Spilled water into pc. Red cpu and dram light after taking apart and drying. Can't figure out what's damaged.

[The_Warm_Frick]

Spilled water into pc. Red cpu and dram light after taking apart and drying. Can't figure out what's damaged.

 

 found many posts with a similar problems but they all had many different culprits.

parts:

Asrock b550m pro4

Ryzen 5 3600 with stock cooler

team tforce 8gb 3200 x2

super flower leadex III gold 650w

I also have an additional evga 500w 80plus power supply

and gtx 1050 for testing. (i do not want to use the graphics card that was in it for troubleshooting).

Problem:

I spilled water from desk onto the top of my pc, which is on the floor, and the display went out immediately. All fans started running at 100% and I cut the power immediately. I flipped the pc upside down and brought it to a table to see where water landed. Most of the water landed on the floor thankfully and I only saw a few drops of water that landed on the graphics card, the top of the cpu cooler, and a drop on the bottom of the case. I was still afraid to turn it back on, so I took out the graphics and sprayed compressed air on it. I removed my cpu fan from the heatsink and didn't see any water. I removed the ram which had no water on it. I removed the powersupply which also had no water it was concealed by the bottom of the case. I rested the gpu on its side inside the case and pointed a fan at it for a day.

TLDR: barely any water landed in pc, yet it still lost display instantly and fans ramped up to 100%. just little drops on cpu cooler, graphics card. couldn't see water anywhere else. Took it apart and let it dry with a fan pointed at it for a day.

Troubleshooting I've tried:

· Took it apart and used motherboard box as a test bench using only the cpu with cooler, ram, and power supply. I got a red cpu and DRAM light and the fan just turns on.

· The previous day when unscrewing the heatsink the backplate fell off and I screwed it back on. When I was looking up stuff from the issue [I saw that seating it incorrectly could short the motherboard and cause the CPU and DRAM light to turn on.](https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/dram-and-cpu-debug-leds-pc-wont-boot.2953599/) I took off and put back on the backplate but the problem persisted.

· I used one of the both sticks of ram in each slot, no change.

· Removing cmos battery for a minute, no change.

· Using different powersupply, no change

· Using different power supply and plugging in graphics card (both working in another pc) gpu fan turns on along with cpu fan and no change.

· I cannot try the ram in the other pc because it does not support ddr4. I cannot try the processor because it is an intel board. I can try to put the ram in a friends pc this week but that's all I can do because they don't have an am4 socket.

I don’t know where to continue from here. Even if I can’t fix something I just want to figure out what’s broken. If anyone could help I would greatly appreciate it.

[szdawid2]

When the water landed on the GPU, it may have shorted the PCI-E port, that may have a caused the DEATH of your CPU, you should try every component (except the CPU in your friends PC), and if they work, then the CPU died, but please be careful with the gpu, it can short your friends PC and it wouidn't be a good thing.

[The_Warm_Frick]

4 minutes ago, szdawid2 said:

When the water landed on the GPU, it may have shorted the PCI-E port, that may have a caused the DEATH of your CPU, you should try every component (except the CPU in your friends PC), and if they work, then the CPU died.

Alright thanks, I can only try the ram since they have an intel board and cpu. So I guess I'll have to take it to a shop to narrow it down between the cpu and the motherboard.

[szdawid2]

Just now, The_Warm_Frick said:

Alright thanks, I can only try the ram since they have an intel board and cpu. So I guess I'll have to take it to a shop to narrow it down between the cpu and the motherboard.

Hope the answer helped.

[szdawid2]

Thanks

[Enderman]

When I had a PC die I brought it to a shop and they tested the parts for me, turned out it was a dead CPU and dead mobo.

You really have to test each component individually to narrow it down.

If you don't have the parts/second PC, then your only option is a shop or a friend.