i live with my gf. this morning the hot water heater broke in my gf's basement. guess where my stuff was. all of my desktop crunchers got wet. (i'm an idiot and they were on the floor.) the p4s are okay and run (ps on the top and boards up a couple of inches.) both of my quads are in antec 900 cases with the ps on the bottom. there was about 2 inches of water and they got very wet. they have been sitting in front of a fan for over 12 hours. can anyone hazard a guess as to how long i should wait before i try to start them?

I'd give it a full 24 hours in front of the fan to completely dry.

One thing - to make sure they are dry, try re-orienting the cases. This includes setting them on the rear of the case for an hour, and the top of the case for another hour. This will allow any residual moisture to escape/evaporate.

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Sit them in a warm dry place for as long as it takes for the to be no moisture visible, then leave them a bit longer.

How much damage depends on how the water got in and what power rails got shorted to what.

They may be totally fried if the power was on, or they may have shut down in a non-destructive way.

The problems are shorting out different power rails - like the 12V rail crossing to the 3.3v rail (a bad thing). Or corrosion from the water and current acting together.

Either way, get them dried out then see what happens.

The water itself will not harm circuit boards, I have washed off boards in a sink before. But with power on, or if they are left wet.. all bets are off.

Ian

If it were me, I'd take the MB and PS out of the case to dry. And anything else that got wet so I could inspect all sides of it for water before I turned it back on.

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I agree with Byron. Water could end up getting trapped in some weird places inside a computer, and those miniature "puddles" don't dry too quickly. The only way to make sure you're not going to blow up the circuitry is to take apart the computers and inspect for water. Once you've let each part dry out for about 24 hours, then put them back together and it should be safe.

Yes. Byron is correct in my opinion. The water probably had 'crap' in it and it has deposited on all your circuit boards, etc. I would turn the music on, get out my cleanest rags and doo-dads, get some compressed air, and start a thorough clean. It will take time and hence the music. Save the beer until the computers come back up, though!

Water can leave residue that will damage other components too. The way to be sure would be to get some denatured alcohol and rinse the components off completely. Take apart, dunk in alcohol, let dry, etc. The alcohol will rinse off all the residue and dry without leaving any of its own.

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Daniel

thanks for the info everyone.

Put a smoke detector directly above the wet computers and leave it there forever.

Get the type that will notify you by cell phone, if it goes off, you can get home quickly and save your RAC.

i live with my gf. this morning the hot water heater broke in my gf's basement. guess where my stuff was. all of my desktop crunchers got wet. (i'm an idiot and they were on the floor.) the p4s are okay and run (ps on the top and boards up a couple of inches.) both of my quads are in antec 900 cases with the ps on the bottom. there was about 2 inches of water and they got very wet. they have been sitting in front of a fan for over 12 hours. can anyone hazard a guess as to how long i should wait before i try to start them?

Keep in mind that the major circuit boards were all washed at the factory, so this isn't the first time they've been wet. Most circuit board manufacturers use acid-based flux when soldering so they can wash with water instead of an exotic solvent.

The problem isn't the water, it's the impurities -- the stuff that makes our tap water taste better than distilled water.

Now, I can't offer any advice, and any of the lawyers who work for the motherboard maker, power supply vendor, etc., would advise discarding everything in an environmentally safe manner.

What I would do is take the computers apart (yes, the P4's if water got anywhere near the boards) and I would wash them. Take the CPU and memory out, and wash with clean water. Then, rinse carefully with distilled water (not "bottled" or "filtered" -- if you can't get distilled water, skip this step), then I would rinse with denatured alcohol (because that'll get the water out from under the connectors).

Dry in bright sunlight. An hour should do.

Open up the power supplies and wash them (the P4 supplies are probably okay and don't need cleaning).

Yes, I have done this. It worked fine for me.

On advice of legal counsel, I wouldn't advocate that for anyone else, of course.

-- Ned

Edit: keep in mind that common tap water contains Dihydrogen Monoxide. Sometimes called Hydric Acid, this is a dangerous chemical that is often found in Acid Rain and in the lungs of drowning victims. In gaseous form it can cause severe burns. Use appropriate precautions when handling this deadly chemical.

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Hi Geoff,

I can concur with the advice that PCB's are washed in water. I used to work at Rank Xerox (now commonly known as Xerox) in the UK a few years ago, and all the boards after flow-soldering, used to be washed in water and then dried in an oven at 50 degrees C for a couple of hours. I used to run an ATE machine, and the boards used to test badly if they were still wet. I used to have to return boxes of boards to the oven for longer if they wouldn't test. The water had an uncanny knack of getting and staying under components.

It's gonna be touch and go to see if they survived or not. I'll echo the previous advice here on drying and cleaning them.

Hope you can save them!

regards, Gizbar.

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Edit: keep in mind that common tap water contains Dihydrogen Monoxide. Sometimes called Hydric Acid, this is a dangerous chemical that is often found in Acid Rain and in the lungs of drowning victims. In gaseous form it can cause severe burns. Use appropriate precautions when handling this deadly chemical.

Should have said that dihydrogen monoxide is often found comming out of the tap of most home. Saying that water contains water would never be permitted by my legal department.

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We have a saying here in Adelaide, Australia ... "If it's brown drink it down ... if it's black send it back!"

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"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

Edit: keep in mind that common tap water contains Dihydrogen Monoxide. Sometimes called Hydric Acid, this is a dangerous chemical that is often found in Acid Rain and in the lungs of drowning victims. In gaseous form it can cause severe burns. Use appropriate precautions when handling this deadly chemical.

Should have said that dihydrogen monoxide is often found comming out of the tap of most home. Saying that water contains water would never be permitted by my legal department.

If they supplied distilled water coming out of the tap, sure, but at least around here "tap water" contains a wide variety of chemicals, some intentional (Flouride), contaminants from the distribution system (usually iron), some low level of harmless bacteria, and whatever happened to be in the source -- all dissolved in Hydric Acid. :-)

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Were any hard drives wet? While the look like the cases are proof against moisture they have some form of relief vents to take care of altitude changes, weather, and moving to keep inside pressure close to ambient. Among the risks are moisture moving inside as a gas or liquid after the power was removed and the inside air cools off and reduced internal pressure causes entrance of either water vapor or worse liquid.

Removing the cover of hard drive is not an option. A forty to fifty C. bake out might help if just water vapor went in. Fifty C is not that hot for not operating disks. Body temp is 37 C for example. Fifty C is about hot water tap temperature. If contents are really important check with one of the commercial recovery services. It costs real money, but it can be worth it if really needed.

And a long wait to be sure.

I would suspect power supplies first, because of the higher voltages and the AC before the rectifiers is something that could have bad effects on the copper foil conducting on the circuit boards.

This was is a crying shame. Just an old orange crate would have kept them out of the mess.

I wish I had some more thoughts, but have not ever had one of our machines in this pickle.

We have a saying here in Adelaide, Australia ... "If it's brown drink it down ... if it's black send it back!"

I guess you don't favor Guinness???

We have a saying here in Adelaide, Australia ... "If it's brown drink it down ... if it's black send it back!"

I guess you don't favor Guinness???

Actually, when the tapwater starts to look like Guinness, then faced with the choice I choose the Guinness over the tapwater ;D

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"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

We have a saying here in Adelaide, Australia ... "If it's brown drink it down ... if it's black send it back!"

I guess you don't favor Guinness???

Actually, when the tapwater starts to look like Guinness, then faced with the choice I choose the Guinness over the tapwater ;D

And when the tapwater starts to taste like Guinness, you realise that you have just shaken hands with St Peter.

NB It's an interesting conundrum - in the highlands of Scotland (and even more so on the Isles) the water that comes from the tap frequently looks identical to the "water" that comes from the distillery (via the bottle). Which to choose??? :)

F.

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Hm, a conventional hair dryer works wonders if time is a factor...

Otherwise, place the PSUs onto or very near to a heater, then 24hrs should be plenty if they're at good heat.

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