Stabilant-22!
BTW, what with all the talk here of poorly-seated AE cards and possibly-bad RAM, I thought I'd take a moment to plug a contact-enhancer I discovered called
Stabilant-22.
No, I'm not a shill, don't work for them, not getting paid by them, haven't even met any of 'em; I just think it's an amazing product and want to spread the word. The Canadian mfrs don't even distribute directly to consumers in the US (they mostly contract large orders directly to industrial and gov't/mil. concerns), but you can get it from a few US resellers who buy in bulk from the factory. Amusingly, the easiest US source to locate is the parts desk of your local VW/Audi dealership (part # ZVW 186 001)! That's how I found out about this stuff, specified to solve multi-pin/card-edge electrical contact problems in the factory repair manual for my (late, lamented) Audi 5000 wagon.
In a nutshell, Stabilant-22 is a polymer designed to "fill the gaps" between electrical contacts with a substance that is only conductive in the presence of an electrical field within a very close range, so when used on multi-pin or card-edge contacts, it enhances conductivity only across each physical contact (almost as good as a soldered joint!) while insulating in-between the contacts. The mfrs used to set up their trade-show booth running their computer with its mobo fully
submerged in the stuff, and it ran perfectly fine, allegedly even more stably. A highly-diluted form of this same stuff was once resold by another distributor in audiophile shops as "TWEEK" a few years ago, but the redistributors' over-dilution of the polymer gave that version of the product a bit of a mixed reputation, but many audio geex absolutely swore by the stuff while it was available. However, the over-dilution debacle made the mfrs gun-shy about dealing with the consumer market or resellers/remarketers ever again. Another pro-audio shop in NY is selling it in normal-dilution strength nowadays, but it's just plain easier to get it from your local VW/Audi dealer.
🙂
When I was cobbling together my Frankentosh, an 8600/200 tower with RAM, PCI cards, and drives salvaged from several other abused and deceased Macs in my then-employer's boneyard, I was having some frustrating drive and stability problems early on. I wondered if the card-edge contacts on the RAM or PCI cards, and/or SCSI pin contacts on the drives (the box and drives had seen a lotta drive swapping in their history) were as good as they outta be. I figured trying Stabilant was cheaper than buying new RAM, hi-grade SCSI ribbons, new drives, etc. -- at least as a first resort, couldn't hurt to try it, no? I ambled down to the VW/Audi dealer to get the goods, stopped by Wal-Mart for some cosmetic applicators (foam-tip swabs like used to apply eye-shadow, since I didn't wanna use the cotton swabs that came in the Stabilant kit), and I went to work treating and un-/re-seating all my RAM, PCI cards, and SCSI connectors (which I'd done before without the Stabilant, and without positive results). Bam! Problems solved.
A few notes: Stabilant is only a contact
enhancer,
not a contact cleaner. You'll wanna use a real contact cleaner first if your contacts are already dirty or tarnished, then you can apply the Stabilant on clean, shiny contacts. Also, don't use it across unlike-metal contacts (e.g., aluminum RCA jacks w/ gold RCA plugs = gunky buildup over time, but gold-to-gold or alum.-to-alum. etc. is all good). The stuff also dries kinda gummy-sticky, so it may not be a good idea if a lot of dust/debris/cat hair is likely to enter your case. Oh, also remember to let the Stabilant's alcohol solvent evaporate before you power up your gear (I waited overnite, just to be sure), so that unevaporated alcohol won't cause a short!
I love this stuff...
😀 😎