion. I think oxidation is part of what makes your skin age; as you age, the damage created by environmental oxidation is repaired less and less by your body, until you just wither away. That's the idea behind taking certain vitamins that are supposed to block the damaging effects of free radicals in your body.
Of course, when you have something that stinks, you'd prefer it be destroyed by oxidation.
Unfortunately, plastics are among the hardest things to clean because they can absorb odors and its very hard to suck the stink back out. Stink isn't just something on the surface you can wipe off in most cases.
Spraying perfume just adds a new smell on top, which might not outlast the stink itself. I think Fabreze is a corn based chemical that works along the same principle as ozone. However, it leaves a residue on hard surfaces; it's designed for fabrics.
Sometimes when you have, say, a guy who dies alone in a house and his body fluids drain through the floor, or, in a moment of anguish, someone decides to end it all using a shotgun, you have a situation where you just need to throw things away.
Gnarly.
Why didn't you just say nothing at all then? The guy doesn't care about your conscience right now. He was looking for solutions.
Since when is that the criterion for a post adding to the discussion? You must think Ask Slashdot is a free consulting service we are running here. The discussions are for the benefit of everyone who participates, not just the OP, and posts that don't contain solutions are still allowed.
Several months ago a PHB posted an Ask Slashdot article asking for someone to write a shell script for his company. He was promptly excoriated by hundreds of unemployed geeks for being a cheap bastard. (Although his Ask Slashdot article was a success because someone did post a three-line shell script that met his stated requirements.) I don't remember any demands for downmoderations on posts with no shell scripts in them, or suggestions that people "just say nothing at all then" if they didn't have a shell script to post.
If someone from a corporate pig farm asks how to get the pig stink off his computers, posts about corporate pig farms in general should be expected and are entirely on topic for the discussion. The OP opened the door, and there's a lot to say about them. They crush family owned farms which can't compete with the vast economies of scale- which can only be achieved legally thanks to extensive lobbying and political corruption. The farms enjoy exemptions to environmental laws that still apply to everybody else. They regularly cause environmental disasters every time there is a flood. The stench they generate destroys real estate prices for miles downwind. People have lost everything when these farms get built near their homes. And unlike nuclear plants, jails, waste incinerators, or sewage treatment plants, NIMBY is entirely justified here since corporate pig farms do not serve the public interest at all. We aren't allowed to talk about this?
Frankly, 600 posts about rubbing alcohol does not make a very interesting discussion.
They handle many nasty smell situations at beef packing and rendering facilities. Solution would probably include some enzymes to chew up most of the stuff and chlorine dioxide to kill off the bacteria, etc. They probably handle the odor control systems for stink exiting the plant too so there might be a tech at your plant every week or so who'd help you.
There are several other companies that handle this type of situation as well.
http://www.ashchem.com/ascc/drewind/
Firefox &
http://www.med-chem.com/MSDS/100_iso.htm
That's all I'm going to say. I've worked with all the solvents you've mentioned, in larger quantities than any human being should rightly come in contact with (chemicals plant) and I've got to tell you: They All Suck.
I lost a gf because I was so irritatable after being exposed to IPA (Iso Propyl Alcohol) that I simply couldn't stand to see her. I'd come home, she'd be on the couch, have dinner ready, wearing something provocative... and the only thing that would pop into my head was "God damnit she's here again".
CNS symptoms are nasty for solvent exposure to IPA. I can't even imagine what would have happend if, as you suggest, I had drunk it.
Once I got laid off from that job and no longer was exposed to the fumes, my personality came back to normal. The ex-gf and I are still friends, but she's still doesn't believe me entirely that it was the fumes (tho she's comin around now and then).
Stay away from that crap and remember: Even Alcohols good, Odd Alcohols Kill.
The picture tube is a giant lead lined piece of glass which contains a vacuum and doesn't hold a charge. What you have to watch out for is the capacitors on the high voltage power supply, which contain several kV of potential. And most picture tubes are amazingly tough (the older it gets the more fragile of course).
After scrutinizing everything else posted, I'm surprised no one mentioned MythBusters - particularly because they've used dead pigs on several tests - detect buried bodies when the ground, including sidewalk, is ripped up, bodies buried, and sidewalk replaced - stench bubbling up through.
... you can guess the response. They finally sold it for parts.
One episode dealt with the issue of "...can a car which someone died in be cleaned up enough to be sold again?" They bought a fairly nice Corvette (although the owner was a bit hesitant when he heard what his baby was going to be used for), tossed two dead pigs in it, sealed the car as much as possible, then stashed it in a storage chamber to keep it out of the way.
After some period of time (I don't remember how long it was), they donned bio-hazard suits & masks & set to pulling the car out & rescuing it (the car). Even with the masks on, it seemed pretty unbearable for Adam & Jamie. They worked pretty hard, using practically any suggested remedy they had heard of (and some of their adjunct folklore consultants).
IIRC, they brought in a specialty firm to look at the situation. The owner didn't have any "assistance" for dealing with it (no suit, no mask, seemed unaffected -- they didn't say if he was one of those without a sense of smell). Anyway, his crew spent a lot of time using their proven techniques and nothing worked. They finally stripped the car of anything capable of holding an odor: hard & soft plastic, foam, straps, you name it. By the time they were done, all which was left was metal.
Finally, it was time to [try to] sell it. People were rather inquisitive (regarding price and why they were so coy) and of course, the windows were up so as not to provide any advance notice to a prospect what might be lurking. Every time the door opened, however,
Anything to do with receiving a shipment of 16,000 lbs. of distilled hardened fatty acid?
I did receive a fax at work for shipment of just such cargo, I think they just faxed it to the wrong number. But just to freak people out I did print it out and stick it on a coworkers desk with a note that said, "Tonight, we make soap!"
He was more than a little freaked out. But I never received the soap. Or did I...
... pork whiskers! Eventually the hardware will fritz out due to the accumulated pork whiskers and you'll have to replace it anyway. Problem solved.
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
This won't work. The odor does not come from surface dirt, but from the organic molecules absorbed by the plastics and resins of the cases and components. Dishwashing won;t do anyting to get those out.
The only solution is to get those organic molecules out of the materials and that is not going to be easy. Here are the things I would try:
1) Heat. This increases the diffusion rate of the offending molecules from the plastics. Make sure you vent the oven to get the organic vapor out or they will just re-absorb as the unit cools.
2) Activated Carbon. Activated carbon has a great affinity for organic molecules. You may want to put each PC in a cloth bag and bury it in activated carbon for a while. Test with one first to make sure the carbon fines don't short-circuit anyhting. Get activated carbon from a scientific supply.
3) Heat and Charcoal - probably the best solution would be a conmbination of the two above solutions. I would put each PC in a cloth bag and bury the bag in a bed of activated charcoal. Bake everything on low heat for several hours (120 - 150 F). Use just a warm oven because high heat reduces the effectiveness of the activated charcoal. You can re-charge activated charcoal between uses by heating it at 350-400 F in the oven to drive the organics out of it. That will stink.