Agreed
Coming from a former smoker, the best way to remove the smell is to take the laptop apart as much as your computably willing to do and clean it. Donât worry about replacing fans and what not thats a waste of time. However, you have to let the thing sit outside in the sun for a few days. Sitting outside will completely remove the smell from the laptop, but it may take 2 or 3 days to do it.
the guy sold you a smoker laptop and didnt tell you. i would return and buy a different one. let the seller clean that shit.
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The best way I have found to get rid of odors is to use vinegar.
I bought an old house and the wood trim around the windows and doors smelled like smoke and old. Wiped it all down with vinegar and it went away.
Thatâs my suggestion. Tear the laptop down and wipe everything with vinegar.
This works.
I bought a server once that had cigarrette smoke smell in it. Had to tear it down to bare metal and wipe every surface with iso alcohol and clean the fans/heatsinks in the sink.
Worked pretty well. Still an ever-so-faint smell of smoke after, but give it 10 days of power-on time and that smell dissipated.
Thanks for your advice, the alcohol seems to removed most of the smell,
I also painted some strong air freshener on the fan blades, which masks the smell.
I might updated the laptop in the near future so ill give it a good clean inside. Thankfully the think pads are very easy to take apart.
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Would not recommend ozone treating your laptop at all. Ozone is a powerful oxidizer, can bleach colored things, corrode metals and damage plastic parts. (making affected plastic brittle)
Vinegar corrodes metals, including copper. Would not recommend using it on a laptop.
It will but not over a half hour. A single treatment isnât going to ruin anything.
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Maybe, I guess yeah, all the smelly stuff is just deposited right on the surface, so it will probably be the first to react. Still, I would probably just take it apart and immerse the parts in 90+% IPA or ethanol, whichever is more available.
That would definitely be the better way to do it but I was thinking of the least invasive way.
Baking soda and vinegar all have conductive minerals. Just use isopropyl alcohol or electronics cleaner . It smells way better. Ha! ( sarcasm ) I love hand rolled cigarillos . That does work on cleaning Nicotine off parts. If your a pOt head same difference but alcohol wonât work, electronics cleaner will.
Regarding 99.9% isopropyl alcohol I have a (serious) question regarding its potential use to avoid water damage:
Youâll all know the âtippâ to remove the battery of i. e. a cellphone without a sufficent IP rating if it gets (really) in contact with water which isnât really an option any more due to glued-in batteries.
Is there a real reason why you canât for example fill a glass with pure isopropyl alcohol and just dump the entire device in it?
the large amount isopropyl alcohol displaces the water/makes a 98,9 % isopropyl alcohol-water solution due to the âcontaminationâ with water (maybe move the device around a little, shake the glass a little bit) then take it out after an hour or two and air-dry it patiently.
Isopropyl should be electrically non-conductive and shouldnât damage anything except stickers and labels?
Is there an issue with that train of thought?
(I always keep pure isopropyl alcohol for cleaning various stuff like making my own desinfectant for superficial wounds and glass/window cleaning solutions)
Most electronic components are fine with being immersed in IPA, with the exception of batteries, fans and HDDs. With that said, in many devices parts are held in or held together by glue. IPA is likely to seep into and soften glue, so things could easily come apart in unexpected and troublesome way.
Why exactly are batteries not fine with being immersed in IPA?
Is it because of these little âholesâ thar are covered with âfoilâ for pressure compensation (?)?
(Is it the same reason for HDDs? If so, are helium-based HDDs fine since their âfoilsâ are made out of a material that even seals in helium?)
Yes, some batteries are not hermetically sealed and have vent holes, most notably NiMH batteries. Completely sealed batteries should be fine.
Ordinary HDDs always have vent holes, so ingress would be a significant concern. I have no idea about helium-filled HDDs, but since helium is extremely penetrative, it is reasonable to expect that the seal would have no real problems keeping the IPA out.
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