[SOLVED] Troubleshoot: Water cooler leaked onto MOBO & into CPU socket, No Boot

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throwawayaccnt

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Hey y'all,

Bit of a travesty here, noticed my friends PC was running hot (103 celcius!) so I turned it off and did a teardown, noticed the water cooler was low so refilled it a bit, secured everything and stood it upright to see water coolant raining out of the bottom. my friends PC cooler failed and leaked coolant over the board and pretty vigorously into the CPU socket. I spent a good 5 hours with air compressor cans getting the liquid out of every nook & cranny I could.

After doing a complete teardown, drying it out the the best I could, (warning: this is where my manic foolishness took over) I tried to mount the stock cooler to the system and booted to check thermals, it booted and I checked the BIOS (was still running hot), turned it off and noticed the stock cooler and mounting bracket I had in weren't compatible and didn't screw in all the way so it was just kind of hovering over it.

Flashforward to my real issue, I went out and purchased a thermaltake AIO the next day to setup got it installed and mounted and connected in peachy keen except the entire system does not boot when I press the power button on the computer case, I checked my pin connections 20 times over to be sure I plugged them in the right way and nothing. Power goes to the system, the motherboard decal lights up RGB and the "Kboost" on the chassis will light up if pressed, but the system isn't responding to power signal.

The solution got into the cpu socket, a a couple of the PCIe x 16 slots, the battery socket, various pins & transistors going vertically down from the cpu socket and looks like some got into the powersupply, however it did not appear it got onto the hardware of the powersupply itself

Is it likely I bricked the board by booting it too soon after airing it out even though it posted initially the night before? Could I have configured the AIO setup in such a way that it interferes with the startup? If the board/chip bricked replacing it isn't the end of the world, I'm just trying to be efficient about this.

Full specs setup:
EVGA DG-77 case
ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F AM4 motherboard
AMD RYZEN 5 2600 cpu
MSI GEFORCE 1060 graphics
G.Skill TridentZ RGB 2x8GB @ 3000MHz memory
WD 500GB SATA III SSD storage
CORSAIR CX650M power supply

TL;DR water cooler borked inside case, used lots of compressed air to get liquid out, booted once now wont boot with new AIO cooler. Looking for general advice/guidance
 
Hey y'all,

Bit of a travesty here, noticed my friends PC was running hot (103 celcius!) so I turned it off and did a teardown, noticed the water cooler was low so refilled it a bit, secured everything and stood it upright to see water coolant raining out of the bottom. my friends PC cooler failed and leaked coolant over the board and pretty vigorously into the CPU socket. I spent a good 5 hours with air compressor cans getting the liquid out of every nook & cranny I could.

After doing a complete teardown, drying it out the the best I could, (warning: this is where my manic foolishness took over) I tried to mount the stock cooler to the system and booted to check thermals, it booted and I checked the BIOS (was still running hot), turned it off and noticed the stock cooler and mounting bracket I had in weren't compatible and didn't screw in all the way so it was just kind of hovering over it.

Flashforward to my real issue, I went out and purchased a thermaltake AIO the next day to setup got it installed and mounted and connected in peachy keen except the entire system does not boot when I press the power button on the computer case, I checked my pin connections 20 times over to be sure I plugged them in the right way and nothing. Power goes to the system, the motherboard decal lights up RGB and the "Kboost" on the chassis will light up if pressed, but the system isn't responding to power signal.

The solution got into the cpu socket, a a couple of the PCIe x 16 slots, the battery socket, various pins & transistors going vertically down from the cpu socket and looks like some got into the powersupply, however it did not appear it got onto the hardware of the powersupply itself

Is it likely I bricked the board by booting it too soon after airing it out even though it posted initially the night before? Could I have configured the AIO setup in such a way that it interferes with the startup? If the board/chip bricked replacing it isn't the end of the world, I'm just trying to be efficient about this.

Full specs setup:
EVGA DG-77 case
ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F AM4 motherboard
AMD RYZEN 5 2600 cpu
MSI GEFORCE 1060 graphics
G.Skill TridentZ RGB 2x8GB @ 3000MHz memory
WD 500GB SATA III SSD storage
CORSAIR CX650M power supply

TL;DR water cooler borked inside case, used lots of compressed air to get liquid out, booted once now wont boot with new AIO cooler. Looking for general advice/guidance
if you have a cpu to test with i would try it sounds likethe cpu has had thermal problems to long and to just fried after not having anything attached for a cooler fully or not sadly.
 

throwawayaccnt

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Apr 20, 2016
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I think you were lucky and got a sympathetic newb. But if you read the warranty agreement, it doesn't cover accidents. A water leak would clearly fall under that category.
No I was being serious Asus covered my saber tooth. 990fx when my brother dumped water in the pc and it died
Well if it's not covered no harm in asking anyways, could get lucky and have them take pity on me

General question: is it safe to test the power supply and ram in another PC to make sure they still work? I feel confident the issue comes down to the board/chip if I can test those
 
Well if it's not covered no harm in asking anyways, could get lucky and have them take pity on me

General question: is it safe to test the power supply and ram in another PC to make sure they still work? I feel confident the issue comes down to the board/chip if I can test those

Probably safe. 99% of power supplies have built in Over Voltage and Over Current protection, as well as under voltage cutoff to keep it in spec. Damaging those protection circuits isn't impossible, but unlikely with a well designed supply.

But if you had a volt meter I should show you how to test it better.

https://www.wikihow.com/Check-a-Power-Supply
 
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throwawayaccnt

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Apr 20, 2016
126
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Probably safe. 99% of power supplies have built in Over Voltage and Over Current protection, as well as under voltage cutoff to keep it in spec. Damaging those protection circuits isn't impossible, but unlikely with a well designed supply.

But if you had a volt meter I should show you how to test it better.

https://www.wikihow.com/Check-a-Power-Supply
Cool, I'm going to do a more thorough teardown and test cycle again before I commit to replacing any components. I'm hoping in my manic fueled frenzy I just didn't connect something properly and it will spring back to life like nothing happened, but not holding my breath :tearsofjoy:
 

throwawayaccnt

Reputable
Apr 20, 2016
126
15
4,615
Cool, I'm going to do a more thorough teardown and test cycle again before I commit to replacing any components. I'm hoping in my manic fueled frenzy I just didn't connect something properly and it will spring back to life like nothing happened, but not holding my breath :tearsofjoy:
Hey so funny story everyone, this is exactly what happened!

I did a second teardown and reassembly and I noticed one of my chassis fans was plugged into the wrong pinset (not the source of the issue, but led me to doublecheck all my wires!). Got everything reassembled, pressed the power button, nothing, I was devastated thinking I had to potentially buy a new board/chip. then I gave the USB3.1 wire a nudge with my finger and it booted.

3 days, countless hours of stress, and many small cuts later my dumbass didn't check to make sure that the power source for the chassis was adequately seated.

System booted with new cooler fine, ran a stress test in game for afew hours and didn't top over 45c with the panels off, adding the panels and add another 15-20c temp raise thats still gucci.

I'm still amazed this computer survived that catastrophic cooler failure
 
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