Possible to "Refurbish" an IBM 30XX?

[Chriscosmo12]

Heya all. I've been eagerly watching a listing on eBay for an "IBM 3090". The dies on it are larger than any other 3090 I've seen which is pretty unique, but there's a lot of them are clearly chipped and damaged, and the ceramic is scuffed up all around.

My questions would be... is there any way to buff out the ceramic to remove scratches, and would it be worth it to desolder the damaged dies? Sort of trying to justify the purchase. Thanks!

[isa-d]

out of the problem of the dies, seem to be a 3080 or 3081 MCM, not a 3090

[Chriscosmo12]

Oh really? I thought the 3081 always had a gold plated casing and that's what separated it from a 3090... huh. It's pretty confusing since everyone seems to list them wrong.

[Bator]

Die cannot be replaced or repaired.
Metal scratches on ceramics can be removed. Here on the forum it was discussed somewhere.

[Chriscosmo12]

Well, moreso meant just removing the broken dies for a nice clean appearance. I can try looking through to see if I can find a discussion on the scratches.

[Chriscosmo12]

Ended up purchasing the chip. I read on some other posts about rubber pencils, dishwashing paste, hydrochloric acid, acetone and other things being used for cleaning ceramic chips. Curious what is best to use? Will probably have to see what is easiest to get / what is the easiest process.

[Chriscosmo12]

Heya all, I got the CPU in today and actually tried using a melamine sponge (magic eraser) and some water to buff out the ceramic, and comparing to the seller's pictures I think I got great results! I normally use the sponges for cleaning some laptops and desktops depending on the material. Hope this helps someone in the future.

[Marcin]

Wow ! Effect is very nice. I have that magic sponge sitting at my house never used since 2 years when I bought it. It is time to test it

[Chriscosmo12]

They can be veeery useful, or very destructive. Was able to use one to carefully buff out some scratches on my car a while back, and also used that same one on a plastic laptop which led to a huge worn spot. Don't think there's any harm using them on something as hard as ceramic or bare metal though. I just wasn't expecting this much of an improvement. I should have taken a before picture myself.