Can any form of damage be casued by getting water on either front panel or MOBO USB.

[OnlyAxolotl]

Just wondering what sort of damage would be able to be caused if you got a tiny amount of water (think wet hands) on a USB outer casing when PC was turned on either through e front panel connectors or the MOBO itself.

 

Do Motherboard offer protection against this?

[Turtle Rig]

7 minutes ago, johndole25 said:

Just wondering what sort of damage would be able to be caused if you got a tiny amount of water (think wet hands) on a USB outer casing when PC was turned on either through e front panel connectors or the MOBO itself.

 

Do Motherboard offer protection against this?

It may cause damage or not, that is up in the air.  I remember when I had custom watercooling I spilled lquid on the video card and some on the motherboard but it still worked fine.  It just depends it can go either way!

[Drenkai]

Depends on if anything is bridged and if any electricity is running through those areas at the moment.

[OnlyAxolotl]

3 minutes ago, Turtle Rig said:

It may cause damage or not, that is up in the air.  I remember when I had custom watercooling I spilled lquid on the video card and some on the motherboard but it still worked fine.  It just depends it can go either way!

Lucky! How would it damage it, in what way specifically?

[OnlyAxolotl]

2 minutes ago, Drenkai said:

Depends on if anything is bridged and if any electricity is running through those areas at the moment.

If its' active surely a connection is always available. In what way would damage manifest?

[Drenkai]

If you have two circuits that are not supposed to be connected and they are then bridged by water, the electricity could flow from one circuit to the other and overload whatever is on the other side. Ie. You short circuit something. The damage would vary depending on what exactly happened. For USB, depending on the connector it may or may not work after. It could just not work properly.

For wet hands I don't think it would be a big deal (due to surface tension) unless you're forcing water to go down into the port.

Rule of thumb, if you think you may have caused damage, don't risk it. Power off your device and wait until fully dry.