Waterlogged laptop

[Chasseur Velites]

Honestly just curious if there's something that can be done, it's a Dell gaming laptop. Basically left it in a tent it leaked then when I returned to grab the laptop it was completely full of water. No I haven't checked to see if it works and I haven't done anything to it since (3 days ago)

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Ursprungligen skrivet av The Hardware ʬhisperer:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Bad 💀 Motha:

You're referring to a baking process. Yes I know what that is and how that works.

After you googled it, sure.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Bad 💀 Motha:

You don't do that to a laptop to dry it out though. Gimme a break. That makes zero sense.

You actually can and it actually does make sense. You take it apart, remove the screen, battery, cmos battery. Remove the fans basically anything else plastic.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Bad 💀 Motha:

And yes my methods work.

Yeah you keep thinking this but it doesn't mean it's true. You obviously have no experience with this.

Ursprungligen skrivet av _I_:

do not put a laptop in an oven

You can if you take it apart. Everyone seems to think I mean broil the thing. That's not what I mean. You obviously have no experience with this.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Bad 💀 Motha:

Many times my dad and I helped recover many Apples and other PCs over the years from Offices and Homes that got flooded. Almost always they were able to work fine afterwards.

That doesn't mean you can't dry one out in the oven.

What makes you Mr know it all super special. Oh right you're just another who likes to talk crap online. We don't have time for trolls. I've been in the PC tips and tricks business since 1993. Even before that I was starting out in it doing stuff with Apple Computers and others before 386/486 came around. The baking process is not a new thing. Even back in the days of PCI video cards we knew about it and how it can work to prolong such hardware. But your suggesting this method to the OP for a Laptop is pretty ill-advised at best.

[Chasseur Velites]

Yeah I'm not dumb enough to put it in the oven, going to take it apart let it completely dry and go from there. Not a huge loss got it for 80% off in 2017 great laptop had a 1060 and took a beating while I had it. Might just use it as a display peace lol.

[Illusion of Progress]

The process alone isn't dumb, similarly to how "washing a motherboard" (or whatever other part) isn't necessarily dumb. It is, however, ill advised in this particular instance. Water alone doesn't kill electronic things. The impurities in it, however, can bridge connections that aren't meant to be connected and cause a failure. This won't happen if it isn't powered, which is the reason drying it out CAN work. The key to making sure it survives is to make sure ALL water is dried out, and to make sure it is cleaned of ALL impurities (debris) as, aside from bridging connections, as others have noted, it can cause corrosion.

The process of baking, as far as I know, is pretty much for when you suspect a fault may be caused by poor connection somewhere (like fragile solder). This sort of gained a resurgence in popularity around the times of the GeForce 8/9/200 series as many nVidia products around that time were failing early due to it, so the idea was baking it would bring the solder to a near melting point and cause it to slightly "reflow" and fix any cracks that may have developed. I would not use this process to speed up drying of water, nor on an entire laptop, however. You're better off disassembling and cleaning it, and waiting a period of time (I'd probably wait a couple/few weeks myself, which may be more than necessary), as was advised.

Things like hard drives (not SSDs) would probably be a lost cause if water go into them. Many modern screens (LCDs) are another thing I'm not sure of, as I know moisture getting into them usually causes visual defects.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Oh no I get it; if it was just a motherboard or gpu, sure.

[plat]

Ursprungligen skrivet av xSOSxHawkens:

Buy long dry rice, take out battery (if possible), tape larger holes on device, put enough rice in bin large enough to completely cover entire laptop in rice, cover with lid or similar and wait a week, clean all rice out/off laptop. Try to power it up.

This is a great idea. I actually saw this suggestion elsewhere for a similar issue.

[invision2212]

placing it in a oven will only accelerate moisture across the parts and not dry it properly

[Illusion of Progress]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Bad 💀 Motha:

Oh no I get it; if it was just a motherboard or gpu, sure.

Oh I know you do. I was replying to the post above mine about it being dumb.

Some people do actually see the concept of water plus electronic part or electronic part in an oven and think it's so obviously bad. When I first heard of baking video cards, I actually thought it was going to be some "obviously bad but let's joke and maybe trick someone" thing, but turned out it's not.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Yes that can be a helpful method for resetting solder points for sure.

[shiel]

Ursprungligen skrivet av The Hardware ʬhisperer:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Bad 💀 Motha:

You're referring to a baking process. Yes I know what that is and how that works.

After you googled it, sure.

It's an old trick. You're not special for knowing about it... nearly everyone with familiarity with pc hardware has at least heard about it. Stop trying to be a smart ass. It's not a good look for you.

[[N]ebsun]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Illusion of Progress:

The process of baking, as far as I know, is pretty much for when you suspect a fault may be caused by poor connection somewhere (like fragile solder). This sort of gained a resurgence in popularity around the times of the GeForce 8/9/200 series as many nVidia products around that time were failing early due to it, so the idea was baking it would bring the solder to a near melting point and cause it to slightly "reflow" and fix any cracks that may have developed. I would not use this process to speed up drying of water, nor on an entire laptop, however.

Baking comes from SMT, where pcb's are baked to remove moisture prior to assembly so that when the solder mask goes over, there is far less water (in whatever form) to cause delamination.

For Reflow (not baking) - I would never try to reflow something that has already been fully assembled -
1. Double sided pcb's especially (since one side uses a lower temperature solder, and we have no idea which side it is)
2. You would need some flux since that's all most likely gone
3. No idea of the reflow profile - more likely to kill a component by overheating or heating too long or cooling too quickly and stress fracturing it..

[Illusion of Progress]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Nebsun:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Illusion of Progress:

The process of baking, as far as I know, is pretty much for when you suspect a fault may be caused by poor connection somewhere (like fragile solder). This sort of gained a resurgence in popularity around the times of the GeForce 8/9/200 series as many nVidia products around that time were failing early due to it, so the idea was baking it would bring the solder to a near melting point and cause it to slightly "reflow" and fix any cracks that may have developed. I would not use this process to speed up drying of water, nor on an entire laptop, however.

Baking comes from SMT, where pcb's are baked to remove moisture prior to assembly so that when the solder mask goes over, there is far less water (in whatever form) to cause delamination.

For Reflow (not baking) - I would never try to reflow something that has already been fully assembled -
1. Double sided pcb's especially (since one side uses a lower temperature solder, and we have no idea which side it is)
2. You would need some flux since that's all most likely gone
3. No idea of the reflow profile - more likely to kill a component by overheating or heating too long or cooling too quickly and stress fracturing it..

Yeah, I'm not too familiar with it myself (nor the full assembly process used when manufacturing parts), and I've heard it's on the "not recommended" side of things. Basically, people were doing it on GPUs that were already faulting (either intermittently or permanently) so the worst that would happen is you'd spend time to make it no better. To my understanding, usually when it did work, it was still more of a temporary fix; I've heard of people getting another few weeks or months out of it and then saying it starting going bad again, but maybe some got much longer term fixes and never reported back.

Like with washing parts, I'd typically never do it for stuff I really cared about or couldn't afford to lose. This process (unlike baking anything) I've done before. I did it with a motherboard, RAM, GPU, CPU, and CPU heatsink/fan. I didn't do it on the hard drive or PSU. I'm pretty sure I let everything dry for about a week afterward. Everything worked fine after and remained doing so until I passed it entirely onto someone else, where it eventually was neglected/aged out of usefulness (Pentium 4-based with GeForce 6800). The only ill effect was due to having done the fans, the GPU fan got a bit (but not overly) grindy/noisy, probably as the oil was washed away? The CPU fan seemed fine though. I only did it as the PC was in a heavily smoked in environment and that was the last time I said I'd deal with such a PC.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

I've washed motherboard and gpu before, using either SimpleGreen or 91% Isopropyl Alcohol using a clean spray bottle to apply. Then using an un-used paint brush to work it in and clean up dirt. Then using another clean brush to wipe the surfaces clean while using a hair-dryer as a means to aid in any water and other liquids dry and evaporate fully.

[iceman1980]

Ursprungligen skrivet av shiel:

Ursprungligen skrivet av The Hardware ʬhisperer:

After you googled it, sure.

It's an old trick. You're not special for knowing about it... nearly everyone with familiarity with pc hardware has at least heard about it. Stop trying to be a smart ass. It's not a good look for you.

Fun fact if you heat electronics up they can actually explode if water has "gotten" inside capacitors or micro components and can create a "steam bubble" causing the part to rupture on the inside, if the waters trapped this is what happens. So "baking" can actually do more harm than good allowing for it to slowly dry out not quickly is the best option.

Solder can do this as well micropores are not fun. (Water literally gets trapped in IC's, capacitors, Inductors etc and can do a lot of damage, even if it appears superficially dry.

You must dismantle the entire laptop, motherboard, screen, everything, it has to be completely removed from the case.

[Big Doniel]

Ursprungligen skrivet av plat:

Ursprungligen skrivet av xSOSxHawkens:

Buy long dry rice, take out battery (if possible), tape larger holes on device, put enough rice in bin large enough to completely cover entire laptop in rice, cover with lid or similar and wait a week, clean all rice out/off laptop. Try to power it up.

This is a great idea. I actually saw this suggestion elsewhere for a similar issue.

It's not, it's a terrible idea. It's an old-wifes tale that for whatever reason has survived in an age where Google exists. It doesn't work, and if anything will make the problem worse. Seriously, it doesn't do anything.

Strip it back as best you can (battery, bottom panel etc) and leave it to dry. Giving the components a wipe with isopropyl alcohol isn't a bad idea either, but the main thing is that it can dry.

[shiel]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Product ∏:

Ursprungligen skrivet av shiel:

It's an old trick. You're not special for knowing about it... nearly everyone with familiarity with pc hardware has at least heard about it. Stop trying to be a smart ass. It's not a good look for you.

Fun fact if you heat electronics up they can actually explode if water has "gotten" inside capacitors or micro components and can create a "steam bubble" causing the part to rupture on the inside, if the waters trapped this is what happens. So "baking" can actually do more harm than good allowing for it to slowly dry out not quickly is the best option.

Solder can do this as well micropores are not fun. (Water literally gets trapped in IC's, capacitors, Inductors etc and can do a lot of damage, even if it appears superficially dry.

You must dismantle the entire laptop, motherboard, screen, everything, it has to be completely removed from the case.

To be clear, I think trying to bake the laptop is a terrible idea lol.