The best storage is in a climate controlled house at 60-80 degress with low humidity. Basically a normal indoor environment.

There's nothing you can do about leaking capacitors simply due to the fact of them leaking whenever they want.

All you can do is make sure they are currently in good shape , and periodically check then when they are stored to make sure they didn't start leaking. If they do the least you can do is pop them off the board and toss them out while the hardware is in storage.

Make sure to toss out bios batteries and not store them.

Best storage for old and rare cards? In a working PC, being used on a regular basis. Nothing kills old hardware faster than sitting unused.

Older hardware increasingly tends to have tantalum capacitors. They are stable in storage, but they sometimes explode when they are given power again after years of not seeing it. For valuable parts with lots of tantalums, it's probably ideal to power them up every once in a while.
Periodic use is probably desirable for anything really, but even more so if tantalums are involved.

Be sure to remove any and all dust as much as possible as it attracts moisture during periods when there is high humidity, learned the hard way 😵

It might be worth it, if you're concerned about electrolyte leaks from capacitors, to store the card upside-down, i.e. with the components facing the ground. This way any liquids leaking would drip away from the PCB.

I've had a bunch of complete computer towers in a heated storage unit for about 4 years with no ill effects. Even some with missing case bay covers and expansion slot brackets. Also some mobo combos in antistatic bags are stored in plastic bins there too. I only have 4 years knowledge because I haven’t collected any computers before late 2011. That was the year my hobby started. I suggest storing random parts in unwanted or unused computer cases as another option. It's safer than risking the antistatic bags developing holes or rips from long term use.

When i fired up my mystery box NEAT chipset 286 16 Mhz it had not been powered on for 20 years and it looked like it had been stored in some garage covered in dust and worse. It fired up and the old 20MB MFM HDD had no issues with stuck heads or such. The battery was not the least corroded but I have replaced it with a new one just to be on the safe side. Some hardware just won't die however you store it.

Another such item was a Gravis Ultra Sound I bought, it was sold as untested and had accodring to the seller been stored without any protection at all on top of a bookcase since the late 90s. It was covered in dust but worked just fine. I think the most important thing is to remove NiCd batteries from motherboards. If some cap leaks it usually wont corrode any traces even if the electrolyte can be a pain to remove but once a battery starts to spill its guts everything it comes into contact with quickly gets destroyed

Calcium chloride absorbers work wonders at keeping moisture off your electronics drawer/box.

😜

No need for some fancy storage... simple cardboard boxes are good enough. 😀

havli wrote:

No need for some fancy storage... simple cardboard boxes are good enough. :happy: […]
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No need for some fancy storage... simple cardboard boxes are good enough. 😀

I still believe they MUST all be stored in antistatic bags or computer cases. ESD failures can happen.

I work in a pharmacy, so I come across a LOT of extra small silica gel desiccant canisters for free. I throw four or five of those in each of the cases and in each antistatic bag to keep humidity off of the electronics. I should start selling those things, since we throw away about 50 a day and they're about $0.50 each online or more.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-Gram-Silica-Gel-Cap … DL1rLNU2Te-HKMw

computergeek92 wrote:

I still believe they MUST all be stored in antistatic bags or computer cases. ESD failures can happen.

Sure, it doesn't hurt to put your HW in antistatic bag... but it really isn't necessary. Risk of killing CPU or VGA by ESD is very slim. All my hardware is stored like this and maybe one or two components died over the years (out of hundreds). It is not worth the extra space occupied by antistatic bags and money to buy them.

I worked a lot with computers back in the day, and now with fire equipment. Stored a lot of items without any static bag, and handled them just as i would handle a phone. Never, ever did any kind of component die on me due to esd. If you just use common sence, not wearing a woolen sweater when handling components and discharge before picking them up, you will be fine.

I like to use anti-ESD bags anyway, because of their stiffness - they are pretty thick and I can stack the cards on top of each other or even just throw them inside a box or a bag and they will be protected from being scratched by each other and there won't be any broken-off components or capacitors. I am able to buy ESD bags in 3.5 inch HDD size very cheap, they aren't large enough for mounting brackets to fit so I just cut a notch in them and the mounting bracket stays partially outside.