Thin streak of liquid being thrown around case by GPU fans.

Oscar_Muffin · July 22, 2018

I'll start off with my specs then get to the problem.

Corsair CX600 80+ Bronze

ASrock B85 pro 4 motherboard

i7 4790k @ 4Ghz

GTX 660 Ti with Arctic Accelero Twin Turbo 3 cooler.

Single stick of unknown brand 8GB DDR3 RAM

1TB Seagate HDD (Unknown speed or model as haven't looked in a while)

So here's the problem. Earlier today I went to wake my computer up from sleep after it had been like that for about an hour. All of the fans started but the power button kept flashing as though it was still asleep and the display gave no output.

I ended up having to turn it of with the switch on the power supply. After cycling the power supply switch I tried to turn it on again and absolutely nothing happened. I removed the CMOS battery, switched the jumper and left it for an hour. Still nothing. Eventually I noticed a thin streak of liquid all around the case including across the motherboard. This streak of liquid was directly in line with the two fans of my GPU cooler. I removed the GPU and discovered that the fans and their housing were covered in a sticky (and don't do what I did) Sweet tasting liquid. I found that this liquid had corroded a small resistor on my motherboard and caused a short. I removed the corrosion and all of the liquid using 99.9% isopropyl alcohol and cotton balls then gave the motherboard a good blast with a hairdryer on low. After this the computer worked as normal again.

So I set about discovering the source of this liquid. My first though was because of it's sweet taste it may have some high temperature properties like coolant in a car but in this case electrolyte from capacitors. Since most stuff in my computer is 5+ years old I though it could be leaky caps. I thoroughly checked every capacitor on the motherboard and GPU and found no issues. No bulging, no liquid, no bust vents or loose covers. I tested them all using a multi-meter and they came back within range. Now this second option took me a while to think of and as unlikely as it seems. I do a LOT of vaping right next to my computer. There are two fans on the case that blow directly onto the GPU. My theory was that the glycerin and water in the vapour were being sucked into the computer, condensing on the GPU cooler, dripping down onto the fans and being thrown in a thin streak around the case. Glycerin also tastes sweet and absorbs moisture from the air which is why it may have been able to corrode the small resistor. I should also mention that this liquid did not evaporate when I attempted to test if it was water using a hairdryer.

This problem has happened twice, I didn't realize the liquid the first time although it must have been there. There are no symptoms at all before it happens, no slowing down, visual glitches or anything. So do you think I should change the capacitors on my GPU or stop chain vaping next to my computer? I should also clear this up. There is no liquid cooling in my computer whatsoever.

imreloadin · July 22, 2018

Definitely don't vape right next to it. Give is a good cleaning and see if it happens again after a while of not vaping by it.

Oscar_Muffin · July 22, 2018

1 hour ago, imreloadin said:

Definitely don't vape right next to it. Give is a good cleaning and see if it happens again after a while of not vaping by it.

Thanks for the reply. I gave my GPU heatsink a rinse through with some alcohol and cleaned all of the fins with cotton buds. I also noticed a small amount of liquid on the CPU heatsink but not to the extent of the GPU and a small quantity on the rear fan. If this were electrolyte from a capacitor I'm pretty sure I would have heard (and smelled it) for it to have gotten in all those places. Last time this happened was about a month ago. I completely tore my system down then and gave it a really good clean. The amount of dust on the GPU fans definitley indicates there had been liquid on them for a couple weeks at least, I wouldn't expect that quantity of dust in a year of use, especially with filters. It's all back together now and I've put my chemical de-humidifier on top of it. I'll open it up once a week and check for liquid to see whether I'm the problem or not.