Help. My PC is Drunk

[PCDestroyer]

Well, it happened. Beer spilled on the top of my PC. Passed through 2 top fans, and some on my GPU. 

The computer almost immediately turned off on its own (maybe 2-3 seconds after contact). I quickly unplugged and removed all the components. I used a high percent isopropyl and a qtip and wiped anything that looked remotely affected. I will let this air dry for 2 days minimum. 

What are the odd that when the beer hit the fans and the computer turned off that the CPU did this to protect from a short? Or is there almost guaranteed to be a short and SOMETHING is dead? 

I’m sure I will have to do some sort of trial and error, testing minimum parts and adding until there’s a failure, but mainly wanted to know if the power shut down was possibly for my system to protect itself rather than reacting to a short and dying.

Built this thing with a new 3080 2 months ago, so pretty down about myself.

 

The beer was probably half full before the spill and 1/4 full when picked up. Likely 4 oz spilled. And a good amount of that was probably stopped by the mesh shield on the Corsair 4000D case. That being said, the fans were spinning and definitely flung trace amounts around the case and on the motherboard.

 

I have gotten on to numerous people about putting beverages near the PC, and here I am, being an idiot. 

[Proud Cipher]

I've done the exact same thing when I was a teenager. Spilled a Mountain Dew through the top vent into the case. I got very lucky, as the fluid only landed on the backplate of my GPU and the bottom of the case. However, my machine didn't turn off. Your case is a bit more alarming. You will have to thoroughly dry any components that got wet. Once things are dry, pray to the PC gods and test power the system. If any components were damaged by the spill, current fault protections in the components will prevent power on. If it got on your GPU, the system may power on but if it was damaged you won't have any video output and should receive a POST code (depending on system, a numerical display on the motherboard or a series of beeps from the internal speaker). If the system doesn't power on at all, you will have to systematically test each component of the system individually. If your system has onboard graphics, remove the GPU and plug your monitor into the motherboard. If it powers on and you get a display output, then we know your GPU was destroyed. If it doesn't, the motherboard itself may also be out of commission. If you have another computer, consider adding other components (any other PCIe cards, storage drives, etc) to it to test that specific component.

 

I'm holding on to hope that the damage is minimal for you bro.

[BiotechBen]

Well, beer is fairly conductive, I would disassemble and clean and inspect to see if there are any damage points with shorts, hopefully the GPU isn't damaged, I'd suspect the motherboard shorting.

 

[NF-A12x25]

No way to tell until you power it on again.

[rcmaehl]

There are various levels of how bad this could be.

 

Ideally, the short happened near the power connectors themselves and just shorted a connector to ground, thus triggering PSU protections.

 

Worse case, the PCIe power got shorted to 1) elsewhere on the GPU that shouldn't be taking 150W+ 2) the PCIe lanes which ALSO shouldn't be taking 150W+.

 

Could be anywhere in-between as well.

[PCDestroyer]

I appreciate the quick responses. I was hoping to hear that there might have been some safety feature to prevent short circuiting, but I fear it was a short itself. 
 

I’ve gone back and forth applying isopropyl and I can’t see anymore residual spots on the motherboard/GPU. I only took off the backplate on the GPU, but didn’t open it up requiring reapplication of the paste/pad. It didn’t seem to get much of the beer.

 

I’m just waiting it out now. I’ll attempt tomorrow night with just the PSU, MOBO, CPU(With integrated graphics) and one stick of ram. If that doesn’t work, I’ll go from there. 

[Tan3l6]

13 hours ago, PCDestroyer said:

isopropyl

Yup - more alcohol is better in this case!

[PCDestroyer]

For those following:

 

It somehow miraculously all works! Tested everything one at a time until I got the big boy in there and the GPU survived! Everything is plugged in at this point except the top two fans. I don’t trust plugging those back in, but I will get some new ones this weekend.
 

I’m still curious if doing any testing or putting the GPU/cpu under load will reveal any hidden issues, but they’re idling at normal temperatures. No real funky smells or sounds! Appreciate the input from each of you. I’ll report back when I get these wires tucked back away and some replacement fans installed. 
 

Hallelujah

[PCDestroyer]

So I got the fans replaced, and everything seems to be operating, but there’s a couple of notable differences:

 

1) The PC takes longer to open up most applications. Steam for instance is very slow to launch the program.

 

2) After benchmarking with Heaven, while maintaining normal temperatures ~70C on

2560x1440 ultra setting, I was still able to get consistently high frame rates, but my score was somewhat lower than the last time I ran it.

 

3) My OSD for Precision X1 used to display frame rate and GPU temp, but now it’s only showing frame rate. Not sure what’s causing this, I’ve gone through all the settings and nothing seems to explain why it no longer displays the temp.

 

Maybe it’s just in my head, but if “feels” a little off. Can’t complain when the alternative is a dead machine, but maybe time will tell. Just glad it’s able to operate at all.