[SOLVED] HELP! Foreign Substance in PCI port

[Nziak]

Apparently my water cooler has leaked out and dripped down onto my graphics card. I have not take my card out but it looks as if it has dropped into the PCI Express port.
Picture is my Avatar

I built this PC back in March.
I have experienced really quick black flashes every so often. 1 every few hours or when I switch applications.

MB: Z390 Aorus Ultra
CPU: i9-9900
WC: Corsair
GC: RTX 2080

I bought another form of thermal compound and used it rather then what the water cooler came with.


What do I do?

 

[Karadjgne]

Stop using the pc immediately, just for starters. I'd contact Corsair directly on this, they'll te you to send it back, or take it back to the store you got it from. Either way, it's defective. Keep ALL correspondence, send them a full size copy of the photo if needed.

To clean the mobo, use 90% or better isopropyl alcohol (light, not dripping!) on a q-tip, give a little rub, use other end to soak up.

Pull the gpu, pay specific attention to if there's any evidence of coolant on the gold fingers that stick into the slot. If there is, use a coffee filter folded in half to test if there's actually still coolant inside the slot.

It's not unheard of for Corsair to replace everything, it'll be upto them, but there's also no way to test for any permanent damage until the pc is put back into use, after being cleaned and dried for several days.

 

[Nziak]

Stop using the pc immediately, just for starters. I'd contact Corsair directly on this, they'll te you to send it back, or take it back to the store you got it from. Either way, it's defective. Keep ALL correspondence, send them a full size copy of the photo if needed.

To clean the mobo, use 90% or better isopropyl alcohol (light, not dripping!) on a q-tip, give a little rub, use other end to soak up.

Pull the gpu, pay specific attention to if there's any evidence of coolant on the gold fingers that stick into the slot. If there is, use a coffee filter folded in half to test if there's actually still coolant inside the slot.

It's not unheard of for Corsair to replace everything, it'll be upto them, but there's also no way to test for any permanent damage until the pc is put back into use, after being cleaned and dried for several days.

Stop using the pc immediately, just for starters. I'd contact Corsair directly on this, they'll te you to send it back, or take it back to the store you got it from. Either way, it's defective. Keep ALL correspondence, send them a full size copy of the photo if needed.

To clean the mobo, use 90% or better isopropyl alcohol (light, not dripping!) on a q-tip, give a little rub, use other end to soak up.

Pull the gpu, pay specific attention to if there's any evidence of coolant on the gold fingers that stick into the slot. If there is, use a coffee filter folded in half to test if there's actually still coolant inside the slot.

It's not unheard of for Corsair to replace everything, it'll be upto them, but there's also no way to test for any permanent damage until the pc is put back into use, after being cleaned and dried for several days.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/CMeGfNCzELyc1sh1A

https://photos.app.goo.gl/oH7ZxhymdsA1kmNS8

https://photos.app.goo.gl/v9wVwjmY2QkqX7KN9

Pulled GPU, took some better pictures. Used a paper towel to soak up liquid present before moving. Used Coffee Filter to clean GPU pins the best I could. There is a little bit of green on one of the pins. Look at the third picture. First picture makes it look as if the thermal paste has melted or dripped down. When I felt under the connector to the pump it was strait wet with an antifreeze smell.

1st picture shows the substance on the top of the mounting bracket meaning it came from the cooler.

Thanks for the quick response. I'm freaking out a little bit here. Please take a look and tell me what you think! I really appreciate it.

 

[genz]

STOP. IT.

Look, if your cooler is less than 3 years old, Corsair could owe you a new system. This all goes down the drain if you tamper with it in a way that can break it further, like trying to rub it down without actually cleaning it chemically, or powering it up to a point where it breaks more than it was broken when the actual leak happened due to short circuits you have not cleaned properly. Coffee filter is not isopropyl and your system is not safe. The actual dust when it all dries is either conductive or insulating; if it's bridging just two pins your system could be hosed, and if it's blocking pins from making contact it can hose your card and/or slot.You're lucky it even works because I can see that the M.2 cover basically protected your BIOS chips. If they get wet your motherboard is gone because you can't reflash them if you can't boot assuming they would still be capable of flashing.

After the alcohol treatment, SuperPi or another bench your system for 8 hours and see if it bugs out. If it does, call corsair, talk to them about your broken system, be very unhappy because their ish shouldn't break and demand replacements. Stop powering it on until you have alcohol in that slot and then waited for it to dry. If corsair take your system it's quite likely they will test it in every way before issuing a repair and simple things like last-power-on-date in the EFI can prove it was working somewhat after the issue happened. If it dies completely at this point, you did it and they are off the hook, so whatever you do don't try and be a hero. Get Iso.

 

[Nziak]

STOP. IT.

Look, if your cooler is less than 3 years old, Corsair could owe you a new system. This all goes down the drain if you tamper with it in a way that can break it further, like trying to rub it down without actually cleaning it chemically, or powering it up to a point where it breaks more than it was broken when the actual leak happened due to short circuits you have not cleaned properly. Coffee filter is not isopropyl and your system is not safe. The actual dust when it all dries is either conductive or insulating; if it's bridging just two pins your system could be hosed, and if it's blocking pins from making contact it can hose your card and/or slot.You're lucky it even works because I can see that the M.2 cover basically protected your BIOS chips. If they get wet your motherboard is gone because you can't reflash them if you can't boot assuming they would still be capable of flashing.

After the alcohol treatment, SuperPi or another bench your system for 8 hours and see if it bugs out. If it does, call corsair, talk to them about your broken system, be very unhappy because their ish shouldn't break and demand replacements. Stop powering it on until you have alcohol in that slot and then waited for it to dry. If corsair take your system it's quite likely they will test it in every way before issuing a repair and simple things like last-power-on-date in the EFI can prove it was working somewhat after the issue happened. If it dies completely at this point, you did it and they are off the hook, so whatever you do don't try and be a hero. Get Iso.

Once I noticed the issue I immediately unpowered and unplugged the system. It is currently sitting horizontal with the GPU out drying. A ticket has been started with Corsair Support at this time. Cooler has leaked. I have not in any way tampered with it. Built the PC in March and live in the US. Should be under warranty. The problem with it being a cooler issue is if I try and bench the system the cooler will just continue to leak. As stated in OP I was experiencing no issues performance wise miraculously other then a black flash every few hours.

Would like to take this time to mention I never leave the PC running when not in use. Always power down.

 

[genz]

Once I noticed the issue I immediately unpowered and unplugged the system. It is currently sitting horizontal with the GPU out drying. A ticket has been started with Corsair Support at this time. Cooler has leaked. I have not in any way tampered with it. Built the PC in March and live in the US. Should be under warranty. The problem with it being a cooler issue is if I try and bench the system the cooler will just continue to leak. As stated in OP I was experiencing no issues performance wise miraculously other then a black flash every few hours.

Would like to take this time to mention I never leave the PC running when not in use. Always power down.

This is all good news. Glad to see you didn't panic quite as much as I might have suspected. Sorry for the tone.

That black flash is what worries me. That's your GPU driver crashing and reloading, but the reasons why this could happen and so infrequently are many... and not many of those reasons are fixed with cleaning or drying. Did you remove your GPU shroud and check there is no leakage on the hot side?

 

[genz]

My first thought is splash or drip could have got to a RAM chip. Your card and mobo are painted apart from that PCI-e lane so there's only a real danger to actual solder points (silver blobs on the edges of chips) and slots.

When your alcohol is present, clean the socket, but then test and bench in another socket first so you know whether it's the card or the mobo.

 

[Nziak]

The GPU is an ASUS Strix so it comes with a cover. Without looking I can confirm nothing penetrated the shroud. Dripped down from cooler onto m.2 cover onto PCI port and penetrated the port only. I sent a detailed description of everything observed when filling out my ticket. Another problem is use of a permanent address. I Graduate College in a month.

I prefer for everything to be work, if not replaced asap, so I can get it back up and running.

I did check under the m.2 shroud and nothing penetrated that.

 

[Nziak]

My first thought is splash or drip could have got to a RAM chip. Your card and mobo are painted apart from that PCI-e lane so there's only a real danger to actual solder points (silver blobs on the edges of chips) and slots.

When your alcohol is present, clean the socket, but then test and bench in another socket first so you know whether it's the card or the mobo.

The problem is I really can't bench it with the state of the cooler. The plan if and when I can is to put the card in another PCI slot to determine if the flashes happen. Idk what the best option to do here is. I do not possess a secondary cooler. Hopefully Corsair will have some insight on to this issue. I can't wait to hear from them!

Also, as stated earlier, I don't want to tamper with the card and do something funny with it to where if Corsair will cover everything they won't deny me on the card.

2 things are promising. 1) the system was throwing no warnings on temp or any other issues. 2) prolonged sessions (new cod) rarely if ever had that black flash. Let me reword this. The black flash on average once every 5ish hours. Or if I swapped applications. The other problem with me playing the new cod, the graphics on the game for PC are terribly glitchy. I experienced 1 map and rainbow shadders and the same map later had it's shadders way darker then they should have been. This didn't cause concern because after each issue a simple reloading the game fixed it.

The panic is over. It is out of my hands. I just hope they do the right thing here and after reading they usually do.

The real panic came when I first observed the issue. The white residue mad me believe it was thermal paste. Imagine the shock when I felt the under the cooler connection and my finger came out wet with a smell of antifreeze.

 

[Karadjgne]

You've put in a ticket with Corsair. All you can do now is wait.

 

[Nziak]

Update All

After dealing with Corsair CS for a solid 2 weeks, I was finally instructed to send the affected parts to them individually. They paid for the shipping label for a 1 day air shipping through UPS.

It then only took them 2 days to issue their report. After their engineers had examined the situation they are going to replace the cooling system and compensate me for the other parts at market value.

That being said, because of the release of the 2080s the market value of my original OC card went down. That, and along with taxes I have to front 250$ to replace the parts. Although a part of it is the 75$ incr to the 2080 S, I'm just a little bummed out by that.

Overall, I'm glad they decided to stand by there product and do what was right. Thanks to everyone on this thread. Really helped calm me down.

Sincerely,
OP

 

[Nziak]

Update All

After dealing with Corsair CS for a solid 2 weeks, I was finally instructed to send the affected parts to them individually. They paid for the shipping label for a 1 day air shipping label through UPS.

It then only took them 2 days to issue their report. After their engineers had examined the situation they are going to replace the cooling system and compensate me for the other parts.

That being said, because of the release of the 2080s the market value of my original OC card went down. That, and along with taxes I have to front 250$ to replace the parts. Although a part of it is the 75$ incr to the 2080 S, I'm just a little bummed out by that.

Overall, I'm glad they decided to stand by there product and do what was right. Thanks to everyone on this thread. Really helped calm me down.

Sincerely
OP