Wet PC or laptop, how to repair it, remove or dry the liquid

We live in the era of teleworking, and this necessarily implies spending many hours at home in front of the PC. There are those who choose a laptop for its mobility, but there are not a few who have a desktop PC to work with and, thus, be able to play in their spare time as well. Whatever your situation, it is very common that we accompany those hours in front of the PC with a bottle of water, soda or cup of coffee, and with this there is always the risk of spilling liquid and the PC getting wet . If you have seen yourself in this situation, do not despair because next we are going to tell you what you must do to save your hardware .

As is logical, spilling liquid on the PC is a very dangerous situation and not at all desirable, because as you well know, electronics do not get along very well with liquids. However, the first thing you should do is try to stay calm and follow the steps that we are going to tell you below to try to prevent things from getting worse.

Precautionary measures when the PC has gotten wet

Wet PC or laptop

If you have spilled liquid on the PC, the first thing you should do is unplug it from the power to avoid greater evils. If when the liquid spilled and the PC got wet, it did not turn off automatically and continued to function with apparent normality, it is a good sign because it means that, in principle, nothing has been damaged and you can make it work again following our advice.

If, on the other hand, the PC turned off after spilling the liquid and / or you heard a small explosion, smoke or even sparks came out of the PC, then you do have a problem and in all probability, some component will have been damaged and you will have to change it. However, if the power supply and especially its short-circuit safety system has worked properly, it is likely that you can save almost all the components.

Of course, there is a third possibility and that is that the PC has gotten wet while it was turned off, and in this case the chances that something has broken are reduced. However, generally we always leave the computer plugged into the current and with the power supply turned on, so there is also the possibility that something has broken.

How to deal with a wet PC

PC Mojado

After unplugging the PC from the mains and if it is possible to turn off the power supply from the switch that they all have from behind, the best thing to do next is to remove the side cover and place the PC case diagonally (while the tower is upright, tilt it towards the open lid and lean it for example on a table leg or on a wall, but always tilting it towards the lid that you have removed). In this way, we will make the liquid settle in the lower area of the box and thus it will be easier to clean it.

Once a reasonable time has passed for gravity to take effect and the water has drained downwards, clean the “puddle” that has formed with a dry cloth and then, depending on the situation, you must follow the following steps but that in any case includes completely disassembling all the hardware to be able to clean and dry it individually. Initially, what you should do is at least a visual inspection to check which component or components have gotten wet and thus be able to place special emphasis on them.

If the PC was off or was still running after getting wet

Escritorio con PC Gaming

If the PC was off when you spilled the liquid, or even if it continued to function relatively normally (without crashing) after that, that’s a good sign. Despite this, it is imperative that you turn it off immediately and let it dry for a reasonable time before a mishap happens, and after that you will have to carry out the aforementioned visual inspection to see which components have gotten wet in order to disassemble and dry them thoroughly.

In the event that the motherboard has gotten wet, it is best to disassemble it completely and disconnect everything else, dry it carefully using a clean, dry fiber cloth and ear swabs to reach the most difficult-to-reach areas. , and once done prepare a container large enough to fit the base plate and cover it completely with rice .

Although many people think that putting a wet device in rice to dry it is little more than an urban legend, in reality rice has the peculiarity that it is capable of absorbing twice its size in water, so it is ideal for removing all liquid and even moisture that may have remained on your hardware. It is advisable to let the rice do its job for no less than 24 hours, with 48 hours being ideal.

In general, the procedure for drying wet components is of course to disassemble them from the PC, and disassemble the component itself as much as possible as well. Dry it with a cloth and swabs for inaccessible areas, and then leave it in rice for a good handful of hours to finish removing moisture. Only then can you be sure that nothing will happen when you reconnect them.

If the PC turned off when it got wet, smoke came out, etc.

GPU en llamas

When a PC gets wet while it is on, there is a chance that it might suddenly shut down due to a short circuit . This is good, because although the short circuit has happened it means that the protection measure of the power supply has done its job (turn off the PC to avoid greater evils). The bad thing is if the blackout is preceded by a small explosion, smoke or even sparks or fire. In this case, unplug the PC from the power but do not touch it, leave it for a few minutes until you are sure that there has not been a fire in your components (and if so, call the fire department immediately).

When you are ready and you think it is safe to touch the PC again, follow the same procedure that we have explained above (PC tower diagonally, disassemble, dry, put in rice, etc.), but now the visual inspection phase It will have to be much more exhaustive, looking especially for capacitors that are swollen, cracked or burned , since they are the component that usually breaks down in these cases.

Condensadores

You will find capacitors in almost all components, including motherboard, graphics card and especially power supply (if this has also gotten wet, you will have no choice but to open it to examine its interior). The moment you see a capacitor in poor condition in any of the components, unfortunately it is best to discard it and buy a new one to replace the damaged one.

Once the whole process is over, reassemble everything and check that it continues to work without problems. If all went well, it should be.