Help needed, problem booting after water block leak

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rimmer66
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Help needed, problem booting after water block leak

Post by rimmer66 »

hi
quick tech question , you may recall i had a leak on my water block, which did no damage as far as we knew,
but now my pc won't warm boot , it will only boot from cold and then only after a bit of in and out on the power cable .
my pc guru says that the caps (i assume he is talking about capacitors i was to embarrassed to check ) on my motherboard are probably fucked due to running boinc 24/7 ie at high temp , any second opinion would be appreciated before i spend on a new pc

edit sorry to post here but it looks like the only place with any signs of life
Woodles
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Re: Help needed, problem booting after water block leak

Post by Woodles »

Hi Dave,

Yes, "caps" = Capacitors.

By warm boot do you mean "restart" Windows or when its been on recently?

I have hosts that have been on 24/7 for several years and they work just fine, the fans and PSU give up first. Sounds to the cynical me that your PC guru doesn't know what the problem is but does know that if you get a brand new PC then itll work :D Even if they were correct, you'd only need to replace the motherboard anyway.

How long have you had your motherboard? Usually only the CPU, some ICs and the voltage regs get hot and there designed to. Also, only electrolytic capacitors dry out and that's usually time related rather than temperature. They're not used much these days and when they are, they're generally rated to 105 degres C operating!

(I would move the post but in my current state I'd probably lost it somewhere)
[edit] Done it :)

Mark
Woodles
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Re: Help needed, problem booting after water block leak

Post by Woodles »

Hi Dave,

Possibly more helpful now.

If the board boots eventually after fiddling with the power cable, I would suspect the PSU or it's connections myself.

I recently had a host with a similar problem but it would boot fine from warm but a cold boot needed it to be off for a long time and then repeated power cycles with connecting and reconnecting the mains lead.

Turned out in the end to be the plug on the end of the mains lead being partially out of the mains socket and only making contact once it had been nudged the correct way. Pushing it all the way in made the problem go away and it's been fine since.

Sometimes the solution is a lot easier than it seems.

Feel free to ask more questions or give more details, glad to help if I can.

Mark
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Re: Help needed, problem booting after water block leak

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi Dave

The water leak on your PC might have caused an issue...but if the motherboard is mounted vertically, then any water should have dripped down towards the base of the PC case...however some water might have been sprayed towards the mobo, if the cooling system used a powerful pump to drive the water around the circuit...and in the leak was near the CPU, then some water could have shorted out some electrical components.

Most (electrolytic) caps do have a small hole in them to help prevent them exploding under duress....but it's unlikely water could have got inside...so the issue might just be with the mobo.

So, I doubt you need to buy a complete new PC...but an identical mobo could be required.

Most parts within a PC don't need much maintenance - obviously any cooling fans might need a bit of light hoovering to remove the build up of dust over time and (in my experience) PC power supplies tend to have a finite lifetime, esp if on 24/7. But like mobo's these are easy to replace in maybe 10-15 minutes.

The issue of intermittent power could be down to the IEC connector (on the input to the PC power supply) might have some light scorching on the internal contacts, (due to most PC power supplies not having on/off swicthes these days, so as soon as you plug the IEC connecor in, it could arc across to the contacts, if the mains plug is already plugged into the wall socket) so if you replace the mains lead, this might help.

The other question that might need answering is this: Did you notice the water leak straight away, or might it have happened some time before you discovered it (whch could mean that the CPU might not have had any cooling for while and might have been cooked - although I know that more recent CPU's do have some thermal runaway sensors and the CPU can shut itself down or run in low power mode which helps prevent damage).

regards
Tim
Woodles
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Re: Help needed, problem booting after water block leak

Post by Woodles »

Hi Tim,

It's the salts in impure water that actually conduct electricity, deionised water or the water/glycerol mixes normally used for liquid cooling are non conductive (you can run a motherboard completely submerged in deionised water, just make sure the HDD is out of the water) I doubt anything would have shorted out.

I'm still heading towards blaming the PSU :D

Mark
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