Computers and water

[Chaos]

Hi,

many of you probably remember that we´ve had our basement flooded a couple of weeks ago. Just recently we discovered that some computer equipment has gotten wet also.

I guess I can open the PC and see if anything looks damaged inside, but I am not such an expert as to recognize damage done my clean water. Also, I cannot open the C-64 computer and its external floppy disk drive without resorting to brute force or far more expertise than I have.

My question now is, can I simply try and switch the things on to see if they still work, or would I be inviting disaster with that?

 

[Ririon]

Hi,

many of you probably remember that we´ve had our basement flooded a couple of weeks ago. Just recently we discovered that some computer equipment has gotten wet also.

I guess I can open the PC and see if anything looks damaged inside, but I am not such an expert as to recognize damage done my clean water. Also, I cannot open the C-64 computer and its external floppy disk drive without resorting to brute force or far more expertise than I have.

My question now is, can I simply try and switch the things on to see if they still work, or would I be inviting disaster with that?

First of all, it sounds like the computer equipment belongs in a glass box. Why would you want to switch it on?

Secondly, if you choose not to open it, leave it somewhere warm and dry until you are sure that all the water is gone before switching it on. Think: "If I was a cat or a wet piece of electronics, where would I want to take a nap?" If the water was clean, This should fix things 63 % of the time.

Thirdly, the correct thing would have been to open and gently blow dry everything with compressed air. You should also have removed all kinds of dust and general gunk in there while you were at it.

ETA: Your mileage may vary.

 

[MortFurd]

Hi,

many of you probably remember that we´ve had our basement flooded a couple of weeks ago. Just recently we discovered that some computer equipment has gotten wet also.

I guess I can open the PC and see if anything looks damaged inside, but I am not such an expert as to recognize damage done my clean water. Also, I cannot open the C-64 computer and its external floppy disk drive without resorting to brute force or far more expertise than I have.

My question now is, can I simply try and switch the things on to see if they still work, or would I be inviting disaster with that?

Expect rust in the drive. Bad deal.

 

[Chaos]

Expect rust in the drive. Bad deal.

Bad as in "won´t work any more", or bad as in "gonna blow up"?

 

[SkepticScott]

Bad as in "won't work any more".

 

[Luciana]

If there's any consolation, at my workplace 8 computers were flooded by water that trickled down more than 30 floors, so it's safe to say that it was filthy.

And by wet I mean "entire aquarium possibly living inside"

Two monitors went "poof". Everything else worked after some serious wiping and blowdrying. They were only turned on some 7 days after they "looked" dry. They're still working four months later, though I can't say if rust will decrease their lives.

 

[SpeederA]

If the water was particularly nasty, then I would recommend buying a large bottle or two of %91 isopropyl alcohol and cleaning the solid state components before letting the system dry for several days.

I would also suggest trying the computer out on an outlet that has no critical equipment attached to it. If the PSU is damaged and faults to ground it will trip the breaker and everything on that breaker will be shut down.