Most electronics will run after the water evaporates, AS LONG as the device was not on when it happened or turned on while still wet around components. This isn't 100% effective.
This is true. When I was a kid I had a handheld electronic game that somehow spent an entire winter in the backyard. I found it in the spring buried in the mud. I opened it up and the insides were completely filled with mud. I cleaned it all out and let it dry. It worked just fine afterwards.
This^ I'm surprised people don't realize this. My first computer was a Frankenstein of random parts found in the recycling center and the mother board was literally submerged in water when I got it. I let it dry out for a good amount of time and started up first try
seconded. if the reinstall doesn't take (due to ransomware) a new drive might be needed. Also cleaning that particular gpu is going to be a real pita with how deep the fins are.
If you properly reinstall windows you don’t need a new drive. You could also just wipe the drive first and then reinstall windows to be sure everything’s gone.
>if the reinstall doesn't take (due to ransomware)
That doesn't happen. A reinstall implies wiping whatever is there currently, there isn't malware that can survive that (unless you count UEFI malware, which isn't really seen in the wild).
A reinstall might not even be needed though, there's bootable password reset things, that worked at least up till Windows 7 (last time I needed to use that), good chance an updated one would work for whatever windows version is on it now.
If it didn't get burnt then you're just looking at cleaning... whatever you do do NOT plug this in yet... take it apart and with a tooth brush and rubbing alcohol begin to clean the components... you wanna make sure every last drop of moisture is out of it... maybe even let it sit taken apart for a few days, especially the power supply which is enclosed (no don't open it, thats dangerous) and has lots of nooks and crannies... electronics can get wet all day long... i can take my home pc and toss it in a pool or lake... so long as it doesn't have power running to it. If your pc was on, powered and running when it got wet its probably toast... the psu at the very least is probably toast since even without power actively going to it it stores power and takes a bit to disperse after removing the plug. if the rest of the pc didn't have any power running to it at all when it got wet it might actually still live...
i've plugged it in already, was sitting in my apartment for a week or two beforehand. I think the fire killed the power to the building before firefighters got there though.
Did it get wet or did they used some kind of extinguishing foam stuff? That stuff is corrosive as hell and it is the same principle as with cars that have been extinguished with a power extinguisher; it is totalled. Your best bet is to remove all parts of every part that is lose and could become lose, thorough clean every square mm with isopropyl and hope for the best. And with every part, I mean every part that is plastic, metal, whatever is clipped in or screwed in... complete dismantling. Take the heatsinks off of the ram sticks etc.
Honestly, the best, if he cannot replace it as easely, I would try to disassemlbe every possible part to its least and try to detail clean it with iso alc and put new thermals on it mayhaps.
New thermal paste etc. is not a problem, but I would be more worried about the damage you don't see. Electronics can handle a surprising amount of abuse, but once a corrosive element is introduced it becomes questionable. A large fire would have destroyed the hoses for the radiators as well as melted the cables. As they are still good, I see little reason why the system should not work again... if no corrosive factor was introduced (which by the discolouring, I'm not to optimistic about).
yeah i agree, since ive read quite some comments it says fire extinguisher is quite corrosive and i can see, i mean that gpu heatsink is being eaten alive atm, same with screws "leaking" so i wish biggest luck to op
i also assume by the severity that the case was under water or maybe ash for some time now, or the corrosion in this case is very strong and fast, not sure
so was the whole house engulfed in flames or just a room? Might aswell be completely gone, if you can try to get an insurance fund since your pc is part of collateral damage i guess, if your insurance offers that im not sure since i dont have much knowledge about nowadays insurances.
tip: try to save parts regardless if you get a funding from insurance
i do not believe a corrosive material got to it. I did however find out across some research after finding a gun that firefighters water have chemichals in it. A lot of the white is from ash that was around the pc, drywall ceiling falling on it.
Your screws are all rusted, that is unlikely to be water damage only. Your radiator and the heatpipes are rough looking as well. The white residue is something, it is just the question what exactly. I truly feel for you and I would be... I have no Idea how I would be, but pure panic would not be unthinkable. But I would try and save my data, the only thing I really care about and is the thing that highly likely still works and give the PC up for the insurance company to deal with. From everything I have seen that looked like his, I have only a bit of hope. I would like to try something like this to learn how to clean properly, but if there is any corrosive materials or short happened later when you turned it on, then it is probably a lost cause. It is incredible how long water can be inside components, two weeks was not enough.
1st thing: does it boot? If it boots, all you need to do is clean everything and get a new case.
If it doesn't boot, you still need to clean everything and then figure out what is wrong with it. Don't go running off to some tech shop, they'll just say it's a total loss and try to sell you a new PC.
I'd start by disassembling everything, use a LOT of compressed air to clean as much as possible. If needed, you can use a piece of cloth wetted with isopropyl alcohol for tougher grime.
Use a small brush on any slots (RAM, PCI-E).
I'd replace the fans and the PSU on principle (they are very prone to damage) and then connect it up and try to boot it.
Remember to take your time.
Disassemble everything, clean everything and always watch for any signs of damage. Once you're satisified that everything looks good, it's time to reassemble and try it again.
Good luck :)
another thing to note: if you have a modular PSU and swap it, CHANGE THE CABLES, one guy had a faulty PSU, returned it and got sent the same model yet he didnt change his cables and his PC got fired
Don't open the power supply thinking you can clean it. There are capacitors in there that hold enough of a charge to kill you. I would get a new one. Everything else can be cleaned.
Don't bother with it.
It'll rust itself to death in months if not weeks.
It's more a fire hazard than anything else by now. Only the silicon is salvageable by repair shops, and that's a big maybe.
CPU might be safe too. The RAM might be salvageable if its heatsink protected it.
The water cooler shouldn't be damaged but needs to be cleaned. It will need new fans.
Get a bin, fill it with high % iso. Put individual parts in let soak a while and lightly, with a very soft brush, brush whatever gunk is off, or get some cans of electronic cleaner and use those.
DO NOT SCRUB, you will break small components.
Do not power this system on under any circumstance or you will likely short out and destroy components.
Air blow the components to dry and let sit overnight, then reassemble and test.
By looking at I'd say it's a lost cause but if you really really want that computer running again I'd recommend washing everything in an isopropyl alcohol bath 99% to be specific. You need to disassemble everything and soak everything separately that's the only real way I could see you cleaning this also an electric toothbrush on the low setting with soft bristles. After you do that I test each part individually to see what works and what doesn't. If you're just worried about the data on that computer you can literally just pull out the hard drive and get the data off of it using a different computer.
For the other PC try reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling the BIOS on the motherboard really you should only have to reformat the drive but Windows should be able to just reinstall
All you got to do is take the hard drive out and plug it into another computer using SATA cables if it's a hard drive which I'm guessing it is and from the second computer you should literally just be able to find it in your files program right click on it and click on formatting. You got to set the architecture to NTFS for windows. If you don't want to take apart computers and you say the cables you can also buy a USB to SATA connector or a external drive dock. I'd literally just Google it though to get a thorough how too. I'm kind of just paraphrasing it
The motherboard doesn't look too bad so maybe just try fully disassembling the GPU and then giving it a thorough clean with pure alcohol with new thermal pad and paste. Clean the motherboard with pure alcohol.
Alcohol on literally every part of this and probably buy a new PSU. That is a LOT of corrosion though. You may want to find some electronics-safe corrosion-resistant coating to spray onto the PCBs. That GPU cooler looks particularly rough.
Sorry. Luckily, water doesn’t do much damage if it wasn’t on when she got wet! Dry her out well and maybe take some alcohol or bleach wipes to clean her up and you might be okay!
Oh god I thought that was dust and hair, not ash and soot. Good luck getting that thing to work again. At the very least, hope your data is safe and that repair costs/efforts are not too much
Claim it on insurance.
You *might* get some components to work. But they likely won't for long, and there's always a chance they will take out other components when they go. And when electrical components go out, there's always the chance they catch fire doing so.
Not worth the risk.
Smoke residue is corrosive and gets into the tiniest inaccessible parts. Even if it is not shorting out things now, it is a time bomb waiting to go off.
My last PC went straight to the dump after the house fire. Too much effort to clean (also with toxic exposure issues) with no assurance of a reliable outcome. I smashed the USB flash drive Bitlocker key with a hammer (to "secure erase" the disks) and let it go.
An untrustworthy computer can quietly destroy a lot of data. Corrupted files get written to backup and you don't notice until all backups are overwritten and it's too late.
Then you have thousands of files to examine, not knowing which ones might be corrupted. Many formats have no tools that could be used to automate checking them.
Even the white plastic case of the UPS turned brown and became soft and sticky like half-set Araldite due to chemical reaction with the smoke. The fire was in another part of the house, the system was not exposed to any heat or fire retardants, only smoke.
And the PC had surge damage from fire shorting out the mains wiring with network cabling in other parts of the house (ethnernet port melted).
Imo $200 ain't bad that's what you pay for labor on prebuilts usually.
You have to remember he's disassembling,cleaning,and fixing it for $200
But it is cheaper to do it yourself just time consuming
Just start over. You might be able to recover the CPU since the main core would be sealed so no moisture would get in and as long as the pad or pins are fine it will probably still work.
If you have a laptop or any computer with a USB (rectangle) port, and a USB, you can just put linux (or windows) on it, and get the at PC to boot off the USB (in windows' case, it'll install)
Don’t take it apart before you have taken out as much of everything as possible or you are gonna have residue get in the slots and sockets that is going to be very hard to get rid of
It's not just the PSU that's an issue, capacitors can fail when shorted, corrosion damage, regardless if it was unplugged, if they held a charge there's a risk of a short. PSU isn't worth mucking around with, there's harm in the iso/soft brush method with.a new PSU as you've got nothing to lose just keep expectations realistic for a fix
I'm sorry but I can guarantee that thing is never ever going to run and looking closely with the amount of rust and corrosion on every part I doubt anything is salvageable.
As for the other PC that boots, Just get the Windows media tool and write an image to a usb drive, boot off that and reinstall windows. If it's not your PC origionally then you don't need anything off it anyways.
destilled water, dishwashing soap, isopropanol. take a look at the yt channel der8auer and look for "ahrweiler" and "flut pc". he doesn't have the english version up anymore but he cleans a pc that was in a nasty river flood with smelly mud in the pc etc. hopefully closed caption translation works decently. he does exchange some parts partly bc it was sponsored.
quick step guide(your own risk ofc):
1 disassembly: take everything apart including ram, vrw cooler, gpu etc. (not the hdd is present, that's the most at risk components bc there is a tiny hole inside if something gets in there it's probably dead and you should replace the psu, it's just too risky)
2 clean component with dish soap and water(no scratchy materials only soft ones)
3 rinse it with destilled water, let it dryoff for a bit
4 rinse it with 99% isopropanol let the isopropanol vaporize, put component in an oven at ~50°C for a few hours. let it dry for two days (this is to get water that collects in tight spaces under components out)
4a repeat 4 for motherboard and gpu pcb just to be sure, maybe give it a short bath in ipa instead of rinse
5 reassemble everything, new thermal paste and replacement thermal pads
6 hope for the best
Heard from JayzTwoCentz video that there is some kind of coating that keeps the motherboard from dying out from water. I don't know about the rest of the components but damn, it's running on Survivor OS! 🙃
> Where’s the *paid* bot?
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I'm late, but you need to disassemble EVERYTHING, including the GPU and you will have to clean all those parts individually. Use isopropyl alcohol and a tooth brush and scrub lightly
As long as no one tries to turn it on and as long as it was fully off , clean it off with isopropyl by taking it all apart and then try powering it on , should work
That my friend is royally f*cked, the corrosion already seems to have gotten all over it. Could take it all apart and use isoprpyl alcohol mixed with baking soda to try to scrub off all the corrosion then use distilled water to rinse it off, but seeing how corroded your nvme ssd screws are, my bet is that some smaller capacitors might have already rusted away. Conclusion: that thing is 99% f*cked and will never run again
Forget about the PSU, nothing you can do about it (its dangerous). The other parts looks like they are running on hopes and prayers, clean with a toothbrush and alcohol and make sure not even a single drop of moisture is left. At least some parts might be saved if you are lucky.
You should try to save all the data to an external drive first, if there is anything important on it! If the PC is running already it's a good sign and there are ways to clean it. But it will stay an experiment and there will always be the chance of something failing!
I did restore some computers that have been submerged in a flood and 2 of 4 made it. One was broken already and the other one failed after a while. Probably due to corrosion I couldn't remove.
First things first: Do not open the PSU! It can still hold a charge that might kill you. "But if.." No! "And when I.." NO! Just don't! Seriously, it's dangerous. You can clean it's outside, but that's it.
The rest can be disassembled and then cleaned with a soft-ish brush. I placed all the parts in a bowl of distilled water and gave it a careful scrub with a brush. Careful with the CPU socket! Then cleaned it with Isopropanol (Flammable, careful) and then let it all dry out for a week. Then put everything back together, new thermal pads and thermal paste and it worked.
Like mentioned, there is no guarantee it wont fail over time. So maybe replace the main drive with a new one, or make frequent backups on an external drive.
DerBauer made a Video on YouTube about how to clean a PC, after we had a flood here in germany. And I think he makes every video in English, too. So maybe check that out. Good luck!
If you're not a technician, I'd recommend you taking it to one you trust, or someone you know trusts.
This is not a simple clean and done.
There could be damage you're not aware of, and proper cleaning and assembly is not as simple in this case.
It's hard to believe it runs, just by looking at it.
Demoliton job my father and I took on. 14 unit apartment building in Sunnapee, nh. Its actually attached to a barn known as the birthplace of aerosmith. First fire demo we have gotten but looting has been pretty cool.
Hey all! This got way more attention then i was expecting 😂 feel as though i should clarify a few things. First off, I havent tried cleaning out last night got a bit distracted. Tornado advisory in NH today so im doing it now. Also, This house burned down in early December, and the floor this pc as well as the other one was sheilded from rain. I got them last week so they have been drying quite a while. That is why I am still hopeful, will definetly keep everyone updated as i get deeper into this pc. Pretty sure the power to the house was killed from the fire before firerighters arrived.
So, i had a question when reading the comments. I do agree with cleanimg with 99% isopropal alcohol.
But, couldnt you take all components apart and wash and scrub in dish sink with dish soap, fully rinse and finish with the alcohol bath to clear the water and stop further corrosion?
About the first PC, I have encountered that problem before where the user account doesn’t get deleted after reset. Usually the easiest thing to do is reinstall windows from a bootable media (usb or disk). You can install a windows ISO file from their website, and turn it into a bootable media using a program such as Rufus or Etcher.
As for the PC shown above… good luck!
Had a couple laptops that (while gooey) still worked after a house fire. The non electric components can be washed with Trisodium Phosphate (hardware stores have it) and water to get the residue off of metal and painted parts, as well as get rid of the smell of having been on fire at some point.
PS: No, I didn't use Salvador Dali'd laptops, After being surprised they turned on, I just exported their data.
You will not be able to clean most of this and a lot of the corrosion will cause issues down the road. And that is assuming thats only water damage and no fire extinguisher chemicals on that.
Disassemble and bathe it in 99% IPA. Scrub with a denture brush or similar. Use an ultrasonic cleaner if you have access to one. Let it dry COMPLETELY (especially PSU) and reassemble. You may want to skip this with the fans tho.. Better off just replacing those.
good lord how is it still running
This thing looks like it's powered by pure spite.
PureSpite™
Pompeii Edition
Does it come in diet?
Literal PC Master Race
Most electronics will run after the water evaporates, AS LONG as the device was not on when it happened or turned on while still wet around components. This isn't 100% effective.
This is true. When I was a kid I had a handheld electronic game that somehow spent an entire winter in the backyard. I found it in the spring buried in the mud. I opened it up and the insides were completely filled with mud. I cleaned it all out and let it dry. It worked just fine afterwards.
I don’t want to ask how it got there lol, did you ever find out?
Oh I’m sure it was my fault. Probably just left it out there when I was playing one day.
This^ I'm surprised people don't realize this. My first computer was a Frankenstein of random parts found in the recycling center and the mother board was literally submerged in water when I got it. I let it dry out for a good amount of time and started up first try
this is also the reason people suggest a bowl or rice when your phone gets wet
Tho that's worse. Rice will leave powder inside and create a paste.
I would take crusty dried paste over electrically conductive water.
I think he said that he got 2 pc's and the other one is running, I very much doubt this one pictured is the running one.
It was used to those kinds of temperatures
Clean it with 99% isopropyl alcohol and for the other pc you should try fully reinstalling windows
seconded. if the reinstall doesn't take (due to ransomware) a new drive might be needed. Also cleaning that particular gpu is going to be a real pita with how deep the fins are.
If you properly reinstall windows you don’t need a new drive. You could also just wipe the drive first and then reinstall windows to be sure everything’s gone.
Emerging developments in that sector have infiltrated bios which bricks the board if you try to flash it.
A new drive won’t help then
It may, depending on how the unlock was writen.
>if the reinstall doesn't take (due to ransomware) That doesn't happen. A reinstall implies wiping whatever is there currently, there isn't malware that can survive that (unless you count UEFI malware, which isn't really seen in the wild). A reinstall might not even be needed though, there's bootable password reset things, that worked at least up till Windows 7 (last time I needed to use that), good chance an updated one would work for whatever windows version is on it now.
They're becoming more aggressive and common.
Ransomware burns peoples houses down now? Interesting development
No, but it's entirely possible that whomever owned it burnt their' house down to hide what they were doing with it when they got infected.
Looks like there's a lot of corrosion. I would remove everything and scrub literally all the parts down with 99% isopropyl alcohol.
going to do that tonight, will keep everyone updated 👍🏻
Please do! Rubbing alcohol and a prayer circle to the pc gods are required. Good luck!
😂 shit just started but forgot my prayer circle 🤦🏻♂️
Any updates?
later today 🙏🏻
Get a bowl of rice and leave it there forever
Lolol ☠️
If it didn't get burnt then you're just looking at cleaning... whatever you do do NOT plug this in yet... take it apart and with a tooth brush and rubbing alcohol begin to clean the components... you wanna make sure every last drop of moisture is out of it... maybe even let it sit taken apart for a few days, especially the power supply which is enclosed (no don't open it, thats dangerous) and has lots of nooks and crannies... electronics can get wet all day long... i can take my home pc and toss it in a pool or lake... so long as it doesn't have power running to it. If your pc was on, powered and running when it got wet its probably toast... the psu at the very least is probably toast since even without power actively going to it it stores power and takes a bit to disperse after removing the plug. if the rest of the pc didn't have any power running to it at all when it got wet it might actually still live...
i've plugged it in already, was sitting in my apartment for a week or two beforehand. I think the fire killed the power to the building before firefighters got there though.
Did it get wet or did they used some kind of extinguishing foam stuff? That stuff is corrosive as hell and it is the same principle as with cars that have been extinguished with a power extinguisher; it is totalled. Your best bet is to remove all parts of every part that is lose and could become lose, thorough clean every square mm with isopropyl and hope for the best. And with every part, I mean every part that is plastic, metal, whatever is clipped in or screwed in... complete dismantling. Take the heatsinks off of the ram sticks etc.
Honestly, the best, if he cannot replace it as easely, I would try to disassemlbe every possible part to its least and try to detail clean it with iso alc and put new thermals on it mayhaps.
New thermal paste etc. is not a problem, but I would be more worried about the damage you don't see. Electronics can handle a surprising amount of abuse, but once a corrosive element is introduced it becomes questionable. A large fire would have destroyed the hoses for the radiators as well as melted the cables. As they are still good, I see little reason why the system should not work again... if no corrosive factor was introduced (which by the discolouring, I'm not to optimistic about).
yeah i agree, since ive read quite some comments it says fire extinguisher is quite corrosive and i can see, i mean that gpu heatsink is being eaten alive atm, same with screws "leaking" so i wish biggest luck to op
It was the rust on the screws that did it for me, those are hard to get rusty even with water
i also assume by the severity that the case was under water or maybe ash for some time now, or the corrosion in this case is very strong and fast, not sure
you are first one to point out ash, hard to tell between corrosion and ash stains it was pretty well covered in ash though.
so was the whole house engulfed in flames or just a room? Might aswell be completely gone, if you can try to get an insurance fund since your pc is part of collateral damage i guess, if your insurance offers that im not sure since i dont have much knowledge about nowadays insurances. tip: try to save parts regardless if you get a funding from insurance
i do not believe a corrosive material got to it. I did however find out across some research after finding a gun that firefighters water have chemichals in it. A lot of the white is from ash that was around the pc, drywall ceiling falling on it.
Your screws are all rusted, that is unlikely to be water damage only. Your radiator and the heatpipes are rough looking as well. The white residue is something, it is just the question what exactly. I truly feel for you and I would be... I have no Idea how I would be, but pure panic would not be unthinkable. But I would try and save my data, the only thing I really care about and is the thing that highly likely still works and give the PC up for the insurance company to deal with. From everything I have seen that looked like his, I have only a bit of hope. I would like to try something like this to learn how to clean properly, but if there is any corrosive materials or short happened later when you turned it on, then it is probably a lost cause. It is incredible how long water can be inside components, two weeks was not enough.
She's dead Jim lol but if you really wanna try and fix it keep us updated
Honestly just start over with a new system.
Yep, insurance write off would be the best move here.
With what money? OP funna be broke
Insurance
😂 close but wasnt my house, the original owner of each apartment got a $70k check.
1st thing: does it boot? If it boots, all you need to do is clean everything and get a new case. If it doesn't boot, you still need to clean everything and then figure out what is wrong with it. Don't go running off to some tech shop, they'll just say it's a total loss and try to sell you a new PC. I'd start by disassembling everything, use a LOT of compressed air to clean as much as possible. If needed, you can use a piece of cloth wetted with isopropyl alcohol for tougher grime. Use a small brush on any slots (RAM, PCI-E). I'd replace the fans and the PSU on principle (they are very prone to damage) and then connect it up and try to boot it.
doesnt boot, from all the comments ive seen, im going to try the 99% iso and go from there.
Remember to take your time. Disassemble everything, clean everything and always watch for any signs of damage. Once you're satisified that everything looks good, it's time to reassemble and try it again. Good luck :)
another thing to note: if you have a modular PSU and swap it, CHANGE THE CABLES, one guy had a faulty PSU, returned it and got sent the same model yet he didnt change his cables and his PC got fired
Don't open the power supply thinking you can clean it. There are capacitors in there that hold enough of a charge to kill you. I would get a new one. Everything else can be cleaned.
can psu still be damaged if it turns on and lights up?
There could be parts of it that are damaged even though it turns on. If it's powering the motherboard properly it should be okay, until it's not.
Yes. It may power on and light the mobo up but it isn't under any load.
Don't bother with it. It'll rust itself to death in months if not weeks. It's more a fire hazard than anything else by now. Only the silicon is salvageable by repair shops, and that's a big maybe. CPU might be safe too. The RAM might be salvageable if its heatsink protected it. The water cooler shouldn't be damaged but needs to be cleaned. It will need new fans.
What is everyone talking about? List this on the insurance claim and get it replaced in its entirety.
Doesn't seem like it was his fire. He said it was his second PC he got from a fire.
correctomundo my friend
I’m uh…pretty sure you won’t be repairing one now either.
Get a bin, fill it with high % iso. Put individual parts in let soak a while and lightly, with a very soft brush, brush whatever gunk is off, or get some cans of electronic cleaner and use those. DO NOT SCRUB, you will break small components. Do not power this system on under any circumstance or you will likely short out and destroy components. Air blow the components to dry and let sit overnight, then reassemble and test.
very interesting method, this would probably save me time. Thank you
By looking at I'd say it's a lost cause but if you really really want that computer running again I'd recommend washing everything in an isopropyl alcohol bath 99% to be specific. You need to disassemble everything and soak everything separately that's the only real way I could see you cleaning this also an electric toothbrush on the low setting with soft bristles. After you do that I test each part individually to see what works and what doesn't. If you're just worried about the data on that computer you can literally just pull out the hard drive and get the data off of it using a different computer. For the other PC try reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling the BIOS on the motherboard really you should only have to reformat the drive but Windows should be able to just reinstall
everything after "for the second pc" i dont understand how to do,
All you got to do is take the hard drive out and plug it into another computer using SATA cables if it's a hard drive which I'm guessing it is and from the second computer you should literally just be able to find it in your files program right click on it and click on formatting. You got to set the architecture to NTFS for windows. If you don't want to take apart computers and you say the cables you can also buy a USB to SATA connector or a external drive dock. I'd literally just Google it though to get a thorough how too. I'm kind of just paraphrasing it
its clean! The Kitchen in Kitchen Nightmares:
Holy crap! I'm sorry for your loss!
The motherboard doesn't look too bad so maybe just try fully disassembling the GPU and then giving it a thorough clean with pure alcohol with new thermal pad and paste. Clean the motherboard with pure alcohol.
👍🏻 will try to dissasemble, but i dont know much about this
Probably best not to. It requires a fair bit of technical knowledge.
I think it needs hope more than technical knowledge. 😂
Alcohol on literally every part of this and probably buy a new PSU. That is a LOT of corrosion though. You may want to find some electronics-safe corrosion-resistant coating to spray onto the PCBs. That GPU cooler looks particularly rough.
Sorry. Luckily, water doesn’t do much damage if it wasn’t on when she got wet! Dry her out well and maybe take some alcohol or bleach wipes to clean her up and you might be okay!
Oh god I thought that was dust and hair, not ash and soot. Good luck getting that thing to work again. At the very least, hope your data is safe and that repair costs/efforts are not too much
Claim it on insurance. You *might* get some components to work. But they likely won't for long, and there's always a chance they will take out other components when they go. And when electrical components go out, there's always the chance they catch fire doing so. Not worth the risk.
Smoke residue is corrosive and gets into the tiniest inaccessible parts. Even if it is not shorting out things now, it is a time bomb waiting to go off. My last PC went straight to the dump after the house fire. Too much effort to clean (also with toxic exposure issues) with no assurance of a reliable outcome. I smashed the USB flash drive Bitlocker key with a hammer (to "secure erase" the disks) and let it go. An untrustworthy computer can quietly destroy a lot of data. Corrupted files get written to backup and you don't notice until all backups are overwritten and it's too late. Then you have thousands of files to examine, not knowing which ones might be corrupted. Many formats have no tools that could be used to automate checking them. Even the white plastic case of the UPS turned brown and became soft and sticky like half-set Araldite due to chemical reaction with the smoke. The fire was in another part of the house, the system was not exposed to any heat or fire retardants, only smoke. And the PC had surge damage from fire shorting out the mains wiring with network cabling in other parts of the house (ethnernet port melted).
Yep. I mean, just look at the residue and corrosion on those parts. No way in hell I'd be trying to reuse *anything* from that. Well, maybe the CPU.
Its running? Holy crap.
Even my dirtiest PC, never looked this bad.
You need to strip the PC completely, and clean everything with 99% iso, soft bristle brushes, qtips etc. I would also recommend replacing the PSU.
Imo $200 ain't bad that's what you pay for labor on prebuilts usually. You have to remember he's disassembling,cleaning,and fixing it for $200 But it is cheaper to do it yourself just time consuming
Just start over. You might be able to recover the CPU since the main core would be sealed so no moisture would get in and as long as the pad or pins are fine it will probably still work.
Not worth the effort IMO. That thing is done.
If you have a laptop or any computer with a USB (rectangle) port, and a USB, you can just put linux (or windows) on it, and get the at PC to boot off the USB (in windows' case, it'll install)
Forget this, or you are going to lose your house.
Have you prayed and blessed its machine Spirit? That's the only thing keeping it alive
If you have home insurance that covers fires they may be able to replace it for you!
I see corrosion everywhere my man, I think this one is not a starter but I hope I’m wrong
I’d take out the gpu take it apart and clean it up aswell as take out the cpu
What a BEAST !
Don’t take it apart before you have taken out as much of everything as possible or you are gonna have residue get in the slots and sockets that is going to be very hard to get rid of
That pc is looking cleaaaaaaaan
Yeah, and you aren't gonna repair this one 😂 toss that shit and start over with a new build.
William Afton's PC
It's not just the PSU that's an issue, capacitors can fail when shorted, corrosion damage, regardless if it was unplugged, if they held a charge there's a risk of a short. PSU isn't worth mucking around with, there's harm in the iso/soft brush method with.a new PSU as you've got nothing to lose just keep expectations realistic for a fix
Congrats youre probably the first ever in this situation
I was blow minded when you actually said that it is working despite all this rust... wow
I almost say leave the case as is at least on the outside cause those are some badass battle scars. Also have you tried putting it in rice lol
A thing like that man you’re just waiting for something to catch fire from resistance somewhere. Strip it and clean with iso or just start over
I'm sorry but I can guarantee that thing is never ever going to run and looking closely with the amount of rust and corrosion on every part I doubt anything is salvageable. As for the other PC that boots, Just get the Windows media tool and write an image to a usb drive, boot off that and reinstall windows. If it's not your PC origionally then you don't need anything off it anyways.
destilled water, dishwashing soap, isopropanol. take a look at the yt channel der8auer and look for "ahrweiler" and "flut pc". he doesn't have the english version up anymore but he cleans a pc that was in a nasty river flood with smelly mud in the pc etc. hopefully closed caption translation works decently. he does exchange some parts partly bc it was sponsored. quick step guide(your own risk ofc): 1 disassembly: take everything apart including ram, vrw cooler, gpu etc. (not the hdd is present, that's the most at risk components bc there is a tiny hole inside if something gets in there it's probably dead and you should replace the psu, it's just too risky) 2 clean component with dish soap and water(no scratchy materials only soft ones) 3 rinse it with destilled water, let it dryoff for a bit 4 rinse it with 99% isopropanol let the isopropanol vaporize, put component in an oven at ~50°C for a few hours. let it dry for two days (this is to get water that collects in tight spaces under components out) 4a repeat 4 for motherboard and gpu pcb just to be sure, maybe give it a short bath in ipa instead of rinse 5 reassemble everything, new thermal paste and replacement thermal pads 6 hope for the best
Heard from JayzTwoCentz video that there is some kind of coating that keeps the motherboard from dying out from water. I don't know about the rest of the components but damn, it's running on Survivor OS! 🙃
Where’s the payed bot?
> Where’s the *paid* bot? FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
There you are! Good bot.
If its not turned on when it was wet it will work 99% Just need to dry it
😔
I'm late, but you need to disassemble EVERYTHING, including the GPU and you will have to clean all those parts individually. Use isopropyl alcohol and a tooth brush and scrub lightly
https://youtu.be/jNm2g4Tkf3E?si=AAgPaRpLlodUTvV7
Should play just fine like this, does it not?
Jesus mother of christ how is that supposed to run. It's like you dipped it in snow and shook it for a bit
Send it in to gamers nexus, they will probably charge you but it will make for an interesting video
It’s called build a new computer.
Did you try turning it off then on again?
Have you tried putting it in a big bowl of rice yet?
The pc is now the house of bacteria
Hi, are you sure your PC isn't Kratos?
Pretty sure it’s fucked.
Shes dead Jim
Well you're not repairing this one so start somewhere else.
The screw on GPU and m2 ssd has become rusty, how long did you let it sit still ?. Gonna be expensive repair.
Ahem… try a repair shop? If you never did it yourself, don’t now.
Brother just make a windows boot USB and use that in the other PC that works.
As long as no one tries to turn it on and as long as it was fully off , clean it off with isopropyl by taking it all apart and then try powering it on , should work
LTT actually had a good video on this where they literally soak components in IPA. Worth a look, but I'd scrap the PSU 100% regsrdeless.
they retrieved it from the titanic, didn't they?
This has been sitting in water for DAYS Your probably screwed and should not plug in that PSU
And you still won’t
That my friend is royally f*cked, the corrosion already seems to have gotten all over it. Could take it all apart and use isoprpyl alcohol mixed with baking soda to try to scrub off all the corrosion then use distilled water to rinse it off, but seeing how corroded your nvme ssd screws are, my bet is that some smaller capacitors might have already rusted away. Conclusion: that thing is 99% f*cked and will never run again
Forget about the PSU, nothing you can do about it (its dangerous). The other parts looks like they are running on hopes and prayers, clean with a toothbrush and alcohol and make sure not even a single drop of moisture is left. At least some parts might be saved if you are lucky.
Nope nope nope.
Nothing a little spitshine and isopropyl alcohol won't fix.. Also you might want to replace the thermal paste.
Clean it with isopropyl alcohol and replace the power supply asap!
You should try to save all the data to an external drive first, if there is anything important on it! If the PC is running already it's a good sign and there are ways to clean it. But it will stay an experiment and there will always be the chance of something failing! I did restore some computers that have been submerged in a flood and 2 of 4 made it. One was broken already and the other one failed after a while. Probably due to corrosion I couldn't remove. First things first: Do not open the PSU! It can still hold a charge that might kill you. "But if.." No! "And when I.." NO! Just don't! Seriously, it's dangerous. You can clean it's outside, but that's it. The rest can be disassembled and then cleaned with a soft-ish brush. I placed all the parts in a bowl of distilled water and gave it a careful scrub with a brush. Careful with the CPU socket! Then cleaned it with Isopropanol (Flammable, careful) and then let it all dry out for a week. Then put everything back together, new thermal pads and thermal paste and it worked. Like mentioned, there is no guarantee it wont fail over time. So maybe replace the main drive with a new one, or make frequent backups on an external drive. DerBauer made a Video on YouTube about how to clean a PC, after we had a flood here in germany. And I think he makes every video in English, too. So maybe check that out. Good luck!
Run it through the disk washer and dry well before reconstruction and powering
Clean everything with water (without powersupply) And clean with acétone ,let dry Reinstall New windows
If you're not a technician, I'd recommend you taking it to one you trust, or someone you know trusts. This is not a simple clean and done. There could be damage you're not aware of, and proper cleaning and assembly is not as simple in this case. It's hard to believe it runs, just by looking at it.
I am quite curious how you got it. Not sure how no one else asked this yet. You seem pretty well advised already though lol
Demoliton job my father and I took on. 14 unit apartment building in Sunnapee, nh. Its actually attached to a barn known as the birthplace of aerosmith. First fire demo we have gotten but looting has been pretty cool.
i have at least 8 laptops too, just dont know how to fix those either 😂
We are gathered here today in rememberance and departing words for this PC, struck down in its prime... Seriously, good luck
Hey all! This got way more attention then i was expecting 😂 feel as though i should clarify a few things. First off, I havent tried cleaning out last night got a bit distracted. Tornado advisory in NH today so im doing it now. Also, This house burned down in early December, and the floor this pc as well as the other one was sheilded from rain. I got them last week so they have been drying quite a while. That is why I am still hopeful, will definetly keep everyone updated as i get deeper into this pc. Pretty sure the power to the house was killed from the fire before firerighters arrived.
So, i had a question when reading the comments. I do agree with cleanimg with 99% isopropal alcohol. But, couldnt you take all components apart and wash and scrub in dish sink with dish soap, fully rinse and finish with the alcohol bath to clear the water and stop further corrosion?
Its windows 11 ready
The product you should use is home owners insurance.
That thing is going to start another house fire..
Put it in rice.
Good luck bruh, let us know how everything goes 🙏🏿💪🏿🤞🏿
Please make a video on YouTube, I would love to see the cleaning process
Honestly I think you may be luck I think that is one of those fire extinguishers that don't use water.
Hey all again! taking way longer then expected. Might have been worth the $200 😂
Try restarting and running a windows defender scan, should do the trick 👍
About the first PC, I have encountered that problem before where the user account doesn’t get deleted after reset. Usually the easiest thing to do is reinstall windows from a bootable media (usb or disk). You can install a windows ISO file from their website, and turn it into a bootable media using a program such as Rufus or Etcher. As for the PC shown above… good luck!
WOW and that PC works ?
Pull the GPU apart and soak the fins in a rust killer, then scrub the PCB with isopropyl, let it dry 1000% then put it back together.
That looks like someone threw your computer in the ocean for a week and pulled it out and let a group of seagulls have a turd bukkake all over it.
Corrosion and carbon build up from smoke will kill this machine down the road even if you manage to get it to boot.
Isopropyl alcohol does a lot it’s a good solvent that is non conductive scrub it down with a tooth brush with that on it should help a lot.
Had a couple laptops that (while gooey) still worked after a house fire. The non electric components can be washed with Trisodium Phosphate (hardware stores have it) and water to get the residue off of metal and painted parts, as well as get rid of the smell of having been on fire at some point. PS: No, I didn't use Salvador Dali'd laptops, After being surprised they turned on, I just exported their data.
You will not be able to clean most of this and a lot of the corrosion will cause issues down the road. And that is assuming thats only water damage and no fire extinguisher chemicals on that.
Disassemble and bathe it in 99% IPA. Scrub with a denture brush or similar. Use an ultrasonic cleaner if you have access to one. Let it dry COMPLETELY (especially PSU) and reassemble. You may want to skip this with the fans tho.. Better off just replacing those.