what to do with a wet video card

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lozaning

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Mar 30, 2005
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while draining my loop i somehowe maneged to get a good cup or 2 of koolence liquid mixed with distilled water all over my video card. i searched everywhere on what to do, but to no avail. so far i dried it off with a paper towel and scrubed it with a tooth brush and nailpolish remover. what else should i do before testing it besides letting ir try for a while.

thank goodeness the system had been completly off for around 3 days :rolleyes:
 
Let it dry then let it dry some more.... Beyond that I have no clue of how the reaction might go. What's the composition of the koolance stuff?

Good luck man
 
Nail polish remover? Gently wipe it down with isopropyl alcohol then distilled water and let it dry for a day.
 
I used to work with electronic boards in copiers that would get hosed down with coffee, pop, you name it and all I ever used was a good quality electronic cleaner spray. The spray pushes all the liquid out from under the chips and then dries almost instantly, it will leave a white residue but don't worry about that. Odds are as long as you didn't have power going to the card while it was wet it will work again. Good luck!
 
If there's any gooey residue, plain old Simple Green will clean it. My friends' industrial cleaning company uses that and distilled water to clean smoke damaged electronics. He's paid VERY well for doing it also. Clean with SG, then rinse it with distilled, and dry THOROUGHLY>
 
lozaning said:
scrubed it with a tooth brush and nailpolish remover
Click to expand...

*shutters*

Isopropyl Alcohol is your friend here.. and time. Let it dry for at least 24 hours.
Assuming the nail polish remover didn't royally fuck anything up (which it's known to do) I would think you'll be fine.
 
well like i said i dont think i could ahve fried anything already as the whole ocmputer had not even been plugged in for a day, and then not even on for 2 more. so scratch the nail polish remover. so clean it with isopropal or simple green or the special spray. then when you say rinse with distilled water what do you guys mean, run it under the faucit reall quick or get like a spray bottle and mist it? :confused:
 
lozaning said:
well like i said i dont think i could ahve fried anything already as the whole ocmputer had not even been plugged in for a day, and then not even on for 2 more. so scratch the nail polish remover. so clean it with isopropal or simple green or the special spray. then when you say rinse with distilled water what do you guys mean, run it under the faucit reall quick or get like a spray bottle and mist it? :confused:
Click to expand...

Get a gallon of distilled water and slowly pour over the card to until it's completely rinsed off.
 
What kind of card is it? Assuming there is a hsf on the card, pull it off and wipe everything down with isopropyl alcohol, rinse it off with distilled (not tap) water and let it dry for 24 hours.
Put it back together, install it and cross your fingers.

Based on my own experience with a wet card, I really think that if you clean it well enough and let it dry, you'll be fine
 
no heat sink,only the waterblock wich i have already taken off. its a 7800gt if that matters at all
 
I've washed three motherboards to date and all of them still work fine. But as the above poster said you'll have to take off the heatsink and clean off the thermal paste too. When it's dry don't forget to reapply a new layer of thermal paste.
 
i know i can get the distilled water at wal mart, but what about the isopropal, what section of the store will it be in?

and as far the the isopropal, just poor that over the card too, or wetten a paper towel with it then wipe?
 
lozaning said:
i know i can get the distilled water at wal mart, but what about the isopropal, what section of the store will it be in?

and as far the the isopropal, just poor that over the card too, or wetten a paper towel with it then wipe?
Click to expand...

It'd be around the pharmacy.
 
Guys, don't use nail polish remover on electronics. A lot of them have oils and moisturizers which will eat through plastics, rubber, et al. They eat through artificial nails - that's what they're meant to do. If you just want the acetone, then go to home depot and buy the damn acetone. It's cheaper than the overpriced nail polish remover crap anyway. I'm a girl, I know from this.

As far as a wet card, when this happened to me, I rinsed with ISP alcohol, and ran a hair dryer (set to cold) on it. Alternately I bet you could use a small fan aimed directly at it. Just let it dry and then let it dry some more, and when you think it's probably dry, let it sit a few more hours. Also, like someone else said, take off the heatsink, dry underneath it, and reapply the thermal goo (AS5!) and reseat the heatsink.

That should do you.
 
I would stay away form all chemicals, and as others mentioned rinse it off. Given that most of those coolants are supposed to make the water less electically conductive you may be ok to try it without rinsing...but I don't know if I would take the risk.
 
cool.

If it happens again, stick it in a cupboard with a dehumidifer.
I've sorted out a few wet boards with one, it works well.
 
From personal experience:
I took the card, and pretty much soaked it in 90% Isopropyl alcohol. By flooding it, it helped to "wash" any/all water out of the card. Then, I let the card dry for 24hrs. After that, I went to work, and placed it into a dessicator jar (moisture free enviroment), and left it for another 48hrs. After that, I checked the card, re-installed it, and everything was peachy keen.

-Ghent
 
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