Actually though. When this first came up on my Autoplay I thought it was an old video I'd seen before and habitually clicked off it- Only saw the upload notification two hours later-
As someone with years of experience doing exactly this, you nailed it! One thing to highlight: Drying REALLY takes forever! Water can remain under chips for days if it's cold. Here in Australia we can just put boards in the sun during summer (it was 42°c today) but the rest of you will have to figure some other way (radiant heaters + a fan work well).
As someone who hit a can of coke over the top of my pc, EXACTLY THE SAME WAY U DID IN THE VIDEO. I can say, THIS MAY HAVE BEEN HELPFUL TO KNOW. I remember knocking the can over, hearing the windows usb connected noises from the front io, and seeing the coke pour down directly into my extremely cheap psu. Then just waiting a night and then starting it the next day and everything worked 😎
Same thing happened to me, but it was a laptop. I sandwiched a towel between the screen and keyboard for about an hour to try and get as much moister out as possible, then propped it up next to a fan for the rest of the night. Worked for years after, I kept it around until one day when I dropped it and broke the screen so I finally just chucked it out.
Never did it over a pc but I knocked a can of fizzy pop over my keyboard and as I was whiping it all down, I pissin knocked the can over again just incase the keyboard survived 😭 remember to always double tap
@@eliottdewitt893 I don't know how, but I knocked water on my keyboard and it somehow made my whole computer shutdown. Thankfully a night being blasted with a fan resolved everything.
The three common phases of spilling a fluid on your computer: - Complete and utter panic. - Severe, life-threatening depression - Realisation that the single damaged part was an SSD.
I had my step daughter knock my coffee cup off my desk years ago, and spilled it all over my AMD Phenom II X6 desktop that was underneath my desk for space reasons, and after being in panic mode, and a bit mad, as it was not salvageable, I was actually really happy, as it gave me a good excuse to do a new system build, with my wife not being mad at me for spending the money 😅
I knew that water cannot be conductive if there aren't any free floating ions to conduct, but it still felt so weird seeing a motherboard getting drenched in water
A company I worked for had a bad run with motherboards from some producer. They bought a cleaning machine able to run a motherboard through a water bath. This fixed more than 90% of the failing motherboards so they ran all the new boards of that brand through the cleaner before powering them. It eliminated motherboards failure almost perfectly. Same company bought a memory tester that could test a batch of 16 modules at a time. This was back quite some time, and it was unable to work with DDR memory or newer. Expensive little machine that saved a lot of memory problems as it tested for a lot of bad situations such as bad energy stability, low or high voltage and other stuff you really cant test with a diagnostic software on a standard machine. Memory that proved problematic was also run through the water cleaner, saving some parts of the bad units. All of this was before I started working there so I only saw the machines, never had a need to use them.
Year 2014: My friend accidentally poured tea on to my PC (in off state btw). I didn't had any backup PC at that time to even lookup online and I only used my phone for all the research. Trust me, there was not a single comprehensive guide and steps to handle that situation, and it took me almost a week to clean and dry everything and get my PC up & running all by myself. Thanks to all the random Reddit answers!! But this one by LTT is so informative and gives the confidence to pour soda on PCs (Kidding). Cheers to the team!
My friend in elementary school begged his step father for a pc, only to fry it a month later because he spilled water on it(he forgot to dry the power strip). He was not welcome in his mother house soon after, completely changed his life trajectory to the worse.
My brother around that same year spilled coffee (his, I dont drink coffee) all over my laptop. It had sugar and milk in it lol To this day he will say he thought I was going to murder him, but what I did was immediately jump up, turn it off, flip it over to pour coffee out, etc. The thing worked for a year ish after the cleaning and having to replace the keyboard then something failed so it would turn on for a split second then power itself off.
Im just imagining someone freaking out, pulling up this video, and sitting there with the 1000 yard stare as linus talks about the LTT Store screwdriver
@noir3132 Any updates? Spilled some sugary liqueur on my mobo and gum. Brand new build a week old abouts, a 7800xt finally wracked up the cash for it and this happens... Letting it dry, no iso alcohol ATM so driving to the shop tmrw. Stressing balls
for anyone watching this video, i'm an electronics engineer... skip the towels, you want to take your GPU and stick it directly under the shower head. you're racing against time to where the soda and sugars in it don't dry out and/or start corroding very important contacts in your electronics. put the gpu under the shower, keep it there, turning it around, until water coming out of it is super clean. then, take the heatsink off immediately, clean off the paste, and dump it in a bucket of IPA (>95% alcohol) so it's fully submerged. move it around a bunch, then take it out and wait for the IPA to dry off. then dunk it again. do that a few times. do the same thing with the metal part of your heatsink, but do NOT put the plastic in there. you want to do the same thing with the motherboard and cpu as well. if you don't have enough IPA to do this, temporarily put your gpu, motherboard, and cpu and the metallic heatsinks in a CLEAN (no soap residual!) tub with at least a couple inches above it, while you go to the store and get a few gallons of IPA that you'll need. Since the parts remain submerged, the water will not put any residuals on the boards by drying out. DO NOT USE PRESSURIZED AIR, it can contain oil and other chemicals that will mess up the conductivity of your contacts.
but @@cheater00 didnt linus said to avoid tap water to clean it because it contains minerals that are certainly conductive? or the Isoprophyl Alcohol bath will get those anyway?
@@mgdarkk a deep bath in IPA will displace the water, then the IPA will dry out. Water doesn't leave residue without drying out, so you can leave it sitting in tap water for a few hours while you get your IPA (especially if it's night or very late). Your #1 objective is to submerge the components in water as soon as possible and remove the soda. Once it dries out it's way more damaging and harder to get rid of. Just don't leave fans sitting in water. Rinse them off right after putting the electronics in the water bath.
@@mgdarkk no matter how bad your tap water is, its going to be way better than coke. as long as it stays wet, then goes in the IPA it should be fine. the 'hard' parts of the tap water should not be a an issue unless they are left to dry.
I spilled soda inside the top of my pc when I was younger, pc shut down and everything upon doing so and I definitely had a small breakdown before attempting to fix. Safe to say even to this day that old 2gb Asus 760 is still being used by my older brother I can still see the soda spots on the pcb and it still works 10 years later :)
Haha, you got lucky! I shared a comment just now about a similar experience where I was not so lucky. I even spent about thirty minutes with qtips and rubbing alcohol trying to clean the PCB off desperately. To be a kid again 😔
I had an 8350 system that had lemonade dr pepper sweet tea 3 cans of sparkling water and the worst, apple cider, thing ran till last year. It was miserable and it was basically a Frankenstein from what i did too the thing. But it worked. I had to lower the overclock after the apple cider and that scared me.
Is it really? I found the little editing jokes very primitive and childish. Like the one with the clown nose and hair, or the big eyes, or the home run... It's like a video catering to kids somehow. Made me wonder how long that useless stuff takes. I guess it's nice that the editors have time for jokes, but I feel like it would've been better spent taking a break at this point...
Yeah it's pretty cool, but it's not true that capacitors in psu will still power your pc if you unplug the cable while it's still running. Notice that split second when you unplug your pc and it still runs and then shuts off? That's your capacitors getting drained. Also it's worth mentioning that a good psu will detect shorts/overload and cut power before you can do it. Btw that little battery on mobo just saves cmos settings and keeps time.. it's really low current too, so I don't even think it's strong enough to fry anything and if it does at best it will only kill mobo.
And here I'm wondering why in the intro they were pulling back from their office in Surrey then ended up pulling back from Japan when they showed the globe.
I absolutely love these more down to earth troubleshooting videos. They are exciting, informative, and has alot of the life that got me into the channel. I know they are likely not worth it to shoot and produce but i love them every time
Absolutely. I'm not saying every video needs to be like this - that'd probably not be sustainable money wise. But once in a while it's nice to get these "linus does stupid stuff but it's genuinely entertaining and informative" videos where not every single detail is shipped but usually explained.
Been a while since I actually learned something in an LTT video. Water, then alcohol bathing is a great troubleshooting step. I'd love to see a version of this with a battery powered device like a laptop or tablet. The troubleshooting steps are similar but still wildly different due to the dangers of batteries.
I recommend Louis Rossman videos for that experience. (It’s probably going to blow something up on the board while you’re looking for your iFixit kit to get the right screwdriver to disconnect the battery.)
If its an apple you just hurl it into a river. Non removable batteries and drives means that a spill like this will 100% destroy every component and all data.
@@Idiomatickfairly sure that most mobile phones don’t have removable main drives, not just apple ones. Removable batteries are also very very rare on modern smartphones
The white residue left from isopropyl can sometimes be resin salts formed from a chemical reaction between the solder flux and the isopropyl. Depending on if the manufacturer properly cleaned the board or not, this stuff will be unavoidable and really hard to get off. So it's wise to check is there is flux left on the board or not before dunking it in isopropyl. Most computor parts are fully cleaned in the manufacturing process, but if you got some budget items in your build, there's a chance they havn't been. So always check the board first before applying isopropyl, even if by hand with cotton or something, to clean it.
Love the video concept. Early on you said something about "as long as you haven't flooded the entire room..." i'd really enjoy seeing that put to the test if possible! (i woke up to my apartment covered in 3 feet of water, completely covering my gaming pc)
4:29 - When SLI was a thing...I had 3 way SLI on a UD7. The top card took "the brunt of the spill" or in my case the entire res pumped on to it. The res being a fish tank. Of the 3 cards 2 of them were done. But the one that survived...Wouldn't you know it was the one that took the brunt of it. Fun times.
Maybe because the top card only got water, whereas the other two got water contaminated by all the dirt, dust and miscellaneous shmoo which has accumulated in the top card...
I have used an automotive paint spray gun on motherboards.. but instead of paint, I fill the tank with alcohol.. powered wash. I have also used a sand blaster with the sand feed tube inserted into distilled water, then alcohol. Biggest thing that Linus missed.. the rams.. I place under a heat lamp (or in summer, on the car dash) to bake out the liquid. Fans don't get enough air flow under the surface mount chips for proper drying. Car dash works great for baking out the liquid solvents. If the soda is dryed, no laughing... I have also used dish washer top rack.
Probably one of your best videos in recent times. Super helpful for when disaster strikes. BTW one very important tip you forgot: the block on thst AIO has an LCD on it and dipping an LCD in liquid is a great way to immediately kill it so definitely don't dunk that in water or alcohol.
Yeah any liquid getting into an LCD gets between the layers of the LCD and you get water spots and the like in there for the rest of the life of the product. Probably wouldn't matter too much on an AIO though if it's "spotty screen vs working pump". Also I think many of them are using oled these days which may not have that issue? But yeah this is a big trap for new players and an important point to make. IT sounds like you also learnt that one the hard way ;-)
@@zyeborm I fortunately didn't learn that the hard way. First time I noticed an LCD actually has liquid was when my Gameboy Pocket's LCD started leaking.
@@Muscleduck ahh. It's not the liquid itself that'll generally be sealed up. It's the external liquid getting in between the sheets that causes the real issue. Wife dropped her switch in a puddle. I stripped and cleaned it like this video but it still has water spots in the screen and the iso didn't help. I think if I tried splitting and washing the individual sheets inside the LCD it'd be ok but that's pretty risky so I just left it until she got the OLED version.
In 2016 I did this exact thing (full can of soda into the top of my computer). I turned it off immediately and thought for sure I destroyed my fairly new PC, but resigned myself to doing my best to clean it out before it dried to give it the best chance of revival. Amazingly about 24 hours later I turned it on and everything worked! I had that PC for another 5 years before I upgraded, and it was still working at that point, I just really wanted a new CPU/GPU. #1 and #2 most important things like Linus said is turning it off immediately, and then disconnecting all power from the components.
Even if you just let it dry for 2 days the worst that will happen is having sugary gunk all over your components. There is no way corrosion will kill it from any accidental spill unless you somehow manage to flood it and let it swim in there for days before draining it. Components are not that fragile and everything Linus showed here is more likely to do damage if the person doing it has no idea how to properly do it, than the original spill.
Seeing the excitement and happiness in Linus' eyes doing this kind of video just shows his passion for the actual tech support, maybe focus more on this type of video and less on the latest and greatest new bit of tech
When i was 13, this happened to me. Half a can of pepsi right down in there. It was at a big LAN event. I ripped the power cable out and got some paper towels in there. That took the worst. Then i plugged it right back in, like nothing happened, and played on. The pc still works 100% fine, 6 years after. Edit: Paper towels was removed before turning on pc.
It helps a lot to move the parts inside the cleaning liquids (water and alcohol) for some time. 2-3 minutes per parts can be a difference between life and death of your stuff. It helps to solve things that you don't want in your PC.
All and All fantastic advice. When im working on a liquid damaged devices after cleaning, its always a good tip to isolate issues with minimal systems. Start with the bare min components to post, and add components 1 by 1. That way if more then one component has a failure you don't go chasing rabbit holes trying to find the cause.
This makes me feel SO MUCH BETTER about my builds. I've been building my own rigs for almost 20 years and it's nice to know that you guys have the same issues I encounter.
I really enjoy these types of videos. I also appreciate the different filming style. It's interesting the way you're bringing more 'Linus' back into Linus Tech Tips. I appreciate the quality of the videos. Thanks, LTT, for the many years of entertainment, education, and memes.
True, though I would argue that opening a PSU is less dangerous than dumping it in water, not sure why they closed to put the former option in the video rather than the latter 😅
Great to see LTT do a video like this again. Super useful stuff, and both comprehensive, understandable, and largely accurate. The only thing missing IMO is what to do if you see traces of corrosion or weird residues, like the image that flashed on screen for half a second after the bath/rinse process. A light scrub with a toothbrush and some IPA can go a _long_ way towards getting rid of corrosion on and around electronic components, often (though obviously not always) to the degree that it bring a non-working part back to life*. Oh, and to be honest I'd add a caveat to the "step 2: dab dry" part: if you've got the water to soak it already at hand, skip directly to this step, as drying it off increases the chance of tiny droplets of gunk being left behind, drying out, and thus becoming more difficult to remove in a wash/rinse step. Let any excessive gunk run/drip off, then straight into the bath after removing heatsinks and other stuff. The less time spent between spill, wash and drying, the better, and a tub of water will remove your coke better than any paper towel. * If you're wondering, the reason for things not working might be as simple as corrosion changing the resistance and capacitance of the circuits in questions, which can cause all sorts of issues causing, say, a GPU or motherboard to refuse to turn on, but which might go away entirely when the corrosion is removed. But as with all liquid damage, YMMV!
Yeah.. you're gonna want to avoid getting distilled water or any other kind of fluid on your RGB fans aswell. Depending on the type of LED it can in fact absorb the moisture and short out. That's why addressable RGB strips and some RGB keyboards suddenly shine a different hue.
@@derAtze BRO SAME THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH ITS EITHER ORANGE OR YELLOW it totally just got wet and I can have a distilled water coming out of my tap and it coulda been a glass of that makes so much sense oml
That sounds wrong, smd LEDs are encased in plastic like most other components, but what seems more likely is that corrosion causes one color to work worse/break. So drying it well is important just like with the rest of the components. For the mechanical components like bearings it makes sense, since the lubricant will also get removed.
You know, as someone who recently had a leak on the roof because of heavy rain these video reinforces a lot of my experience dealing with components and some form of liquid, would have loved to have this video a few months ago but very luckily mi entire computer survived the water. Still amazing content, always love these experimental videos!!!
Once I accidently spilled an entire glass of lemonade into my pc. My coolermaster radiator was mounted on top, so it slowed it down enough that I had time to quickly flip my pc upside down. A little got on my 1080, its sitcky to this day from the sugar. I kept the pc running upside down and I had no issues with it since. This happened 5 years ago.
I do love his Tech Tips, he's a Tech Wiz Kid, but this is actually more like a Cleaning Tip. But I'd say, his cleaning tips are far better than his past "working with tools" tips. He does at least admit in those he's not too proficient with them, so the fails are still funny to watch. Instead, he did almost everything correctly in this one.
I know ltt used to do alot of videos on troubleshooting, but I would love to see more of it. It's my favourite kind of ltt, even if we tread old grounds.
Yet another reason why I love that the cmos battery Is usually strategically buried under components That requires Multiple threaded screws and/or other things too! You know if it's a really good board!
linus said shaft extension without any ounce of humor. That's how you know he really cares about the product and has been going back and forth about it for months lol
Only one thing I would add to this video. If you drop liquid into the PC, flip the PC on its side with the motherboard above the CPU and Video card so the liquid is dripping off vertical components while you get your cleaning supplies. I doubt people have several distilled water bottles sitting around. So, stopping the liquid from making its way through the case top, around the graphics card, down the motherboard, into the underside of sockets, and into your power supply while you drive to the nearest grocery store will likely save some components and cleaning time.
I would suggest being very careful to actually remove all moisture from below the GPU die/chip, as any water stuck by the solder balls will quickly evaporate under a gpu load and possibly break the gpu.
You _want_ any remaining moisture to evaporate, it's the remaining liquid that will cause problems. In my experience I got VRAM corruption when my card wasn't fully dried out. I gave it 45 minutes directly under a hot incandescent lamp and it started working again. Then I gave it another 45 minutes to make sure.
@@eDoc2020 of course you want it to evaporate, but not all at once when the gpu suddenly gets a heavy load did you not hear about the cases of gpu dies cracking/exploding due to moisture? can't remember exactly what cards had the issue but it was amd i think
@@Psyden5757 I have not heard of GPU dies cracking due to moisture. My hunch is that's most likely to happen if there's a large amount of moisture and liquid water moves onto a hot die. High power density would make this more likely to happen, low power density chips should be safer. Definitely start with low loads only (like the desktop) before jumping to heavy GPU loads.
6:50 no, but for real do NOT try this at home, those caps are no joke, and genuinely have the capacity to kill you if you don't know what you are doing. same goes for monitors btw, don't open monitors without a good understanding of their internals
Beside thes extremely useful tips, preventing is always better. Like choosing a case which has solid closed the top side at least and/or placing the case where something is defending if from any pouring liquid, like under the table or under a shelf. Eating, drinking not near the PC/desk is also an option.
Placing it out of the way of spills is a good idea, but most cases use the top to get good airflow My case is equipped for a full 360 rad in the top, and I have a 120mm exhaust there
old pc cases seem better in this regard since they dont have a mesh top. you get less cooling but if you spill water on the pc its still completely fine
I actually had this exact same scenario happen to me, more specifically, to my laptop, did everything you guys recommended, except the initial water bath, I went straight to the Isopropyl alcohol bath. In the end, everything turned out okay, except my keyboard, now it's all sticky and probably would've been okay if I had done the water bath. And when I said I did everything you said I mean everything, including the depression and fear of the worst. This happened almost 3 years ago and I still use that laptop quite regularly.
I once spilled water on my keyboard and still worked perfectly except for the space key and the volume down button at the top of the keyboard which were suddenly switched. Made for a few interesting csgo rounds :D
Disassemble the keyboard and put it into your dishwasher (no cleaner or detergent) and just let it run once. Make sure it's absolutely dry and put it back in. Should work fine after that.
This scenario showed an advantage to smaller builds. Most of them are on the desk which means while a spill might get on the lower edges or even splash the build, it will not likely dump into it. Also if you have a build "under" the desk your likewise a bit more protected.
This sort of negates the need to have any RGB as well. I got my first PC with RGB fans and a nice case with a glass side on it two years ago. For sure it has looked cool as hell, but after I rearranged my desk in my room to make space for VR, the only real spot I could put it was in the corner out of the way. I can't even see my PC really since its also behind my monitors in said corner of the room, but there is no way anything will spill on it. I'm more likely to spill something and ruin my keyboard or my mouse, which is way more preferable to spilling soda on a PC or laptop (which I have done!).
Same exact thing happend to me, I was just watching some youtube and I think to myself "I should probablly move that pepsi before it spills all over my pc" 30 seconds later I knock it over stright into exposed top grill of my pc. It immideatlly shut off and I instantlly go to unplug evreything from the back, I was especially devistated because I just got a new GPU (RX 6800). Fortunitlly I had an immenselly stupid ammount of luck on my side because after I unplugged it I couldn't find a way into the case so I just flipped it upside down and waited a day or two and it worked. still has been working to this day for over a year.
While totally agree on changing the power supply in case of spill over it, maybe don't throw it away but give it to someone with enough abilities to save it. Maybe only as salvage parts, but it's far away from unsalvageable.
I think the reason as to why they say to change the power supply isn't because it is still usable, but because it is dangerous, and thus by the time you can get it to someone who can take them apart safely, it may be too late for a lot of the PSU. I imagine of all of the components, it is the most sensitive to potential shorts. If it was in a basement with fan side down, then it may have a decent chance of still working though. I don't have any qualifications on this, so take what I say with a pinch of salt. Just don't open them up or mess with a PSU
Best method. I don’t even put coke in me. Acidic, sugary drink and got enough teeth issues. You only want to spill coffee. :). Even coffee is acidic, nice tho.
If you have pets (Cats, I'm looking at you🐈), having an "emergency kit" around your desk is a good idea. Paper towels, microfiber cloths and Q-Tips are a good start. Speed is everything as Linus states quite a bit here, so having this around is a great idea. As for the power supply, throw it out, period. nothing more needs to be said there. I love the motherboard cleaning ideas here as well. Actually, all of the ideas presented here are good ones. Great job Linus, very appreciated!
In 2022 I dropped a half of a can of coke zero straight into my 1 month old 7950X + Asus ProArt X670E board with 128gb of DDR5. I didn't do half of this stuff besides turning it off, drying it out and waiting for it to fully dry to see where there was residue. Then I went in with 91% Isopropyl Alcohol and wiped all those areas down with a microfiber cloth. It worked great, and soon after that I pulled it out of my Lian Li PC011D and threw it all into a rack. Recently upgraded to TRX50 and got a chance to fully pull the board and check it out. Not a bit of corrosion anywhere. Cleaned up the board once again as good housekeeping and threw it back into my rack as an upgrade to my office server!
That probably explains how a phone I've dropped in the toilet is still alive I turned it off in like 10 seconds i put it upright for a day hoping that everything will pour out and evaporate from the charge port, and it worked after
Love that the cinematic of zooming out from the globe showed it clearly zooming out of Japan instead of Canada where they are located. gotta love stock footage.
I got a solution for you all. If your PC is on the right side of the Desk, you never put any drinks there, you put them to your left. That's what I do. Still a great Video.
I've been following ltt for ages now, you guys got me into building PCs which is one of my favorit things to do! i am so happy you guys keep making content for us i really hope it never stops and this video specifically really reminded me of why I fell in love with this channel to begin with !! :) keep up the good work , you'll always have a follower in me ! ( definitely not a fanboy hahaha )
The editor for this video made my day with this video. Thank you. This was a fantastic video, and very informative! Hope to see more tutorial stuff like this in the future!
I've been told by my mother for the last like 5 years that we had tech tips at home (it was all Dawid Does Tech Stuff) but now I can actually say, I do indeed have tech tips at home. (I still love Dawid)
Fun fact: Extreme overclockers often use vaseline to insulate their hardware while LN2 overclocking. Cleaning that is a nightmare. So Roman, better known as "Der 8auer" just puts his hardware in the dishwasher 😂 Without any cleaning product of course. It seems to work fine, he made a video about that^^
Yep it works well. I dable in old pc kit, bought an old manky 440BX motherboard that had 25 years of crud on it. Into the dishwasher it went and came out as it shiny like back in 1999. Just dont wash it with filthy cookware and ensure you dry it for a day or two.
Not surprising, dishwaster on the low temp is 60-70°C and it drys with hot air and air flow just after. You need clean-ish water (some water are too hard) but that's manageable. Retro computing does that a lot too, you have to watch out some old lead soldering that can get softer at 90°C too
Hi Linus, i've head a situation like this also about a month ago where my little brother spilled juice all over my newly built gaming pc he nearly ruined it but i was lucky that i didn't plug it in i just had it laying around i was able to save all components i put my gpu on an radiator for a day and it worked! I was so happy about it.
Good job! That was really nice to see and I really had good hopes it would work as a father of 3 kids having saved a few electronic devices. As you said, the key is to act quickly! By the way if you need anyone testing that PC over a longer period of time, I am willing to take it home and report back with any Coke related issues! 😉
There are contactsprays available. (Honorable mention to WD 40 - Specialist with their straw design, I hate those seperate straws you loose easily.) They can help spraying out pci-e slots with a solution of iso alkalines etc. like Isopropyl alcohol does. Also very handy for automotive connectors that see grime and dirt etc. (and for green battery schmoo in AA etc. compartments).
They actually had 2 cans of CRC electrical cleaner on the bench at the start of the video, I'm surprised they didn't use or at least mention them at all. They can ruin some plastics though... tried to use it to clean the speed switch of an old pedestal fan I had and the housing started cracking and popping apart haha. Had to hard wire the fan for speed 3 for the rest of its life.
Good to know!@@Shibby7634 I haven't found any material except for wood varnish that the WD40 variant had a negative effect on. Turns out I've "organically" done quite a bit of testing. I use it in applications where IPA would be used to clean a surface for applying an adhesive... Works great :D (and doesn't dry out the skin. As one's able to spray it on the surface and then wipe without getting it on the skin.)
Last year I spilled a ton of orange juice on my laptop keyboard and I just flipped it over and left it overnight and and it worked the next day. Kinda funny how resilient electronics can be.
As someone who accidentally spilled an entire cup of Pepsi into my PC while I was playing Diablo III, I can really appreciate the detailed steps! Big THANK YOU! I acted quickly and turned off the power supply and then meticulously cleaned each component with some paper towels and then some wet towels. I really didn't find any tutorials back them and I missed a step that you explained: RINSE it again with some water and then the alcohol. I say this because after all the work, when all the components have dried up, the dust settled on the tiny spots that I have missed with my cleaning technique :) . If I have done the rinse rest assured that there were no more marks/spots where the dust will settle like that. In the end, my story has a happy ending, no component was destroyed in the incident and the PC is working fine even on this day, after 8h (now it's my son's PC).
I learned about being able to recover tech when I spilt EAA Drink all over my decade old Ducky Keyboard - I was like "ah heck yea let's get a new one fudge it" but then I felt such immense guilt of giving up on my companion so easily. I checked the ressources, let it dry, gave it a proper cleaning, tried again, didn't really work, used solvent, gave her a bath, let it dry very very long, tested it, worked! then I re-lubed her up and I'm so greatful for videos like this and even (dare I say it) reddit for teaching me how my consumer ways were wrong and maintaining your companions is the key to a enviromentally friendly life!
@@faceplants2i should probably buy some sort of a baby bottle, because i don't think i can fix being clumsy. At the moment i just have 2 identical keyboards and i switch them up when i spill water on them.
This feels like an LTT video from a decade ago…and it’ll be relevant a decade from now too. Good stuff.
Actually though. When this first came up on my Autoplay I thought it was an old video I'd seen before and habitually clicked off it-
Only saw the upload notification two hours later-
Certified hood classic
08:43 even has the old cracked Note 9
It feels the same, but the polish and depth is greater, and honestly, so are my expectations. Nice to see LTT still pushing.
especially with the GeForce GTX
As someone with years of experience doing exactly this, you nailed it!
One thing to highlight: Drying REALLY takes forever! Water can remain under chips for days if it's cold. Here in Australia we can just put boards in the sun during summer (it was 42°c today) but the rest of you will have to figure some other way (radiant heaters + a fan work well).
Time lapse or a fairly precise "9 hours , 48 minutes later"
Ain't it a gamble to use the sun? Depending on the temperature the heat, sunlight, or UV radiation could damage some components.
@@Un1234l yeah same question, wouldn't the sun damage the components as well?
The dunking in alcohol tip afterward was pretty smart though, alcohol dries MUCH faster.
@@Un1234lYes, but the smart decision is to put it in the shade and let the hot ambient air temperature do the work.
You get it into a comprehensive rehabilitation program and make sure it knows it has a strong (tech) support network. Coke is no joke.
That's why Pepsi is better
@@techguy943 whoosh
@@awolr ...I think they got it man.
You wooshed @@awolr
@@awolrthey got it
As someone who hit a can of coke over the top of my pc, EXACTLY THE SAME WAY U DID IN THE VIDEO.
I can say, THIS MAY HAVE BEEN HELPFUL TO KNOW.
I remember knocking the can over, hearing the windows usb connected noises from the front io, and seeing the coke pour down directly into my extremely cheap psu.
Then just waiting a night and then starting it the next day and everything worked 😎
even better is i done this 2 months ago with the same corsair case and said whats the possiblity and freeked out
Same thing happened to me, but it was a laptop.
I sandwiched a towel between the screen and keyboard for about an hour to try and get as much moister out as possible, then propped it up next to a fan for the rest of the night.
Worked for years after, I kept it around until one day when I dropped it and broke the screen so I finally just chucked it out.
Never did it over a pc but I knocked a can of fizzy pop over my keyboard and as I was whiping it all down, I pissin knocked the can over again just incase the keyboard survived 😭 remember to always double tap
@@eliottdewitt893 I don't know how, but I knocked water on my keyboard and it somehow made my whole computer shutdown. Thankfully a night being blasted with a fan resolved everything.
The three common phases of spilling a fluid on your computer:
- Complete and utter panic.
- Severe, life-threatening depression
- Realisation that the single damaged part was an SSD.
Then depression again as you didn't practice proper backup methodology and lost all the data on the drive.
If I were to spill something on my computer, I’d probably rather have the ram soaked
I had my step daughter knock my coffee cup off my desk years ago, and spilled it all over my AMD Phenom II X6 desktop that was underneath my desk for space reasons, and after being in panic mode, and a bit mad, as it was not salvageable, I was actually really happy, as it gave me a good excuse to do a new system build, with my wife not being mad at me for spending the money 😅
I would honestly rather have every other component get fried and catch fire rather than lose my data.
Funnily enough, I once spilled my ramen on my laptop and the ssd was the only part I could save...
I knew that water cannot be conductive if there aren't any free floating ions to conduct, but it still felt so weird seeing a motherboard getting drenched in water
The most exciting part of pure water being nonconductive is the moment it touches ANYTHING that purity is gone.
@@Dustquakestill doesn't matter when there's no electricity
@@sapusevenAye, never said otherwise.
@@Dustquake I know, just think it's interesting that electronics are so resistant to water when it's turned off
A company I worked for had a bad run with motherboards from some producer. They bought a cleaning machine able to run a motherboard through a water bath. This fixed more than 90% of the failing motherboards so they ran all the new boards of that brand through the cleaner before powering them. It eliminated motherboards failure almost perfectly.
Same company bought a memory tester that could test a batch of 16 modules at a time. This was back quite some time, and it was unable to work with DDR memory or newer. Expensive little machine that saved a lot of memory problems as it tested for a lot of bad situations such as bad energy stability, low or high voltage and other stuff you really cant test with a diagnostic software on a standard machine. Memory that proved problematic was also run through the water cleaner, saving some parts of the bad units.
All of this was before I started working there so I only saw the machines, never had a need to use them.
Year 2014: My friend accidentally poured tea on to my PC (in off state btw). I didn't had any backup PC at that time to even lookup online and I only used my phone for all the research. Trust me, there was not a single comprehensive guide and steps to handle that situation, and it took me almost a week to clean and dry everything and get my PC up & running all by myself. Thanks to all the random Reddit answers!!
But this one by LTT is so informative and gives the confidence to pour soda on PCs (Kidding). Cheers to the team!
My friend in elementary school begged his step father for a pc, only to fry it a month later because he spilled water on it(he forgot to dry the power strip). He was not welcome in his mother house soon after, completely changed his life trajectory to the worse.
My brother around that same year spilled coffee (his, I dont drink coffee) all over my laptop. It had sugar and milk in it lol
To this day he will say he thought I was going to murder him, but what I did was immediately jump up, turn it off, flip it over to pour coffee out, etc. The thing worked for a year ish after the cleaning and having to replace the keyboard then something failed so it would turn on for a split second then power itself off.
@@Music-xp5wg Dude got disowned for frying his PC?
Shit...
Sounds like a terrible mother@@Music-xp5wg
Im just imagining someone freaking out, pulling up this video, and sitting there with the 1000 yard stare as linus talks about the LTT Store screwdriver
Absolutely me rn I just turned everything off hoping local shop can help me
This is my right now
@noir3132 Any updates? Spilled some sugary liqueur on my mobo and gum. Brand new build a week old abouts, a 7800xt finally wracked up the cash for it and this happens... Letting it dry, no iso alcohol ATM so driving to the shop tmrw. Stressing balls
I genuinely enjoy the recent “creative” video ideas LTT has made. The editing and production has been great, keep it up guys!
No joke, these types of videos are why I watch LTT.
This was one of the most "Tip" LTT videos in a while - nice to see, especially since The Ultimate Build Guide kind of killed off non-novelty builds
for anyone watching this video, i'm an electronics engineer... skip the towels, you want to take your GPU and stick it directly under the shower head. you're racing against time to where the soda and sugars in it don't dry out and/or start corroding very important contacts in your electronics. put the gpu under the shower, keep it there, turning it around, until water coming out of it is super clean. then, take the heatsink off immediately, clean off the paste, and dump it in a bucket of IPA (>95% alcohol) so it's fully submerged. move it around a bunch, then take it out and wait for the IPA to dry off. then dunk it again. do that a few times. do the same thing with the metal part of your heatsink, but do NOT put the plastic in there. you want to do the same thing with the motherboard and cpu as well. if you don't have enough IPA to do this, temporarily put your gpu, motherboard, and cpu and the metallic heatsinks in a CLEAN (no soap residual!) tub with at least a couple inches above it, while you go to the store and get a few gallons of IPA that you'll need. Since the parts remain submerged, the water will not put any residuals on the boards by drying out.
DO NOT USE PRESSURIZED AIR, it can contain oil and other chemicals that will mess up the conductivity of your contacts.
but @@cheater00 didnt linus said to avoid tap water to clean it because it contains minerals that are certainly conductive? or the Isoprophyl Alcohol bath will get those anyway?
@@mgdarkk a deep bath in IPA will displace the water, then the IPA will dry out. Water doesn't leave residue without drying out, so you can leave it sitting in tap water for a few hours while you get your IPA (especially if it's night or very late). Your #1 objective is to submerge the components in water as soon as possible and remove the soda. Once it dries out it's way more damaging and harder to get rid of. Just don't leave fans sitting in water. Rinse them off right after putting the electronics in the water bath.
yea good video
@@mgdarkk no matter how bad your tap water is, its going to be way better than coke. as long as it stays wet, then goes in the IPA it should be fine. the 'hard' parts of the tap water should not be a an issue unless they are left to dry.
I spilled soda inside the top of my pc when I was younger, pc shut down and everything upon doing so and I definitely had a small breakdown before attempting to fix. Safe to say even to this day that old 2gb Asus 760 is still being used by my older brother I can still see the soda spots on the pcb and it still works 10 years later :)
That made me smile :)
Haha, you got lucky! I shared a comment just now about a similar experience where I was not so lucky. I even spent about thirty minutes with qtips and rubbing alcohol trying to clean the PCB off desperately. To be a kid again 😔
I had an 8350 system that had lemonade dr pepper sweet tea 3 cans of sparkling water and the worst, apple cider, thing ran till last year. It was miserable and it was basically a Frankenstein from what i did too the thing. But it worked. I had to lower the overclock after the apple cider and that scared me.
what about ants? did it get ants?
a friend of mine spilled coke on the top of my pc too. It didnt shut down, i cleaned as soon as posible and it still working
the editing on this video is excellent, it adds to the show, while not taking away from the information being told. Props to the team at LTT.
Is it really? I found the little editing jokes very primitive and childish. Like the one with the clown nose and hair, or the big eyes, or the home run... It's like a video catering to kids somehow. Made me wonder how long that useless stuff takes. I guess it's nice that the editors have time for jokes, but I feel like it would've been better spent taking a break at this point...
Yeah it's pretty cool, but it's not true that capacitors in psu will still power your pc if you unplug the cable while it's still running.
Notice that split second when you unplug your pc and it still runs and then shuts off? That's your capacitors getting drained.
Also it's worth mentioning that a good psu will detect shorts/overload and cut power before you can do it.
Btw that little battery on mobo just saves cmos settings and keeps time.. it's really low current too, so I don't even think it's strong enough to fry anything and if it does at best it will only kill mobo.
And here I'm wondering why in the intro they were pulling back from their office in Surrey then ended up pulling back from Japan when they showed the globe.
I absolutely love these more down to earth troubleshooting videos. They are exciting, informative, and has alot of the life that got me into the channel. I know they are likely not worth it to shoot and produce but i love them every time
Absolutely. I'm not saying every video needs to be like this - that'd probably not be sustainable money wise. But once in a while it's nice to get these "linus does stupid stuff but it's genuinely entertaining and informative" videos where not every single detail is shipped but usually explained.
Agree wholeheartedly! @@vffa this is why I subbed to the channel, Linus is a great presenter and I love learning useful shit!
Been a while since I actually learned something in an LTT video. Water, then alcohol bathing is a great troubleshooting step. I'd love to see a version of this with a battery powered device like a laptop or tablet. The troubleshooting steps are similar but still wildly different due to the dangers of batteries.
Not much would change other than removing the battery before the dip
it's the same, you just unplug the battery first and then paper wipes, water, alcohol
I recommend Louis Rossman videos for that experience. (It’s probably going to blow something up on the board while you’re looking for your iFixit kit to get the right screwdriver to disconnect the battery.)
If its an apple you just hurl it into a river. Non removable batteries and drives means that a spill like this will 100% destroy every component and all data.
@@Idiomatickfairly sure that most mobile phones don’t have removable main drives, not just apple ones. Removable batteries are also very very rare on modern smartphones
Wow, I didn’t realize that all of Canada was inside of Japan. I learned something in the first 17 seconds of a video. You guys are great.
Japanada
Just noticed it, lol
Maps are a lie.
The white residue left from isopropyl can sometimes be resin salts formed from a chemical reaction between the solder flux and the isopropyl. Depending on if the manufacturer properly cleaned the board or not, this stuff will be unavoidable and really hard to get off. So it's wise to check is there is flux left on the board or not before dunking it in isopropyl.
Most computor parts are fully cleaned in the manufacturing process, but if you got some budget items in your build, there's a chance they havn't been. So always check the board first before applying isopropyl, even if by hand with cotton or something, to clean it.
Love the video concept. Early on you said something about "as long as you haven't flooded the entire room..." i'd really enjoy seeing that put to the test if possible! (i woke up to my apartment covered in 3 feet of water, completely covering my gaming pc)
I think at that point you've got bigger problems than worrying about your gaming PC
Your APARTMENT? You live on the ground floor, right?
@@gprtech you should've seen the recent floods in Europe
Der8euer did a series on a flood damaged PC 2years ago, it is worth checking it out
No.... 3 feet of cola?? Hmmm yum.
4:29 - When SLI was a thing...I had 3 way SLI on a UD7. The top card took "the brunt of the spill" or in my case the entire res pumped on to it. The res being a fish tank. Of the 3 cards 2 of them were done. But the one that survived...Wouldn't you know it was the one that took the brunt of it. Fun times.
Maybe because the top card only got water, whereas the other two got water contaminated by all the dirt, dust and miscellaneous shmoo which has accumulated in the top card...
Love How happy and excited linus seemed in this video. He clearly enjoyed this alot.
I have used an automotive paint spray gun on motherboards.. but instead of paint, I fill the tank with alcohol.. powered wash. I have also used a sand blaster with the sand feed tube inserted into distilled water, then alcohol. Biggest thing that Linus missed.. the rams.. I place under a heat lamp (or in summer, on the car dash) to bake out the liquid. Fans don't get enough air flow under the surface mount chips for proper drying. Car dash works great for baking out the liquid solvents. If the soda is dryed, no laughing... I have also used dish washer top rack.
god i want a dishwasher save video so bad now
Dishwashers us salt. Not a good idea. @@animal579
Probably one of your best videos in recent times. Super helpful for when disaster strikes.
BTW one very important tip you forgot: the block on thst AIO has an LCD on it and dipping an LCD in liquid is a great way to immediately kill it so definitely don't dunk that in water or alcohol.
Yeah any liquid getting into an LCD gets between the layers of the LCD and you get water spots and the like in there for the rest of the life of the product. Probably wouldn't matter too much on an AIO though if it's "spotty screen vs working pump". Also I think many of them are using oled these days which may not have that issue? But yeah this is a big trap for new players and an important point to make. IT sounds like you also learnt that one the hard way ;-)
@@zyeborm I fortunately didn't learn that the hard way. First time I noticed an LCD actually has liquid was when my Gameboy Pocket's LCD started leaking.
@@Muscleduck ahh. It's not the liquid itself that'll generally be sealed up. It's the external liquid getting in between the sheets that causes the real issue.
Wife dropped her switch in a puddle. I stripped and cleaned it like this video but it still has water spots in the screen and the iso didn't help. I think if I tried splitting and washing the individual sheets inside the LCD it'd be ok but that's pretty risky so I just left it until she got the OLED version.
In 2016 I did this exact thing (full can of soda into the top of my computer). I turned it off immediately and thought for sure I destroyed my fairly new PC, but resigned myself to doing my best to clean it out before it dried to give it the best chance of revival. Amazingly about 24 hours later I turned it on and everything worked! I had that PC for another 5 years before I upgraded, and it was still working at that point, I just really wanted a new CPU/GPU. #1 and #2 most important things like Linus said is turning it off immediately, and then disconnecting all power from the components.
Snort it up?
Even if you just let it dry for 2 days the worst that will happen is having sugary gunk all over your components. There is no way corrosion will kill it from any accidental spill unless you somehow manage to flood it and let it swim in there for days before draining it. Components are not that fragile and everything Linus showed here is more likely to do damage if the person doing it has no idea how to properly do it, than the original spill.
your mileage may vary i spilled a bowl of ramen in my pc and my psu basically exploded shit aint sweet
Fantasy
Seeing the excitement and happiness in Linus' eyes doing this kind of video just shows his passion for the actual tech support, maybe focus more on this type of video and less on the latest and greatest new bit of tech
When i was 13, this happened to me. Half a can of pepsi right down in there. It was at a big LAN event. I ripped the power cable out and got some paper towels in there. That took the worst. Then i plugged it right back in, like nothing happened, and played on. The pc still works 100% fine, 6 years after.
Edit: Paper towels was removed before turning on pc.
Step one: DON'T PANIC
alternatively... PANICK
Step two: PANICK
Step two: don't drop the pc
Step 0: Don't put a soda ontop of your gaming PC.
Step two: Cry
This brings great awareness to those who have suffered liquid damage and to understand the outcome that things may or may not survive 🙏🏼
It helps a lot to move the parts inside the cleaning liquids (water and alcohol) for some time. 2-3 minutes per parts can be a difference between life and death of your stuff. It helps to solve things that you don't want in your PC.
The way my brain folded when he dropped motherboard into a bucket of water is unprecedented.
All and All fantastic advice. When im working on a liquid damaged devices after cleaning, its always a good tip to isolate issues with minimal systems. Start with the bare min components to post, and add components 1 by 1. That way if more then one component has a failure you don't go chasing rabbit holes trying to find the cause.
15:19 the greatest technician that ever lived monent
This makes me feel SO MUCH BETTER about my builds. I've been building my own rigs for almost 20 years and it's nice to know that you guys have the same issues I encounter.
4:22 "I'm going to begin with the gpu....A"
For a split second I thought this was the Canadian in Linus coming out, lol.
I really enjoy these types of videos. I also appreciate the different filming style. It's interesting the way you're bringing more 'Linus' back into Linus Tech Tips. I appreciate the quality of the videos. Thanks, LTT, for the many years of entertainment, education, and memes.
These really are the real tech tips we need
Insightful and informative! Really good LTT content right here
True, though I would argue that opening a PSU is less dangerous than dumping it in water, not sure why they closed to put the former option in the video rather than the latter 😅
12:39
It’s such a specific reference that I haven’t thought about in so long
Great to see LTT do a video like this again. Super useful stuff, and both comprehensive, understandable, and largely accurate. The only thing missing IMO is what to do if you see traces of corrosion or weird residues, like the image that flashed on screen for half a second after the bath/rinse process. A light scrub with a toothbrush and some IPA can go a _long_ way towards getting rid of corrosion on and around electronic components, often (though obviously not always) to the degree that it bring a non-working part back to life*. Oh, and to be honest I'd add a caveat to the "step 2: dab dry" part: if you've got the water to soak it already at hand, skip directly to this step, as drying it off increases the chance of tiny droplets of gunk being left behind, drying out, and thus becoming more difficult to remove in a wash/rinse step. Let any excessive gunk run/drip off, then straight into the bath after removing heatsinks and other stuff. The less time spent between spill, wash and drying, the better, and a tub of water will remove your coke better than any paper towel.
* If you're wondering, the reason for things not working might be as simple as corrosion changing the resistance and capacitance of the circuits in questions, which can cause all sorts of issues causing, say, a GPU or motherboard to refuse to turn on, but which might go away entirely when the corrosion is removed. But as with all liquid damage, YMMV!
Yeah.. you're gonna want to avoid getting distilled water or any other kind of fluid on your RGB fans aswell.
Depending on the type of LED it can in fact absorb the moisture and short out.
That's why addressable RGB strips and some RGB keyboards suddenly shine a different hue.
Ohhhh i have an orange key i can't change anymore on my rgb keyboard, it is the only key that got spilled on with soda. That explains that
@@derAtze BRO SAME THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH ITS EITHER ORANGE OR YELLOW it totally just got wet and I can have a distilled water coming out of my tap and it coulda been a glass of that makes so much sense oml
Especially the Isopropanol, the fan bearings are gonna be dry af
@@flyingby3703 Linus always overlooks the lube...
That sounds wrong, smd LEDs are encased in plastic like most other components, but what seems more likely is that corrosion causes one color to work worse/break. So drying it well is important just like with the rest of the components.
For the mechanical components like bearings it makes sense, since the lubricant will also get removed.
You know, as someone who recently had a leak on the roof because of heavy rain these video reinforces a lot of my experience dealing with components and some form of liquid, would have loved to have this video a few months ago but very luckily mi entire computer survived the water. Still amazing content, always love these experimental videos!!!
Once I accidently spilled an entire glass of lemonade into my pc. My coolermaster radiator was mounted on top, so it slowed it down enough that I had time to quickly flip my pc upside down. A little got on my 1080, its sitcky to this day from the sugar. I kept the pc running upside down and I had no issues with it since. This happened 5 years ago.
An actual Tech Tip 🖤
Can we please have more of this kind of content?!
I do love his Tech Tips, he's a Tech Wiz Kid, but this is actually more like a Cleaning Tip. But I'd say, his cleaning tips are far better than his past "working with tools" tips. He does at least admit in those he's not too proficient with them, so the fails are still funny to watch. Instead, he did almost everything correctly in this one.
I never knew LTT was located in Japan! How interesting :)
I feel like if I were to spill anything on my computer I would be lucky enough for it to happen during a bios update.
@@33gles are outages that common?
That fear is why I now have a UPS that way I have long enough to finish
9:07 "dont hoard snacks uwu"
I know ltt used to do alot of videos on troubleshooting, but I would love to see more of it. It's my favourite kind of ltt, even if we tread old grounds.
Yet another reason why I love that the cmos battery Is usually strategically buried under components That requires Multiple threaded screws and/or other things too! You know if it's a really good board!
I love LTT videos like this. this is such a realistic scenario for many. great video!
🤣 NOBODY's gonna tell me Linus is a BAD actor! xD amazing intro. Great video.
I just wanted to leave a comment and say I really enjoyed this video. This kind of content is super entertaining and educational. Love to see it
linus said shaft extension without any ounce of humor. That's how you know he really cares about the product and has been going back and forth about it for months lol
One of the best videos you guys have ever made I think. Not just the concept but actual video.
Only one thing I would add to this video. If you drop liquid into the PC, flip the PC on its side with the motherboard above the CPU and Video card so the liquid is dripping off vertical components while you get your cleaning supplies. I doubt people have several distilled water bottles sitting around. So, stopping the liquid from making its way through the case top, around the graphics card, down the motherboard, into the underside of sockets, and into your power supply while you drive to the nearest grocery store will likely save some components and cleaning time.
I would suggest being very careful to actually remove all moisture from below the GPU die/chip, as any water stuck by the solder balls will quickly evaporate under a gpu load and possibly break the gpu.
You _want_ any remaining moisture to evaporate, it's the remaining liquid that will cause problems. In my experience I got VRAM corruption when my card wasn't fully dried out. I gave it 45 minutes directly under a hot incandescent lamp and it started working again. Then I gave it another 45 minutes to make sure.
@@eDoc2020 of course you want it to evaporate, but not all at once when the gpu suddenly gets a heavy load
did you not hear about the cases of gpu dies cracking/exploding due to moisture? can't remember exactly what cards had the issue but it was amd i think
@@Psyden5757 I have not heard of GPU dies cracking due to moisture. My hunch is that's most likely to happen if there's a large amount of moisture and liquid water moves onto a hot die. High power density would make this more likely to happen, low power density chips should be safer. Definitely start with low loads only (like the desktop) before jumping to heavy GPU loads.
6:50 no, but for real do NOT try this at home, those caps are no joke, and genuinely have the capacity to kill you if you don't know what you are doing.
same goes for monitors btw, don't open monitors without a good understanding of their internals
Beside thes extremely useful tips, preventing is always better. Like choosing a case which has solid closed the top side at least and/or placing the case where something is defending if from any pouring liquid, like under the table or under a shelf. Eating, drinking not near the PC/desk is also an option.
Placing it out of the way of spills is a good idea, but most cases use the top to get good airflow
My case is equipped for a full 360 rad in the top, and I have a 120mm exhaust there
As someone who's spilled Pepsi on my desk or keyboard numerous times, I make sure my tower is UNDER my desk, far away from where spills can land.
This also pretty much applies to water cooling spills
having your PC attached to the wall over your head helps
Imagine needing this video asap and then youtube drops you with 2 or more unskippable ads
Apparently it was so horrifying that LMG moved entirely to Japan from the force of the panic.
Glad I'm not the only one who noticed 😂😂
Wdym
The zoom-out at 0:16 starts centered on Japan @@user-ch7px6vt7r
@@user-ch7px6vt7r When it zooms out to show the Earth as he yells it shows Japan instead of Western Canada
@@the_one_titan Well, Canada isn't real anyway
old pc cases seem better in this regard since they dont have a mesh top. you get less cooling but if you spill water on the pc its still completely fine
Preventative step one:
**put your PC on your desk so if you spell Coke the worst it’s gonna hit is a side panel**
I've had many arguments with my GF about this. She listened after she swiped a freshly opened can right onto her bed, missing the PC by about 15cm.
i knew Linus had addiction issues when he got addicted to the wet headphones ads...
I actually had this exact same scenario happen to me, more specifically, to my laptop, did everything you guys recommended, except the initial water bath, I went straight to the Isopropyl alcohol bath.
In the end, everything turned out okay, except my keyboard, now it's all sticky and probably would've been okay if I had done the water bath.
And when I said I did everything you said I mean everything, including the depression and fear of the worst.
This happened almost 3 years ago and I still use that laptop quite regularly.
Sugar and some other stuff doesn't really desolve in alcohol so you'd need a waterbath to get rid of that.
I once spilled water on my keyboard and still worked perfectly except for the space key and the volume down button at the top of the keyboard which were suddenly switched. Made for a few interesting csgo rounds :D
Disassemble the keyboard and put it into your dishwasher (no cleaner or detergent) and just let it run once. Make sure it's absolutely dry and put it back in. Should work fine after that.
what about battery?
@@vffa thanks for the suggestion, but I can’t do that, the keyboard is non-removable.
This scenario showed an advantage to smaller builds. Most of them are on the desk which means while a spill might get on the lower edges or even splash the build, it will not likely dump into it. Also if you have a build "under" the desk your likewise a bit more protected.
This sort of negates the need to have any RGB as well. I got my first PC with RGB fans and a nice case with a glass side on it two years ago. For sure it has looked cool as hell, but after I rearranged my desk in my room to make space for VR, the only real spot I could put it was in the corner out of the way.
I can't even see my PC really since its also behind my monitors in said corner of the room, but there is no way anything will spill on it. I'm more likely to spill something and ruin my keyboard or my mouse, which is way more preferable to spilling soda on a PC or laptop (which I have done!).
Exactly. My next build is going under my desk in a climate controlled, air filtered cabinet away from everything 😂
@@thejinn99 I have pc with rgb and it was enough for 5 min and i just unplug the rgb forever.
Same exact thing happend to me, I was just watching some youtube and I think to myself "I should probablly move that pepsi before it spills all over my pc" 30 seconds later I knock it over stright into exposed top grill of my pc. It immideatlly shut off and I instantlly go to unplug evreything from the back, I was especially devistated because I just got a new GPU (RX 6800). Fortunitlly I had an immenselly stupid ammount of luck on my side because after I unplugged it I couldn't find a way into the case so I just flipped it upside down and waited a day or two and it worked. still has been working to this day for over a year.
Linus' scream echoing out of Vancover suddenly left earth from Japan :D
While totally agree on changing the power supply in case of spill over it, maybe don't throw it away but give it to someone with enough abilities to save it. Maybe only as salvage parts, but it's far away from unsalvageable.
I think the reason as to why they say to change the power supply isn't because it is still usable, but because it is dangerous, and thus by the time you can get it to someone who can take them apart safely, it may be too late for a lot of the PSU. I imagine of all of the components, it is the most sensitive to potential shorts. If it was in a basement with fan side down, then it may have a decent chance of still working though.
I don't have any qualifications on this, so take what I say with a pinch of salt. Just don't open them up or mess with a PSU
@@TazerXI I have the qualification on this, that's why I'm saying it.
@@Ale-bj7nd oh OK, ignore me then
@@TazerXI Yeah, fixing this isn't a big deal. But Linus can't advise novices to do something potentially dangerous.
This just gave me a new fear. Thank you Linus, I will never put a drink near my desk ever again now.
Have a liquid container you can close at least.
Best method. I don’t even put coke in me. Acidic, sugary drink and got enough teeth issues. You only want to spill coffee. :). Even coffee is acidic, nice tho.
They definitely didn't know you would do this to their PC.
If you have pets (Cats, I'm looking at you🐈), having an "emergency kit" around your desk is a good idea. Paper towels, microfiber cloths and Q-Tips are a good start. Speed is everything as Linus states quite a bit here, so having this around is a great idea.
As for the power supply, throw it out, period. nothing more needs to be said there. I love the motherboard cleaning ideas here as well. Actually, all of the ideas presented here are good ones. Great job Linus, very appreciated!
If you have pets and keep your PC below your desk or a shelf you are asking for bad things to happen
In 2022 I dropped a half of a can of coke zero straight into my 1 month old 7950X + Asus ProArt X670E board with 128gb of DDR5. I didn't do half of this stuff besides turning it off, drying it out and waiting for it to fully dry to see where there was residue. Then I went in with 91% Isopropyl Alcohol and wiped all those areas down with a microfiber cloth. It worked great, and soon after that I pulled it out of my Lian Li PC011D and threw it all into a rack. Recently upgraded to TRX50 and got a chance to fully pull the board and check it out. Not a bit of corrosion anywhere. Cleaned up the board once again as good housekeeping and threw it back into my rack as an upgrade to my office server!
Reacting fast is key. If _you_ turn it off, there's a chance. If it turns _itself_ off, it's a salvage op.
That probably explains how a phone I've dropped in the toilet is still alive
I turned it off in like 10 seconds
i put it upright for a day hoping that everything will pour out and evaporate from the charge port, and it worked after
Love that the cinematic of zooming out from the globe showed it clearly zooming out of Japan instead of Canada where they are located. gotta love stock footage.
Ive never spilled anything on or in my pc but this video makes me want to super clean my pc
10:34 I know it's distilled water, but still it feels wrong!! 😂
Yeah
I got a solution for you all. If your PC is on the right side of the Desk, you never put any drinks there, you put them to your left. That's what I do. Still a great Video.
SURPRISE! your little sibling runs in and trips throwing the open coke on the top of your PC!
@@Raptor-Jesus easy, don't have siblings.
I certainly wouldn't have any after they spilled a drink over my PC lmao@@F1rstp3rson
@@F1rstp3rson
"Mother."
"Yes, Raptor Jesus?"
"Do you see my brother?"
"Yes, why?"
"I want him removed."
I've been following ltt for ages now, you guys got me into building PCs which is one of my favorit things to do! i am so happy you guys keep making content for us i really hope it never stops and this video specifically really reminded me of why I fell in love with this channel to begin with !! :) keep up the good work , you'll always have a follower in me ! ( definitely not a fanboy hahaha )
The editor for this video made my day with this video. Thank you.
This was a fantastic video, and very informative! Hope to see more tutorial stuff like this in the future!
They didn't have to do they eyes tho *shudder* lol
Feels like Im watching a mid 2000's MTV show like Pimp Your Ride
I've been told by my mother for the last like 5 years that we had tech tips at home (it was all Dawid Does Tech Stuff) but now I can actually say, I do indeed have tech tips at home. (I still love Dawid)
Fun fact: Extreme overclockers often use vaseline to insulate their hardware while LN2 overclocking. Cleaning that is a nightmare. So Roman, better known as "Der 8auer" just puts his hardware in the dishwasher 😂 Without any cleaning product of course. It seems to work fine, he made a video about that^^
Yep it works well. I dable in old pc kit, bought an old manky 440BX motherboard that had 25 years of crud on it. Into the dishwasher it went and came out as it shiny like back in 1999. Just dont wash it with filthy cookware and ensure you dry it for a day or two.
Not surprising, dishwaster on the low temp is 60-70°C and it drys with hot air and air flow just after.
You need clean-ish water (some water are too hard) but that's manageable.
Retro computing does that a lot too, you have to watch out some old lead soldering that can get softer at 90°C too
Hi Linus, i've head a situation like this also about a month ago where my little brother spilled juice all over my newly built gaming pc he nearly ruined it but i was lucky that i didn't plug it in i just had it laying around i was able to save all components i put my gpu on an radiator for a day and it worked! I was so happy about it.
My TH-cam app crashed here lmao 0:05
I would also crash there
Good job! That was really nice to see and I really had good hopes it would work as a father of 3 kids having saved a few electronic devices. As you said, the key is to act quickly! By the way if you need anyone testing that PC over a longer period of time, I am willing to take it home and report back with any Coke related issues! 😉
So nice of linus to make a personalized tutorial for xqc
Great video! Would love to see another one almost exactly like this but with a laptop.
Great video, this was quite informative! Please make more of this type content like you used long ago!
Extremely helpful! I have liquid-cooled pc and I've always been terrified if anything ever went wrong
There are contactsprays available. (Honorable mention to WD 40 - Specialist with their straw design, I hate those seperate straws you loose easily.) They can help spraying out pci-e slots with a solution of iso alkalines etc. like Isopropyl alcohol does.
Also very handy for automotive connectors that see grime and dirt etc. (and for green battery schmoo in AA etc. compartments).
They actually had 2 cans of CRC electrical cleaner on the bench at the start of the video, I'm surprised they didn't use or at least mention them at all. They can ruin some plastics though... tried to use it to clean the speed switch of an old pedestal fan I had and the housing started cracking and popping apart haha. Had to hard wire the fan for speed 3 for the rest of its life.
Good to know!@@Shibby7634 I haven't found any material except for wood varnish that the WD40 variant had a negative effect on.
Turns out I've "organically" done quite a bit of testing. I use it in applications where IPA would be used to clean a surface for applying an adhesive... Works great :D (and doesn't dry out the skin. As one's able to spray it on the surface and then wipe without getting it on the skin.)
WD40 is not a good contact cleaner, I wouldn't recommend it for sensitive applications.
@@tomsixsix Are we talking about the same WD40-Specialist Contactspray? I am not talking about the regular one :)
@@tomsixsix WD-40 is just the brand now, they make all kindssss of different cleaners and lubricants these days.
Last year I spilled a ton of orange juice on my laptop keyboard and I just flipped it over and left it overnight and and it worked the next day. Kinda funny how resilient electronics can be.
still works to this day?
this is actually so fun to watch and may be one of the best Techy Tipsy videos of LTT ever xD
Tech Tipsy should be a new series.
Linus has to build a pc while shit-faced.
0:11 the slot machine sounds triggered my The Finals flashbacks
Brooo the finals is so good
Holy crap, actual tech tips
Exactly what I was thinking
As someone who accidentally spilled an entire cup of Pepsi into my PC while I was playing Diablo III, I can really appreciate the detailed steps! Big THANK YOU!
I acted quickly and turned off the power supply and then meticulously cleaned each component with some paper towels and then some wet towels. I really didn't find any tutorials back them and I missed a step that you explained: RINSE it again with some water and then the alcohol. I say this because after all the work, when all the components have dried up, the dust settled on the tiny spots that I have missed with my cleaning technique :) . If I have done the rinse rest assured that there were no more marks/spots where the dust will settle like that.
In the end, my story has a happy ending, no component was destroyed in the incident and the PC is working fine even on this day, after 8h (now it's my son's PC).
Have you ever got the no signal when they happen? Like no monitor display? I just did the same but now I have no display smh
The editing here is really fun.
LTT seems to be back in game with quality content.
You discharged into pure alcohol? That is a fire hazard
Its fine, for all parts except PSU. Thats why he used ISO
When I was 10 I opened up the PSU on my moms 2001 dell and honestly, It's a miracle I'm still here
12:57 this gave me immense anxiety
The way Linus is hitting those tumblers makes it very clear he’s not kidding when he says he never drinks.
The floatplane BTS on the intro showed that Linus was drinking apple juice.
Wow an actual factual useful tech tip. Good job LMG
I learned about being able to recover tech when I spilt EAA Drink all over my decade old Ducky Keyboard - I was like "ah heck yea let's get a new one fudge it" but then I felt such immense guilt of giving up on my companion so easily. I checked the ressources, let it dry, gave it a proper cleaning, tried again, didn't really work, used solvent, gave her a bath, let it dry very very long, tested it, worked! then I re-lubed her up and I'm so greatful for videos like this and even (dare I say it) reddit for teaching me how my consumer ways were wrong and maintaining your companions is the key to a enviromentally friendly life!
i've spilled water on my keyboard hundreds of times, i always open it and dry it with an hairdryer and it has never failed to bring it back to life.
Have you considered drinking from a different container or changing the behavior that led to so many spills?
@@faceplants2i should probably buy some sort of a baby bottle, because i don't think i can fix being clumsy.
At the moment i just have 2 identical keyboards and i switch them up when i spill water on them.
Just careful not to get too close with that hairdryer if your keyboard is plastic. It can melt easily
hundreds? is it some sort of weekly ritual?
@@tsu177 at least once a week, some times even multiple times a day.
But i've also had computer access since i was 5