Coffee + Tower = Must not smother GF to death...

The Gnome

Well while I was at work my gf managed to spill coffee onto my tower and managed to aim directly for the one opening at the top. I arrived home managed to not kill her to death and had a look. It was still running minus video output, I've turned it off and opened it up. Looks like the coffee missed everything except a small corner of the graphics card.

Any ideas how to deal with it? Can it be cleaned or is a new gfx card in order?

Cheers!

BrokenArrows

did this to my computer at work. spilt it on the table. There is a small crack in the table, didnt notice this till later.

Went and got a cloth only to come back and find my computer turned off. the coffee had dripped through this crack and directly into the fan opening on the top of the tower.

I cleaned all the coffee away and dried it out but no joy. the comp just had no life.

So i went home. came back the next day to find the computer in perfect working order. Thankfully. The magical computer pixes must have fixed it during the night.

leninbenjamin

occasionally electronics will come back to life if you remove the power and just let them sit to dry off for a day, depending on the extent of the damage.

Khannie

Power off, clean out the coffee bits and let it dry out. Might be fine, might be fooked. Probably a new graphics card tbh.

tpotter

I made the mistake of placing the coffee cup between myself and the keyboard a couple of times, which results in a lap full of coffee when you finish typing.

Like the others have said if you give it a day or two to dry out, it might end up working again. I have had this happen to a cell phone before, where it would not even turn on for several days after getting wet, but then started working again...

The Gnome

Khannie wrote: »

Power off, clean out the coffee bits and let it dry out. Might be fine, might be fooked. Probably a new graphics card tbh.

Just finished doing this, time to play the waiting game.

Tpotter, also had that happened to me. Put the phone in a bowl of dry rice and was good as new... I wonder do I have a bowl big enough for the gfx card, hmmm....

JæKæ

It can help if you strip out a few removable components too to help them dry off. Take out the graphics card if possible to let it dry
I spilt water all over my laptop and stripped it down completely right away. Let the components dry out better. Worked like a dream after a few hrs drying

ttm

Quite often you don't get all the crap off and even dry coffee can be conductive enough to mess things up. If you still have a problem clean the area with a cotton buds or a small paint brush dipped in IsoPropyl Alcohol (IPA aka Iso-Propanol). It wil clean out any crap and not leave a conductive residue. All the computer parts suppliers sell it and you can also get it in the chemist.

uch

ttm wrote: »

Quite often you don't get all the crap off and even dry coffee can be conductive enough to mess things up. If you still have a problem clean the area with a cotton buds or a small paint brush dipped in IsoPropyl Alcohol (IPA aka Iso-Propanol). It wil clean out any crap and not leave a conductive residue. All the computer parts suppliers sell it and you can also get it in the chemist.

For a cheaper alternative Use a pencil eraser, used to do this after recomendation from a arcade engineer, has worked on various circiut boards for me. worth a try

ttm

uch wrote: »

For a cheaper alternative Use a pencil eraser, used to do this after recomendation from a arcade engineer, has worked on various circiut boards for me. worth a try

Yep worn the T-Shirt, that used to be a common recommendation for cleaning the connections on the like of memory and cards, I never found it particularly useful and did read that it could do more harm than good by leaving a rubbery residue on the contacts. On the other hand a small piece of hardish pencil eraser (but not the gritty ink type eraser) cut to form a point could be handy to clean up between tracks.