Can An NVMe Drive Survive a Full Submersion?

[highlights.kmm]

Hi, there. My apartment flooded recently and my attempts to save my PC were apparently unsuccessful. I was wondering if it was possible if my 970 EVO survived the water?

Everything was unplugged, but the water was definitely dirty and I hear that's the kicker. We're talking gasoline, animal feces, sediment, you name it. We were at the bottom of a small valley so everything that came off the hills surrounding us got down to the area. It was probably submerged between 30 minutes to 1.5 hours, I can't be sure because I don't know when it fell off of the couch I had put it on.

Currently it's covered in dirt and mud and I need to clean it off with something, my father suggested rubbing alcohol. I don't have anything to test it on right now, though so I'm wondering if one of you might have the answer I'm looking for?

Thank you.

 

[Lutfij]

Yeah rubbing alcohol/isopropyl alcohol should help get the crud off your drive. I'd advise in letting it dry for a day before you pop it into a donor system. You could even take it to a shop and see if it's detected in BIOS and subsequently if the drive shows up in Drive Manager(OS).

 

[BFG-9000]

If anything could survive that, it would be flash drives and SSDs. The trick is the chips are BGA mounted and crud can get underneath--which should be fine so long as it's not conductive.

I actually would not be adverse to using detergent--just make sure the final rinse is with nonconductive solvents such as distilled water or alcohol.

In fact, you may be able to salvage much more than that--one of the traditional fixes for classic computers such as Mac IIs and 386es is to run them through the dishwasher, so you could probably resurrect everything but any HDDs and probably some of the fans won't make it. Worth a try anyway--what have you got to lose?

I would let things dry out after rinsing for much longer than a day though, and with a desk fan blowing over everything.

edit--apparently also extreme-overclockers use vaseline to protect from condensation when using liquid nitrogen, then wash the vaseline off in the dishwasher.

 

[highlights.kmm]

Some other components I had were:

-EVGA GTX 1070

-i7-7700K

-16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 2400MHz

What do you think the likelihood of these surviving is?

 

[hang-the-9]

Some other components I had were:

-EVGA GTX 1070

-i7-7700K

-16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 2400MHz

What do you think the likelihood of these surviving is?

Not very good chance at all, home owners / renters insurance may cover it, check the policy if you guys have that. Flooding may not be covered, I think that may be a separate thing.

 

[Peter Martin]

yeah, get it covered by insurance if you can. that thing is probably toast, good luck with the nvme drive

 

[Karadjgne]

If no power was or has been applied, there's only 1 item of any concern to any electronic component and thats the pcb. If the pcb is still as is, after a good isopropyl wash and dry out in a bowl of rice, then you should be ok, but if the pcb has swollen its almost a guarantee that the solder connections will be busted somewhere, and the item is toast.

If power was applied at any point prior to a complete wash and dry out, leftover contaminants will certainly stand a good chance of shorting out an number of components and the item is prolly toast.

 

[racksmith101]

If you can separate all the PCB parts ( remove the bios battery) and clean them in water with a mild detergent, you'll need to remove all the heatsinks and refit them with new paste/pads and bios battery. Then thoroughly clean and soak everything with DI water (do them all seperately). Use an airline to carefully blow any excess water from connectors etc and then bake everything at 60c for 12 hours. That should do the trick. (That's basically what our PCB cleaner does at work)

 

[punkncat]

I have accidentally run ssd through a wash and dry cycle and it was fine. Keeping in mind that was clean water.

In the case that this is probably toast anyway my thoughts include a mild dish soap/water solution and a super soft tooth brush, a bag of rice, and about 24 hours of your time....

Secondary to that, I haven't looked so forgive if this is stupid, but would be of the assumption there is some way to mount this via a USB adapter so as not to take a chance frying anything in a known good system to check afterwards?

 

[Barty1884]

There's probably a better chance than one might assume, that more than the SSD is salvagable -- assuming you haven't tried to turn the thing on.

Will require a good clean, and adequate drying time before powering on...... but the only thing (IMO) that is likely to be toast 100% is the motherboard (and even then, there's a slight chance). AND, I certainly wouldn't look to re-use the PSU.

CPU, memory, SSD have a decent chance/


All that being said, I'd definitely start the ball rolling with your insurance company.

would be of the assumption there is some way to mount this via a USB adapter so as not to take a chance frying anything in a known good system to check afterwards?

Not 100% sure as of today, but AFAIK, the only USB adapters for M.2 are SATA only, not NVMe.