Short Circuiting a Motherboard

[CedricFP]

I run bench setup.
Ceiling developed leak.
Dripped onto mobo.

Mobo is shorted - have blow dried, left it to dry etc. Still wont' power up.

Can shorts permanently damage boards?

How would this happen?

Thank you.

[babalouj]

Water dripping onto a board would usually not produce a true zero ohm short but it can ruin a motherboard. Sometimes though (in my experiences) the water just leaves a conductive residue from whatever else was in the water (dust/minerals/etc) and can be cleaned off by pouring 99% rubbing alcohol onto the area that was wet and letting the alchohol dry/evaporate. I have fixed a few cards this way from watercooling mishaps.

[Serpentarius]

I run bench setup.
Ceiling developed leak.
Dripped onto mobo.

Mobo is shorted - have blow dried, left it to dry etc. Still wont' power up.

Can shorts permanently damage boards?

How would this happen?

Thank you.

it takes days to dry it out ... 3 days for me ...

[CedricFP]

Well there is an update. I suspect that the drip of water landed on something that regulated voltage to the CPU as my CPU is fried.

Tried it in 2 other mobos :(

Was a fiesty bastard too, clocked well on water for 24/7.

[Brama]

Well there is an update. I suspect that the drip of water landed on something that regulated voltage to the CPU as my CPU is fried.

Tried it in 2 other mobos :(

Was a fiesty bastard too, clocked well on water for 24/7.

I am very sorry for that. :(
I suggest next time to use bi-distilled water for pharmacy applications.

Yesterday a small lake dropped from the cpu WB on the video card and X58 NB zone and nothing happened, except some instability on overclock due to different inductance of PCB lines that are under water.

Luckily I changed the fluid of the circuit one week ago; before I had a normal deionized water and Zalman addictive and by sure I would have destroyed MB and video card.

[sdsdv10]

I run bench setup.
Ceiling developed leak.
Dripped onto mobo.



I suggest next time to use bi-distilled water for pharmacy applications.


Brama, the water was from a leak in the ceiling not a watercooling loop. Kind of hard to get distilled water up in the ceiling! :D

[CedricFP]

Yeah, unfortuantely it was that. It was raining up at mine and it's been a really really wet summer... lots of places in the house need work.

Anyway, turns out that the short did more than cook my cpu and mobo - it also did in the RAM. That sucked... I got an i7 950 (SLBEN 3020A653) and X58UD3R to replace but the 950 doesn't clock so well. Where I needed about 1.3v for 4200 24/7 on the 920, I need 1.36v on the 950. Got some budget 1333 ram as well running at 1200 :P It's like DDR2 all over again only with worse 888-22 timings.


Water dripping onto a board would usually not produce a true zero ohm short but it can ruin a motherboard. Sometimes though (in my experiences) the water just leaves a conductive residue from whatever else was in the water (dust/minerals/etc) and can be cleaned off by pouring 99% rubbing alcohol onto the area that was wet and letting the alchohol dry/evaporate. I have fixed a few cards this way from watercooling mishaps.

Yeah - I couldn't find exactly where the drip of water went to... I tried cleaning several possible places with 99% but a couple fo days later it's still a dead board.

[Brama]

Brama, the water was from a leak in the ceiling not a watercooling loop. Kind of hard to get distilled water up in the ceiling! :D

Ops. :)