Member Avatar for DbDJey

My PC hates me please help!

Last night while i was sleeping my watercooling sprung a leek! I woke up to an off PC. My gut reaction was to check my watercooling as its the pump has been faulty. Well to my horror all the pipes were empty!

So i leave it about 8 hours while i go to work, on my return i took out the whole watercooling rig and fitted the stock intell cpu cooler and some shitty Northbridge heatsink.

I fire up the PC hurrar it worked!! But then it died again after about 5mins. It tried to shut it slef down before it crashed but its was too slow.

So now i try turning it on and it wont! if i turn off the power at the back and turn it back on its starts up for 3 seconds then it dies. front power button wont work again.

after playing around with the taking out the gra[phics card a few times, because i noticed the fan wasnt spinning on it i got a bit of progress. The pc will now turn on, but nothing will come on the screen. So im thinking that i have screwed up my mobo or my graphics card.

Anyways 1 geek to another crying for help, please save my PC ive got soo much important stuff on there. Im prepaierd to get new parts, but if we can narrow down which part is broke that would really help me.

Thanks

Jey

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Dani AI

Generated

This looks like a classic liquid-short problem and needs a calm, methodical triage. Stop powering the system repeatedly — every attempted boot while moisture or conductive residue remains increases the chance of permanent damage. is right that drying matters, but the priority is a careful inspection and isolation sequence rather than more power cycles.

Unplug everything and remove the case panels. Prioritize these steps:

  • Remove and secure the data drive(s) first so the files are safe.
  • Pull the GPU, all expansion cards, and the memory sticks. Leave the CPU cooler off until you inspect the socket area.
  • Look for corrosion (green/white deposits), burn marks, bulging/leaking capacitors or a strong burnt smell.
  • Clean visible residue with 90%+ isopropyl alcohol and a soft brush; use cotton swabs on connectors. Let parts dry thoroughly (fans blowing room air, 48–72+ hours depending on how saturated things were). Do not use ovens or blow very hot air directly on components.

After cleaning and drying, isolate to find the failed part:

  • PSU: a short or protection trip often causes the machine to die a few seconds after power-on. Test with a known-good PSU (do not open the PSU yourself) or a proper PSU tester first.
  • GPU: a non-spinning GPU fan and the fact the system worked with one monitor but crashed when a second was attached strongly point to GPU/port/power-connector damage. Test the GPU in another known-good PC, or try a known-good GPU in this board.
  • Motherboard/CPU/RAM: bench the board with minimal parts (CPU, one stick of RAM, onboard video or known-good GPU) and listen for POST beeps or watch debug LEDs. Swap RAM sticks/test slots.

If data is important, remove the drive and copy it to another machine or use a SATA-to-USB adapter before further testing. If inspections show burned components or heavy corrosion, replacement of the PSU and GPU is a sensible first expense; repeated unexplained failures probably mean the motherboard needs replacement. For critical data or uncertain failures, professional repair/data recovery is the safest option.

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Member Avatar for jbennet

probably the motherboard is fried. you should have left it to dry out for at least a month

Member Avatar for DbDJey

probably the motherboard is fried. you should have left it to dry out for at least a month

idk this gets weirder

i had it working again for a few mins, but only with one of my monitors the analog one. i managed to get into windows, but as soon as i put the second monitor back in it died again.

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