Water damaged PC

[Joshua_114]

I stupidly had a glass of water on my bedside cabinet and knocked it off, I'll stick to bottles like usual from now on. I didn't realise at first that it had managed to splash onto my PC until my PC powered itself up from sleep mode (another thing I don't usually do with my PC). This combination has broken my PC in some way and I was wondering if any of you had any advice as to which components might have been damaged.

Here's what I know so far: The night of the spill, after the PC powered itself up it wouldn't load up properly, no display, I eventually had to switch it off via the rear power button on the PSU.
The next day I opened her up and dried what I could see with a towel and left a fan on it for half an hour. When I powered up the PC (again, not my brightest idea but I thought the damage was done already since it powered itself up when the water was still on it), my BIOS told me it couldn't load my CPU OC and I had to reconfigure it. I did this and loaded the PC fine, no issues from what I could tell.

It ran fine all day and I thought I may have been lucky and gotten away with it, I was mistaken. Any time I try to load a game, when it gets to the point of being actually fullscreen and in game (tested on League on Legends and Prison Architect so far), my whole PC locks up completely until I press the reset button, it takes about 10 seconds then restarts normally. This seems to be the only issue.

As the images show my PSU is at the bottom and I have no graphics card installed. The water may have hit some other components but the PSU was hit most and the PSU fan doesn't work (this may have happened prior to water damage as I haven't opened her up in a couple months but I am pretty certain the water damage has caused this).
I have also noticed the computer is overall a bit slower when booting but yet my OC is back in place.
.
I am trying to figure out what I could have been damaged other than the PSU to cause the crashes in game as the PC runs fine, generally, unless I try to load any game. I have even run a short (10 min) test on prime95 and couldn't see anything that jumped out at me. I haven't got the money to replace anything right now but don't want to have to buy replacement parts and just test to see what is broken.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Screenshot 1: https://gyazo.com/a3ff2f6f05b6d97fadfc238b0d7342c5
SS 2: https://gyazo.com/0e17223e0d14bd7898c4b6b7894fd64d
Inside: https://gyazo.com/e01e8d82e3bfdce540238e6f0366d479

 

[ajpaolello]

Hm. Weird issue. Might be a psu issue. Do you know someone that has a psi you could test with?

 

[grimakis]

I assume it could be literally anything on the Mobo.

 

[ajpaolello]

Let's deal with it one piece at a time. First the PSU was the one that got most of the water from what we can tell. I'd like to see what replacing that does to the computer.

 

[grimakis]

Let's deal with it one piece at a time. First the PSU was the one that got most of the water from what we can tell. I'd like to see what replacing that does to the computer.

Fair enough, but OP didn't look into the PC until the next day. PSU is on the bottom, and in one day's time, gravity can do a lot to the water. Just because it was all at the bottom the next day, doesn't mean it was there when it spilled initially.

Also, what model PSU is that? Some PSU's from Corsair don't start their fans unless under a heavier load.

 

[ajpaolello]

Looks like the letters say CS.

 

[Joshua_114]

Let's deal with it one piece at a time. First the PSU was the one that got most of the water from what we can tell. I'd like to see what replacing that does to the computer.

Unfortunately I haven't got anyone who lives close that has a spare PSU for me to test or a machine to test mine in. I'm going to have to wait to buy a new one which won't take too long. I'd just rather know before splashing out on new parts.

It's either going to be the mobo or PSU. I'm not sure if the PSU could cause this issue unless it's freezing from lack of power supply. Since I have no graphics card installed at the moment (luckily) It can't require too much extra power to run a game, can it? Maybe the mobo is damaged, which isn't too bad really since it's only an ASUS P8Z77-V LX2

Fair enough, but OP didn't look into the PC until the next day. PSU is on the bottom, and in one day's time, gravity can do a lot to the water. Just because it was all at the bottom the next day, doesn't mean it was there when it spilled initially.

Also, what model PSU is that? Some PSU's from Corsair don't start their fans unless under a heavier load.

It's the Corsair GS600, I thought this might be the case too so I shall find out but in my BIOS on the first boot after the water was spilled one of my fan temps were showing as red which I'm pretty sure is the PSU fan.

I'm leaning toward the mobo being the issue but I'll look into the fan and see if it shuts down if it doesn't need it.

EDIT: The PSU goes into fanless mode if the power supply isn't hot enough, so I've read.

 

[ajpaolello]

Hm. Having another PSU to test would help. I was thinking that the water might be causing it to do a few possible things. A) Fan not turn on at the right time and causing PSU to get too hot. But that would probably cause the PSU to turn off. B) Having trouble distributing power.

Good be the mobo though.

 

[grimakis]

Hm. Having another PSU to test would help. I was thinking that the water might be causing it to do a few possible things. A) Fan not turn on at the right time and causing PSU to get too hot. But that would probably cause the PSU to turn off. B) Having trouble distributing power.

Good be the mobo though.

I would definitely recommend a PSU tester. They are small devices that have connections for all the different rails, it puts enough load for the PSU to turn on, and it makes sure the voltages are within spec.

 

[Joshua_114]

Is there any PSU tester you could recommend? I've never thought about or used one before.

 

[grimakis]

Is there any PSU tester you could recommend? I've never thought about or used one before.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16899161001

This is the one I use, however, it's nothing special. The one I linked to in the above post is a but more expensive, but has fantastic reviews.

 

[Joshua_114]

I will buy it when I can and post back to update you guys, thanks for the help so far.

Update: I have tested to see if my PC still locks up when trying to play games and it turns out it doesn't any more. I haven't done anything since the water spillage apart from verifying the integrity of the files and updating. Maybe I was just hella lucky this time. Phew.

Update 2: Tried to game again today and it has started locking up again. What an odd an annoying problem.

 

[Joshua_114]

This is what my system is doing before the crashes, repeated the same 4 times today. https://gyazo.com/839d3b399d53785701fcce383e07ae2e

 

[grimakis]

This is what my system is doing before the crashes, repeated the same 4 times today. https://gyazo.com/839d3b399d53785701fcce383e07ae2e

Just out of curiosity, if you create a new user account and use that, do you experience the same issues?

 

[Joshua_114]

Just out of curiosity, if you create a new user account and use that, do you experience the same issues?

I tried this but it didn't help. Out of curiosity, what gave you the idea that this might help?

I realised that, whilst I can't play Prison Architect, it freezes, Hearthstone ran fine full screen with both users.

I didn't test League of Legends because I've already amassed a good time ban for leaving games (due to crashes)

 

[grimakis]

Just out of curiosity, if you create a new user account and use that, do you experience the same issues?

I tried this but it didn't help. Out of curiosity, what gave you the idea that this might help?

I realised that, whilst I can't play Prison Architect, it freezes, Hearthstone ran fine full screen with both users.

I didn't test League of Legends because I've already amassed a good time ban for leaving games (due to crashes)

I recently had an issue in Windows 10 where my computer was crashing and then giving me black screens. It turned out to be an issue that was isolated to a particular user account, and I fixed it by creating a new user.

Just figured it was worth a shot, because you never know.

 

[Joshua_114]

I recently had an issue in Windows 10 where my computer was crashing and then giving me black screens. It turned out to be an issue that was isolated to a particular user account, and I fixed it by creating a new user.
Just figured it was worth a shot, because you never know.

No harm in trying, I didn't actually realise I had Heartstone installed until I was on the 2nd user account and ran it. I was optimistic when it ran but unfortunately it didn't fix it 🙁

I guess I'll wait a couple of weeks until I can buy some new components and see how I get on then.

 

[ajpaolello]

Basically, something has to change for us to know what's causing the problem. PSU, mobo, we're in the dark as much as you are honestly.