this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
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I have an old mainboard from 1990 with emotional value and a leaked BIOS battery. And advice for cleaning that?
Wear gloves and eye protection. Remove that battery and dispose of it in accordance with your local laws.
Gently scrub off and any residual acid with white vinegar and a toothbrush. Brush away or blow off loosened residue until it's gone, just be aware it's acid and where you are are sending the particles.
Let it dry. If the rest of the board needs further cleaning you can use isopropyl alcohol to finish it off.
After it's clean make sure to check for damage before you replace the battery. It's likely fine, but if it's been sitting in acid for a while it never hurts to give the board a look over for shorts, cracks, or solder points that lost contact. If it looks good replace the battery and see if she works.
If you decide to disassemble your board to make cleaning easier, I suggest taking a few pictures first. The old MBs don't have helper notches to ensure parts are placed in the proper orientation and documentation may be hard to come by.
Thanks! The whole PC had a time (when its age was ~20 years) where it still booted, but with reset BIOS settings, followed by a time where it doesn't boot up anymore. So I believe the most likely thing is that it leaked and caused damage. Retro computing community things that the most likely cause is battery damage.
Here is the exact model from someone else: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-3121-v3
Battery (top-left) already removed, but it shows that this one has leaked before as well. When you look closely, you see battery residue on the nearby 8-bit ISA (?), so it must have leaked a lot at some point and been cleaned up. Unfortunately, it came with a notorious Ni-Cd Battery; even for its time not the best.