Cup of tea poured in PC...

VincentHanna

VincentHanna

VincentHanna

Caporegime
Joined
30 Jul 2013
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Not me, my 9 year old nephew.

Apparently he was balancing a hot cup of tea on his lap (?!) and it tipped over him and went in the top vents of the TV.

He's ok, I've not been round to check the damage yet but what are the best things I can do to clear it out? It's all unplugged now AFAIK.

Any tips? Am I to expect a dead PC or can drying it out sort out the problems?
 
Well Sugar is caustic, the longer its left, the worse it will be, any boards need to be removed and washed in IPA.
 
It'll stick to everything clog parts like the fans. You need to let it dry fully then just turn it on and see if it has shorted anything whilst it was on.
 
Sweet Jesus you have a problem. :p

Be prepared for the worst. You could disassemble and allow it all to dry, before assembling again. That way what has been killed shouldn't take anything else out with it and you can diagnose what's going to need replacing. If it looks wet, has "I can't believe it's not sugar" stuck to it, it's likely met its end.
 
I built it, so I know the specs.

There's not much to it other than a Gigabyte motherboard, Intel i7 860 CPU and AMD 6870 GPU

Luckily it has an SSD hard drive.

I think I have a big cannister of IPA from Maplin. Do I literally just squirt it on everything and let it dry? I thought it was bad for PCB's?
 
Squirt it on and use a soft brush, then rinse it with water and let it thoroughly dry.
 
When I was young and foolish, I spilt a whole cp of water on my pc, the pSU got soaked. I turned it off, and a couple of days later turned it on, it turned itself off after a few mins. I kept trying this every day for about a week, then, when it had dried properly, it worked fine for years.

Fingers crossed you will be ok, but give it a week to dry if you can.
 
I have accidentally soaked my PC a number of times in my watercooling ventures.

Safest way to do it:

-Take it apart and let parts dry seperately
-Clean gently with alcohol
-Let alcohol evaporate
-put it together and switch it on.

Tea shouldn't have anything else in it that could short a board after it dries but I wouldn't risk turning it on without at least wipe and dry if you cant be bothered to clean with alcohol.
 
Don't use the PC, keep it unplugged.

You need to clean any tea / water / dirt using SERVISOL 200ml SPRAY ELECTRONIC CLEANING SOLVENT. google for this.

Let everything dry off, then try the PC.

Careful when handling any boards, use anti-static strap - In frustration when cleaning you could do more damage if not careful.
 
Avenged7Fold said:
-Take it apart and let parts dry seperately
-Clean gently with alcohol
-Let alcohol evaporate
-put it together and switch it on.
Click to expand...

This, more or less.

You want the alcohol to displace the water/tea/sugar mixture, so I'd probably do it ASAP on kitchen towel or similar and be pretty liberal with the alcohol, before the tea had time to dry. Then let the alcohol evaporate (takes seconds in a warm room) leaving hopefully no residue.

You could be really thorough and leave it all sealed up (e.g. in a bin bag) with some dessicant in a warm place for a few days. Silica would be perfect, but something like rice might work.
 
It's actually not as bad as I expected.

The case is an Antec NSK-3480 and the top chamber (PSU/DVD Drive) is fairly well isolated from the bottom components.

Not only that but the top air vent is offset, so is splash proof to an extent, and I think most of the tea went down the side of the case. I opened it up and there was a lot of dust on top and most of it was dry still. PSU was biggest concern.

I think he got away lightly with it. The PC didn't short out when it happened or anything.
 
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