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Computers and Monitors Exposed to Water

G

Grandcheapskate

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2014
Messages
808
Location
New Jersey, USA
Hi Guys,
Not knowing where to post this question, I figured this would be the best spot. As you have all heard, here in NJ we suffered a lot of rainfall. While my basement only got a minimal amount of flooding and nothing was ruined (everything is set up on blocks to handle a few inches of water), my garage did get flooded due to the negligence of the town heeding my warnings to keep the runoff area clear of debris. I'm sure I will be dealing with the town for the next several years.

My garage sits slightly below street level at the end of a dead end. By design when the neighborhood was built in the 1956, water rushing down the dead end from the rest of the area was allowed to freely flow through the dead end onto a golf course (which is now an office building). Over time, trees, debris and a chain link fence have created barriers to the free flow of water and despite my warnings water would back up, come down my driveway and flood the garage if the area was not kept clear and open, that is exactly what happened.

Luckily for me, although it does not feel like it, the water volume and ferocity was so great that once the water jumped the curb and headed down my driveway, my retaining wall (which is parallel to the end of the dead end) was washed away which allowed the water to release from my yard and head away from the house and into the building's parking lot (and wipe out their entire first floor).

Unfortunately enough water made it into the garage that everything on the lower shelf of every storage rack got wet. This includes a few computers and some old (hernia inducing) 21 inch monitors. I am estimating the water got about 12-16 inches high with the lowest shelf about 6 inches off the ground. I have yet to remove them from the garage although I hope to do that in the next day or two.

The computers were full towers so depending on where the components are located they may have escaped damage. In any case I will need to open them up, clean and test them. The monitors, if my aching back can handle it, will be taken out and tested as is and hopefully they still work (although if they do not, it gives me an excuse to take them to recycling). I do not believe the water stayed in the garage very long because I have some MDF boards which are not showing any sign of damage...which I cannot explain. I also opened the garage during the storm after the wall was blown out and there was no water in the garage.

Has anyone had experiance with computers and monitors getting wet? Should I expect them to work? Is there any precautions I should take?

Tomorrow I talk to a lawyer to see what damages I can recover.

Thanks...Joe
 
Open and inspect them. If any of the components inside show signs of water residue, clean them thoroughly with distilled water. Let it dry for a few days (at least one week for monitors) in a warm place (not in the garage) and only then give them a test.
 
I've pulled many computers from being flooded in storm canals, basements, junk yards, etc. and the enemies are time and if the thing has a battery. The longer you let it sit and ferment, the worse it is going to get. Some stuff won't survive, like hard drives, disk drives and such. But motherboards, chips and expansion cards will generally survive if you can get to them early enough before rust and corrosion set in. CRT monitors are also very resilient to damage, they can be sitting in a swamp for months and be cleaned up and made to work with minimal fuss in many cases.

You will need to disassemble whatever was flooded down to the nuts and bolts and wash everything with soap and water and give it a good drying with a hair dryer or powerful blower. Don't plug anything in, even if you leave it sitting, without first disassembling and inspecting everything. Because the nasty water carries detritus inside the equipment that can hold moisture for weeks/months and cause shorts and extensive corrosion damage.
 
For the first time yesterday I tried a power washer which was given to me and not used for a very long time. A friend was able to replace some washers and the unit worked great.

One of the nozzles can produce a very fine spray mist. Would this be good to use externally on the computers and monitors, and internally on the computers when I am going to get a very warm sunny day? I am talking about a very fine mist, nothing with any force behind it.

Thanks...Joe
 
Joe, whatever you do, make the final rinse not city water, but distilled. A lot of city water is quite hard and can leave deposits where you don't want them.
 
GiGaBiTe said:
You will need to disassemble whatever was flooded down to the nuts and bolts and wash everything with soap and water and give it a good drying with a hair dryer or powerful blower. Don't plug anything in, even if you leave it sitting, without first disassembling and inspecting everything. Because the nasty water carries detritus inside the equipment that can hold moisture for weeks/months and cause shorts and extensive corrosion damage.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing the disassembly applies not just to the PCs but to the monitors as well? I also had two boxes of used CD drives...should these just be trashed or can they also be flushed out? There was a box of IDE cables...still good? How about KVM switch boxes?

So possibly a wash down with a fine mist through the power washer, followed by a final cleanup using distilled water in a spray bottle. Then blow dry. This sounds like it is going to take a long time, probably more time than I have available considering there are other items besides computers that got wet.

No matter what I may end up having to trash, I need to keep a record because everything has value and is only damaged due to negligence.

Thanks...Joe
 
Grandcheapskate said:
I'm guessing the disassembly applies not just to the PCs but to the monitors as well? I also had two boxes of used CD drives...should these just be trashed or can they also be flushed out? There was a box of IDE cables...still good? How about KVM switch boxes?
Click to expand...

Like I said, you'll have to take everything apart to the last screw. Water gets everywhere and takes contaminants with it.

The CD drives are probably going to be writeoffs because water got to the laser assemblies. You can try to take them apart and CAREFULLY wash them, the laser assemblies are super easy to knock out of alignment and are basically impossible to realign. But I don't think they're sealed, so any junk dissolved in the water is going to be left behind inside the assembly and probably make it not work. I've never been able to get an optical drive working again after being flooded, and I've tried several times for many days each time. The only way I think you could get them to work again is to swap the entire laser assembly with a known working one, but you may as well buy a new drive at that point.

Grandcheapskate said:
So possibly a wash down with a fine mist through the power washer, followed by a final cleanup using distilled water in a spray bottle. Then blow dry. This sounds like it is going to take a long time, probably more time than I have available considering there are other items besides computers that got wet.
Click to expand...

Unless that power washer has a setting low enough not to tear holes in your skin when used, I would recommend not using it. You don't need to use distilled water, it's really pointless. The second that it touches the board, it's going to wick up any contamination left behind. Just use normal tap water and blow all of the water off with an air compressor at 40-60 PSI. That way, the water can't dry on the board and leave behind residues.

Another cleaning option would be to hose off the big stuff with a garden hose sprayer and then toss it in the dish washer with the heat and heated drying cycles disabled. You could then blow it dry with an air compressor.

And yes, cleaning all of that stuff and trying to get it working again is going to take lots of time. Each item is going to be minimum hours, if not days. All of the flood damaged equipment I've had to repair was very difficult and time consuming, you really have to want that particular thing to devote the time to cleaning it and getting it working again.
 
Hi GGB,
There is no way I will have the time to do what is required to tear everything down to the last screw.

At this point, I will have to consider the CD drives as garbage. I was probably never going to need them anyway but that was no reason for them to be destroyed. It's too bad I probably also lost two old HP external CD writers. They will simply be put on the list of items which got ruined and for which I will seek compensation.

As far as the monitors go, if I can remove the cover and give them a quick washout I will do so. Otherwise they will also have to be considered as ruined.

There are a couple Compaq computers and a Dell which got wet. I'll give those a quick cleaning and if they don't work, out they go as well.

There are however five tower PCs I will devote the time to try saving. The water never got high enough to get to the hard drives, floppy drives and disk drives. Since the motherboard and expansion cards are located at the bottom of the tower, these did get wet and will have to be cleaned. If I can save the five tower PCs I will consider the operation a success. While I have plenty of 486 and Pentium boards which can go into the towers, there are two of them with 386 boards which were new when I purchased them...those I want to save if possible.

Then I deal with the town and try to get compensated for all I have lost.

Thanks...Joe
 
I would also recommend letting CRTs dry extra long. I had carefully cleaned out a couple of CRT monitors a while back, really needed to use water for these, let them try for about a day and when I turned them on they sort of misbehaved a bit. Nothing blew up, I don't think I damaged them, and they started working right again after a little while, so it must have been something still wet somewhere.
 
I have removed all the computer items which were located on the bottom shelves of each rack. From the little bit of debris on the monitors, I would say the water got about one foot high (6" high on the monitor itself) before the retaining wall failed and the water rushed out...at least I think that is what happened. As I said previously, there was no standing water in the garage even during the storm after the wall was gone. What I do not know is how long the water was in the garage although I would guess a very short time...less than an hour.

I have all the equipment on tables in the driveway and will leave them there overnight as there is no rain in the forecast. They were out last night as well covered with a tarp as we did get some rain. Picking up the old 21" monitors from the bottom shelf is no fun and makes me believe even if they work I may not keep them. They are simply too heavy to move around and if I do not have a place to set them up right now (which I do not) I could easily injure myself trying to put them back on the shelf.

I opened all 5 tower PCs today and they are not very dirty inside, only a little bit of grit along the bottom. I'm hopeful they can be saved. It seems the water that came in the garage wasn't too dirty.

With the time I have to take to try saving the slot cars which got wet (which is my top priority), I may only have time to clean the PCs and try flushing the monitors with water, let them dry for days and see what I have.

Joe
 
I opened up all five of the tower PCs and gave them a quick cleaning. All were fairly clean inside with only some gritty material at the bottom of the case. All five booted and it seems I only lost three hard drives at most. Not a big deal as I have plenty of HD pulls I can use. They will all need a much more through cleaning but at least they work. I also got the two Compaq PCs to boot. The only PC which did not boot was a Dell...all it did was beep.

I have 10 caddies which used to have HP SCSI UW drives. I am going to recycle these unless someone wants them (just pay shipping or pick them up here). They got exposed to water and will need to be cleaned.

This is probably also a good time to get rid of the eMachine and Dell cases I was keeping. Since these need specific form factor motherboards they just aren't worth keeping.

There are 33 CD drives which I am not even going to test. I don't think I will even try to save the monitors which got wet. I will just claim them as a total loss when I fill out the tort paperwork for the town. I'm thinking to claim $5 per CD drive, $50 per PC and $25-$50 for each CRT.

Joe
 
Well, my curiosity got the best of me and I decided to see how many of the eight CRT monitors actually survived. Surprisingly seven of them powered up and worked. One 17" monitor kept crackling but seemed to eventually settle down. All four of the 21" behemoths fired up with only one of them crackling for a while. So maybe I'll keep them for a while and see if I ever have a need for them...although my back is telling me to recycle the 21" monsters.

I will now try to deep clean the five tower PCs I really want to save. I will do a complete tear down of each one down to the last screw.

Question...should or can I use alcohol to clean the contacts?

A while ago I asked if storing PCs in the garage would harm them since we go through the change of seasons here in the northeast. While the electronics seem to survive fairly well, how about hard drives? On a couple PCs the HDs seem to squeal and so they are probably shot even though they did not get wet.

Thanks...Joe
 
Hi,
I have finally had the time to start the deep clean on the five tower PCs which got exposed to water. With the cold weather now upon us, I have moved the PCs into the basement. I have started disassembling the first machine and although it booted back in September I got nothing this time.

The first thing I see is it appears the silver contacts on the SIMM memory chips need to be cleaned. They may have some residue on them or maybe it is just the way they look. But my first task will be to clean the contacts not just on the SIMM chips but the expansions cards as well.

Everything appears fairly clean but appearances can be deceiving. What should I use on the contacts and how best to clean them?

Thanks...Joe
 
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