Water Damage

thegame983

Hi Guys,

So.....I've managed to spill water on pc while drunk last night. I didn't realize until this morning so the water had plenty of time to work its way through my system. needless to say my pc didn't turn on this morning

Now it doesn't seem to be a huge amount and it was mostly at the front of the computer. My cd drive and the electronics at the power button were wet and so were my ssd and hard drive. The cpu, motherboard and the video card seem ok (ie not wet) but the base of the case and the power supply were wet.

Now I was going to get a 1070 in a few weeks anyway so adding the additional cost of other components will be annoying if not the end of the world.

Everything is dry now, but I haven't disassembled anything yet. I'm going to take the pc to a pc clinic down the road on Monday

I've been too hungover to anything else today, but I'm going to have a go at it tomorrow.

So any advice on how I should proceed? Or anything that I can even do?

Also, is the data on hard drives retrievable? And is this something the pc clinic would be able to do? I can give the guy an external hard drive to grab files for me (stuff like college work and other personal documents)

Thanks in advance guys

Smiley012

I'm no technician, but if you got water in and around the power button, it could be something simple like fixing that.

Does anything happen when you try and turn it on?

HDD - would really depend on whether the water did get into them, you could take them out and test them with a cable via another pc. Do you have anywhere / any cables you could test them with?

quainy

Hard drives are vacuum sealed so it's not really a worry if whether the water got into the drive, moreso if it got onto the circuitry. Have you an external drive that you can maybe connect that drive to another Pc? If it works then it's fine. The shop is just going to troubleshoot all your parts with a workstation that they have, most likely, for the most part I'm sure you could do this at home.

thegame983

Thanks for the replies.

I've an old pc that should still work that I could plug the drives into.

What, if anything, would happen if I plugged my ssd with windows installed on it into another pc? Would I be able to view the files on it?

BloodBath

It shouldn't have done any damage, put a bowl/cup of uncooked rice in your computer and dry as much of the stuff off as you can. Leave it somewhere warm and venilated to dry out. It should be fine once it dries.

thegame983

BloodBath wrote: »

It shouldn't have done any damage, put a bowl/cup of uncooked rice in your computer and dry as much of the stuff off as you can. Leave it somewhere warm and venilated to dry out. It should be fine once it dries.

Cool.I presumed it was ruined

K.O.Kiki

BloodBath wrote: »

It shouldn't have done any damage, put a bowl/cup of uncooked rice in your computer and dry as much of the stuff off as you can. Leave it somewhere warm and venilated to dry out. It should be fine once it dries.

I would not recommend rice method anymore, it's bound to leave dirt and grim behind.

Better to clean components in isopropyl alcohol and then let them dry.

thegame983

Right. So I did the rice thing and let it sit for a few hours. Plugged it in and it worked!

After about 5 minutes the screen on my monitor and tv went all pixilated and then crashed.

Upon restart only my monitor would pick up a signal and the resolution went to 800 by 600 and cannot be changed. And now its going all pixalated again

ED E

There's a good chance you've gone and doomed it.

48hrs isnt enough to passively dry it out, you need to leave it longer or use Isopropyl alcohol to wash it down (as it evaporates within 5 minutes).

Water does very little damage with an unpowered system but once you put current through it shorts destroy ICs.

thegame983

ED E wrote: »

There's a good chance you've gone and doomed it.

48hrs isnt enough to passively dry it out, you need to leave it longer or use Isopropyl alcohol to wash it down (as it evaporates within 5 minutes).

Water does very little damage with an unpowered system but once you put current through it shorts destroy ICs.

Damn. I'm just gonna transfer my files that I don't want to lose and I'll it alone again to dry.
Should I put it outside? It's a nice day. or will sunlight damage it?

my3cents

thegame983 wrote: »

Damn. I'm just gonna transfer my files that I don't want to lose and I'll it alone again to dry.
Should I put it outside? It's a nice day. or will sunlight damage it?

The problem is that water has minute amounts of salts dissolved in it and the salts which are left behind when the water dries create shorts all over the circuit board. IPA (Isopropyl alcohol) can help remove whats left behind after the water has evaporated which is why I'd recommend using it.