computer wet!

override367

I spilled an unfortunate quantity of soda on my computer while it was on, theres a fan exhaust on the top where the soda went in and my fan happily distributed it throughout my case

Anyway the PC didn't turn off or lock up, I yanked out the power and took her apart. I did checking and found very little soda, most of it on the side, after a thorough blowing through with compressed air I foolishly plugged it all back in and turned it on, anyway it came on to the BIOS password part then I rebooted again and solid amber light. The fan was still wet I never checked that >_<

Anyway I really ought to know better, I've been doing this over almost 20 years now, but I've never actually gotten a PC wet before.

Everything is currently completely disassembled (even took apart the PSU, taking safety precautions ofc) and it appears the bulk of the liquid was absorbed into dust which makes me somewhat hopeful - after all my computer was in bad need of a cleaning and dust is a moisture magnet so I've taken everything as apart as it goes (heat spreaders off the ram, heatsink off CPU and GPU, every part seperated and currently being fan dried) and cleaned it thoroughly

The video card was essentially encased in a plastic shell so I'm not terrible concerned there (except that the mobo might have taken it with it, which is always a possibility). The CPU similarly couldn't get wet even if a tsunami hit the case but again, a mobo going out can take everything with it.

How long should I wait before reassembling and giving it another go?

TychoCelchuuu

2-3 days minimum.

override367

Thats what I was afraid of, oh well. Might as well preemptively order an entire new PC and return all the parts if any are unneeded

Essee

Yeah, you actually should probably have asked this question BEFORE you turned the poor thing back on. Your machine isn't automatically dead, but liquid (particularly soda) often shorts out machines, and turning it back on shortly after it happened, rather than waiting a couple days, makes that more likely. It's worth seeing whether it happens to work again, I suppose, but if your motherboard DID short out it could indeed short other components, now or in the future. It's also probable that the motherboard will have intermittent hardware problems if it did short out. As for reordering everything, well... From my own experience with a shorted mobo, the mobo itself should very probably be replaced if there's any instability at all (the one I'm talking about intermittently blue screened, getting worse until it eventually died), and the next most likely candidate would be the video card since those are finicky to begin with (and the cards in the machine I'm talking about still intermittently-- rarely-- cause blue screens even in a new motherboard). Mine didn't kill the hard drives in the machine or the RAM, and as stated the video cards aren't actually DEAD yet, but it did kill the sound card and even the DVD drive in the machine. Your mileage may vary since this was a case contact short rather than spilling soda. Your mobo already failed to POST once if I read correctly, so that's not the best sign for that part at least.

But if it makes you feel any better, I DID spill milk in a laptop, with not even so much as a performance issue afterward, and then spilled tea in the same one... after which it seemed dead even though I cleaned it up, but it was recently cleaned off a little better and revived. Of course, this is a laptop we're talking about, so it's got better protection against this stuff, but maaayyybe you could get lucky anyway. I would at least swap the motherboard for your best chance at salvaging the other parts.

override367

I have worked on over a dozen systems that had been shorted from people being stupid (like me) and only had one be dead dead (as in, more than just the mobo fried), but none of those were from liquid which is pretty fucking insidious

Hell I once had a system that caught fire because he forced a connector from his power supply into a place on his motherboard meant for a jumper and it caused the wires to burn, and his system was fine after he got a new motherboard (which honestly I see no risk in just reordering)

My video card isn't wet in the slightest so thats good, even if its bad I might be able to RMA it since its only a month old. This sucks, now im stuck on my laptop where Bf3 is only playable in 720p, its like being on an xbox 360

Salvation122

If at all possible, I'd wipe down everything that got appreciably wet with some disposable glasses wipes, get rid of the sticky badness. It's (almost entirely certainly) non-conductive, but it could draw bugs and mold and such into your machine that /could/ cause damage. If you don't want to spring for the wipes, you could use coffee filters and rubbing alcohol.

override367

Yeah I was thinking about that but I can't for the life of me find anything that's wet or where it got wet. Much of the liquid merged with the dust in the case to create some new disgusting form of matter which I've cleaned up. The vast, vast majority of the liquid dripped down the side of my case and pooled underneath the power supply in the case itself not touching anything.

In fact my case may be designed so that if liquid hits the top fan it is mostly spattered to that side? Or I got lucky?

I've considered putting my motherboard in the oven on 200 or thereabouts for some brief period of time, I've never done that with PC hardware but I have un-bricked an xbox360 that way so presumably my motherboard can take the heat and any water on it can't

LoveIsUnity

override367 wrote:

Yeah I was thinking about that but I can't for the life of me find anything that's wet or where it got wet. Much of the liquid merged with the dust in the case to create some new disgusting form of matter which I've cleaned up. The vast, vast majority of the liquid dripped down the side of my case and pooled underneath the power supply in the case itself not touching anything.

In fact my case may be designed so that if liquid hits the top fan it is mostly spattered to that side? Or I got lucky?

I've considered putting my motherboard in the oven on 200 or thereabouts for some brief period of time, I've never done that with PC hardware but I have un-bricked an xbox360 that way so presumably my motherboard can take the heat and any water on it can't

I'm not saying that you shouldn't put your mobo in an oven, but if it were me, I would just wait a couple of days. Unless you live in a rainforest, it will be dry in a couple of days, and you won't have to put something with capacitors in the oven.

Essee

Yeah, don't heat your mobo unless it seems to be literally dead when you try again in a couple days. The whole point of us telling you to wait a couple days is to dry it out normally, with no risk of literally cooking bits of it.