Water damage.

[DiabeticSeizures]

So, my brothers pc has water damage. I have no idea how much, but I think the gpu is dead. He only noticed after turning on the pc, which immediately turned off. Anyone have some tips on how to fix this?

[Bcat00]

You don't, it's fried. That's kind of what water damage is, no turning back.

[Suika]

It might be as simple as finding all of the water damage and using some isopropyl and a tooth brush to clean the affected areas, or it could require some more complex board repair that wouldn't be feasible by most people who'd go online and ask how to repair it. Hard to say, but it's usually the latter for me.

[DiabeticSeizures]

It doesn't look like much at all, a couple of chips covered, then cleaned up with a towel. Most of it was on the GPU and the psu top cover.

[harryk]

First let it dry out for a few days. Then plug it in and turn it on. If it works great! If not start troubleshooting each piece of hardware until you determine what is fried and what isn't.

[amdorintel]

that is the problem with installing water cooling, all in one water coolers arent that good when compared with really good air cooling.

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, DiabeticSeizures said:

So, my brothers pc has water damage. I have no idea how much, but I think the gpu is dead. He only noticed after turning on the pc, which immediately turned off. Anyone have some tips on how to fix this?

Well if it was turned on while wet, you may as well write off the entire thing.

 

If you're certain only the GPU (eg water leaked through the top and landed only on the GPU) you could swap it out and see if you get anything, but generally a powered PC that gets wet is a dead pc. You can sometimes salvage a part if it completely avoided the water, but since water is conductive, everything it touched was probably killed.

 

The only things with a PC known to survive water damage while on are keyboards and mice that have the chip underneath the plastic housing and not under neath the buttons. Some parts are known to survive heat/fire damage before they will survive water, like shorted expansion cards.

 

[Pharr Carnell]

does that PC have onboard video? If so remove the GPU and try onboard. Also worth trying a different PSU...you may be lucky in that it was only the PSU damaged...but usually that would result in dangerous surge voltages to delicate components on the motherboard, and they're likely to have suffered damage as well...and that is just about terminal!

[DiabeticSeizures]

7 hours ago, Pharr Carnell said:

does that PC have onboard video? If so remove the GPU and try onboard. Also worth trying a different PSU...you may be lucky in that it was only the PSU damaged...but usually that would result in dangerous surge voltages to delicate components on the motherboard, and they're likely to have suffered damage as well...and that is just about terminal!

It's a Ryzen CPU, no bueno. Water got all over and in the GPU and psu, so I don't have a psu to test it with. I can test the GPU with my PC. The GPU has some corrosion from the water damage. I'm going to clean it with some isopropyl alcohol when I get back home. The motherboard had only a couple of drops of water on it, and it hit some small chips.

 

15 hours ago, amdorintel said:

that is the problem with installing water cooling, all in one water coolers arent that good when compared with really good air cooling.

It wasn't water cooling, it was the cat knocking over a cup of water into the pc

[DiabeticSeizures]

Update: After letting it dry for 24 hours with help from a box fan, and cleaning it with a toothbrush and alcohol, it all works just fine! Thank you all for your help and info!