Question My pc part(s) had contact with very small amounts of water. What can I do and how long should I wait before starting the pc?

[Exquisite12]

So first of all I’m an complete idiot and noob at pc’s. Anyways yesterday around 11 o’clock I cleaned my pc for my first time and for some reason forgot that pc + water does not work well. So what I did was that I took a very very lightly moist/damp cloth and ran it over some parts of my gpu electronic Board which was open and very dusty, (the power was already shut of and no cables were connected to anything). I immediately realised that this was a really bad idea and it has been drying for about 24 hours now. However I still hope for my computer to work so I gladly take any advise on how I can try to save my computer and if someone could suggest for how long I should wait for my pc to dry until I can test run it again to see if it works? Thanks to anyone who can help me.

 

[DrummerManSpike]

Unless there was a considerable amount of water and/or it got inside some of the internal components or another area where it can't easily evaporate, you should be fine. After 24 hours, it should be fully evaporated and safe to turn on, just do a thorough look-over to make sure no moisture is still left over.

Linus from LTT actually recently got water on six (6) Nvidia Titans attached to a waterblock, he just set it in the sunlight with a fan blowing on it for a day and they worked just fine after.

If everything looks good but you still feel like it needs another 24 hours, by all means go for it! You can never be too safe.

 

[Exquisite12]

Unless there was a considerable amount of water and/or it got inside some of the internal components or another area where it can't easily evaporate, you should be fine. After 24 hours, it should be fully evaporated and safe to turn on, just do a thorough look-over to make sure no moisture is still left over.

Linus from LTT actually recently got water on six (6) Nvidia Titans attached to a waterblock, he just set it in the sunlight with a fan blowing on it for a day and they worked just fine after.

If everything looks good but you still feel like it needs another 24 hours, by all means go for it! You can never be too safe.

Hey i turned it own after about 30 hours and it works totally fine thanks for the advice. Well I know what to do next time, not clean my computer so careless and unsafe.

 

[Exquisite12]

Hey i turned it own after about 30 hours and it works totally fine thanks for the advice. Well I know what to do next time, not clean my computer so careless and unsafe.

On*

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Next time you clean the PC's internals don't use a cloth -- not even a dry one. Use an air-duster which shifts dust accumulation with a blast of compressed air.

A cloth or brush can become electro-statically charged and will discharge that on to any components it touches.
ESD can damage some components. This time it seems you've been lucky.

 

[Exquisite12]

Next time you clean the PC's internals don't use a cloth -- not even a dry one. Use an air-duster which shifts dust accumulation with a blast of compressed air.

A cloth or brush can become electro-statically charged and will discharge that on to any components it touches.
ESD can damage some components. This time it seems you've been lucky.

Yep got really lucky, but I’ll remember that, compressed air also works well on smaller areas in the pc which is good. Thanks for the advice

 

[Hutcheh]

Next time you clean the PC's internals don't use a cloth -- not even a dry one. Use an air-duster which shifts dust accumulation with a blast of compressed air.

A cloth or brush can become electro-statically charged and will discharge that on to any components it touches.
ESD can damage some components. This time it seems you've been lucky.

Phil is right, compressed air in cans can be found at Best Buy or the American equivalent to Canadian Tire.

Check out the Jay's Two Cents video, where he sprays his components with water while running benchmarks.

Not saying this is a good idea by any means, but it will give you confidence in your hardware. Typically this is to show a "worst case scenario" in watercooled builds.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJUl_IqDbNA


and the follow up video:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYRPOc3HQKg

 

[Exquisite12]

Yeah, I’ll definitely go for compressed air next time. That first video was like my gpu cause it also didn’t have a backboard so thanks for the recommendation