Save a video card with water damage?

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Archer75

Supreme [H]ardness
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Oct 10, 2001
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So my daughter spilled water on top of my computer. There is an exhaust port in the top and the water went through and dripped onto my Radeon 6970 2gb. This result in the computer turning off.

I have a backup video card I put in and the computer boots and works fine. However with the damaged card in, when pressing power the computer won't start. Only for a fraction of a second the case fans try to spin and then stop.

I have taken the card out and with rubbing alcohol and q-tips i've attempted to clean away a white film like substance left behind by the water however the computer still won't boot with this card in.
I can see no signs of damage to the card. Nothing looks burnt. Just a little bit of residue on one part of the card near the power connectors.

Any way to save this card?
 
Take off the heatsink and see if you can blow some water out with a can of compressed air. I accidentally knocked a barb loose while installing my loop after leak-testing and dumped about a pint of water onto my 7970. The thing refused to work for a while until I took a can of compressed air to it.
 
clean it aggressively, get all of the gunk off, and then rub it down some more for good measure.

If it still doesn't work, you're probably pretty out of luck; you'd only be able to find out more with an o-scope, some solder, and a boatload of time.

With the understanding that there was really nothing you could've done, when this kind of thing strikes the best thing you can do is clean it and let it dry throughly before re-introducing it. You can leave electronics out in the rain, and as long as they're completely dry and resedue free by the time you put them back in, they almost always work.
 
There was only a few drops of water on the back of the card. Nothing under the heatsink. It's been sitting on my desk here for 24+ hours after the incident.
 
Try using a toothbrush dipped in alcohol to lightly scrub away any of the residue you may have missed. Try cleaning the area effected in general even if you don't see any residue.

Give some time to air out and give it another go.

I hope you get it working again!
 
I can't figure out any solid state components that would actually be damaged by contact with water if no electricity is applied.

Give it a week or two to dry and if it still doesn't work, I'd consider that maybe some components had current passed through it that wasn't meant to, which means the card is FUBAR'd.
 
Since the computer was powered on and a current was running through the card when the water was spilled, the card is more than likely permanently damaged. If the card didn't have a current going through it I would've recommended removing it, cleaning it with 90%+ isopropyl alcohol and then putting it under a fan to dry for a day or two (not a guaranteed fix, but it has worked for me).
 
n370zed said:
If all else fails you could bake it.
Click to expand...

Yep, I read into this trick when I had a water spillage incident with my 8800GT.

It turns out the 8800 series had other issues that could be resolved with this baking process.

It didn't 'fix' or revive my 8800, but it was worth the effort.

Probably even more so for a newer card like yours.
 
I'm guessing it was electrically destroyed since it was on when shorted out by impure water.
 
yeah the baking trick comes from lead-free solder problems, the constant heating and cooling and reheating of a PC is rough on soldered connections. The baking trick heats this up to a temperature where the solder can get just hot enough to reform filling any hairline/small factures in it.
 
i love this "baking stuff" its priceless, good luck man
 
Well I thought i'd update this thread with what occurred with my video card.

After I cleaned it and let it dry for several days and plugged it back in and turned the computer on it was sparking and smoking pretty good. I immediately turned the computer off and that was that. I set the card aside and just went to using my other computer.

Last week I ordered a Nvidia 670 from newegg outlet for $330, i'm waiting on it to be delivered today.
While I am waiting I figured, what the hell, and plugged my water damaged card back in and low and behold, it works! Despite the water, smoking and sparking, it works.

Now if I can only talk the wife into letting me build another computer for the new video card ;)
 
I wouldn't take any chances on it. Something is probably shorted out and that's a house firing waiting to happen.
 
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I ran 3dmark11 and it completed successfully. Started with the demos followed by the tests.
 
Smoke and sparks might have been whatever residue/etc was causing the short burning off. If you have an older rig that card will slot into, take it somewhere with a concrete floor and cut furmark loose on it for 12 or so hours. If it works, you're golden. If it explodes, break out the marshmallows and take pics.
 
Hey, the same thing happened to me. i got a gigabyte gtx 470 oc and i had 1 drop of water into my graphics card. i left it to dry for 2 days already and it still doesn't work.. exactly the same thing that happened to archer75. please help me out with some advice's, i spent quite alot on it (my computer was running on counter strike go the game.)
 
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