Water damaged 7970

[Mad_Beard]

Hi there LTT people,
I have to shamefully confess, yesterday I spilled some water into my PC. Yup. Right through the top fan above the CPU heatsink. That's how you make a water cooled PC, right? Ok, jokes aside, the water got only on the CPU heatsink (only the heatsink! thank god!) , PSU's cover (only the cover! thank god!) and unfortunately on the back of my Gigabyte HD7970 GHz. Edition Happened in the middle of a gaming session. There wasn't too much water on it, like, less than a tea spoon, it was mostly only in the highlighted areas:

 

 

Imediatelly turned off the PC (it was still running, only the screen went black), took out the card trying not to spill the water more on the back, soaked it up and put the card in a box with the back sitting on rice. Now I think I could took off the cooler and put the whole card in the rice bad, but I guess it's late now. So i let the card in the rice box through the night (about 12-13hrs), morning I imediatelly went to town get some isopropyle alcohol to clean the damaged area, ofc it's weekend, saturday, most shops are closed, I could find only 85% pure alcohol in the pharmacy, so I took it and rub a bit of it on the damaged area. Wait a hour or so, cleaned up the white stains after the 85% alcohol (now I already knew I should have wait for monday and buy ISOPROPYLE alcohol) and put it the PC. Woohoo! It posted! Wow, it even booted into Windows! But the fans were running 100% RPM since the boot, Afterburner just confirmed my thought - the temp sensor was gone, it was showing 0°C all the time, sometimes it jumped to like 33°C for a few ms. but then back to 0°C and the cooler went crazy again. So I let it run at full speed, the cooler felt well cooled, not even warm (a few second just after the boot, what else to expect, right?). So I ran a game. Fps fine, core clock and memory clock fine, the cooler was warm, as always (the chip had really really low ASIC quality, if I remember right it was about 60-65%, but the card was running perfectly stable at 1100MHz. with perfect temperatures about 60°C in LOAD). But after a while the system just rebooted and never boot up again. Oh well, rub it again whith a bit more 85% alcohol, wait a hour to dry it out and put it up again! It again posted, booted, ran a game, everything fine and again reboot and never boot again.

 

Is there any little chance he's still alive? After that 85% alcohol rubbing? Any tips how to brind him back from the Silicon Heaven?

[iamdarkyoshi]

I had the same issue. And I managed to fix it. It wasn't easy though.

[PlayStation 2]

 if you've got a spare PC to test it in, do that

[Theguywhobea]

Put it in a toaster oven.

[Senzelian]

That poor guy is sitting on the coaster waiting list. 

Anyways, I don't think you can do anything anymore apart from trying this a few more times. Maybe at some point it'll work.

[MobiFix]

NEVR EVER USE RICE! Letting things dry in just air is better, and dissipate 7 ml / 24 hours, whereas rice only absorbs 3.3 ml / 24 hours .. (proof om my claims, even though my numbers were way too positive: https://www.gazelle.com/thehorn/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Water-Damage-Prevention-and-Recovery.pdf )

 

Please lease please please stopp subscribing to the rice myth .. it's a MYTH based on false facts about rice.. It's dumb.

 

ANyway, what you're looking at is CORROSION... Which is a killer.. WHat you need to do is to grab a toothbrush and isopropylaclhol and scrub the surface of the card down, and see if it dissolves any of the stuff stuck to the card, with 99.5% purity .. But as you've already done 85% IPA it means you're probably looking at a short, so at this stage you need to get under a stereomicroscope with a soldering iron with a really fine iron and start inspecting the components atop the PCB..

 

Here's a professional explaining rice and electronics:

 

[LionWaffles]

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/how-to-fix-a-computer-that-has-water-damage

 

Think that might help ^

[Mad_Beard]

Trying it in another PC won't make any change, I think. I would have to use my main PSU anyway because this emergency PC has a 300W one (Athlon X2 5000+, 2GB DDR2, X1250 IGPU, 300W PSU with 20pin mobo connector and no PCIe connectors).

I guess I might try brushing with isopropyl, but it won't happen sooner than  on monday. For now I have the card on air with the PCB up.

I've already had some successfully baked artifacting graphic cards, but neither of them was water damaged while in LOAD

[MobiFix]

Trying it in another PC won't make any change, I think. I would have to use my main PSU anyway because this emergency PC has a 300W one (Athlon X2 5000+, 2GB DDR2, X1250 IGPU, 300W PSU with 20pin mobo connector and no PCIe connectors).

I guess I might try brushing with isopropyl, but it won't happen sooner than  on monday. For now I have the card on air with the PCB up.

I've already had some successfully baked artifacting graphic cards, but neither of them was water damaged while in LOAD

Baking gpu's will only work in the short term.. what people seem to forget is that unleaded solder, which is what has been used in electronic devices since late 90's now melts at about 250 Celsius minimum.. So baking a gpu will only fix superficial damage on the solderballs underneath a gpu, which is why baking has a high rate of failure .. TO do it properly you need a very expensive BGA reworking machine.

 

The fact that your card was running as it happened will have created one or more shorts, i recently killed a $11,000 workstation the same way by spilling water on it, in my case however the water hit just about every component inside of it, and i inspected the pcb's as i have the proper tools to do so, $2500 electronics microscope and very expensive ultrasonic cleaner among many things and concluded that the time it'd take me to fix all the shorts would exceed the time it'd take me to earn another $11,000 as I value my time at about $800 / hour.

[Mad_Beard]

Yeah, I doubt too baking would help anything. Oh well, if isopropyl brushing won't help and some miracle won't happen, I guess I'm done. Maybe I can get back some $$ from selling it to someone who might think he can repair it, or sell just the cooler and hang the pretty "little" board next to my ex-mobo about my desk. Brrrr, this talking feels like when the family is discussing the funeral while standing at the bed of their family member in coma....

[iamdarkyoshi]

I bet I could fix it given enough time. If you can't get it to work, how much would you sell the card to me for? I would do an autopsy and attempted repair here on the forums.

[MobiFix]

I bet I could fix it given enough time. If you can't get it to work, how much would you sell the card to me for? I would do an autopsy and attempted repair here on the forums.

If you at any point use rice however, i'll have TS send you a bill for a billion dollars..!

[Mad_Beard]

I'm from the god forsaken eastern europe, I doubt You would pay for the shipment all the way to the U.S.

 

MobiFix 

[iamdarkyoshi]

If you at any point use rice however, i'll have TS send you a bill for a billion dollars..!

I would break out the soldering iron of course... I had water drip on my directcuii 6950 and it killed it. Years later I traced down the issue to a couple corroded VIAs (copper rivets that link the outer PCB traces to the other side or even inside the board) and I added a couple bodge wires to account for the corroded traces and much to my amazement, the damn thing works! I also had my z77 motherboard die on me due to a faulty DVI cable. It blew the ass end out of a tiny little component that I managed to replace. But here are some images of my GPU:

[iamdarkyoshi]

I'm from the god forsaken eastern europe, I doubt You would pay for the shipment all the way to the U.S.

 

MobiFix 

Darn! Stupid shipping. Can you put it into a zip file and email it to me? J/K

[Mad_Beard]

Oh well then, I guess I will come back on monday and report how successfull I have been. Cya

[Redicat]

Well put it in the oven for a while it can do magic things and put it back in the PC when it has cooled down...

[iamdarkyoshi]

Well put it in the oven for a while it can do magic things and put it back in the PC when it has cooled down...

If you are attempting a reflow, it aint gonna fix this. It is most likely corroded traces.

[Redicat]

If you are attempting a reflow, it aint gonna fix this. It is most likely corroded traces.

 

Atleast its drying and warming up so ye might do something...

[Mad_Beard]

For how long at what temp? Also I've got only an electric oven (not like those small ones, it's a fancy old big one), I've heard hot air ovens are better for baking graphic cards (LOL) but unfortunately I haven't got one.

[Mad_Beard]

Status report - "drowned" 7970 sold for 60€! Half the price for what I've bought it. Oh well, I doubt it anyway that isopropylalcohol would help anything.

[AlexisWiiu]

Status report - "drowned" 7970 sold for 60€! Half the price for what I've bought it. Oh well, I doubt it anyway that isopropylalcohol would help anything.

Now go get yourself a proper card! (hopefully with more than €60 in your pocket.)

[Mad_Beard]

Lazy-ass college student, can't reserve more than 100-110€ for the gpu.  I'll probably go for a 660Ti or MAYBE an AMD again (much better performance/cost ratio, but, it's AMD...)