ASUS M4A88TD-V liquid damage - not posting

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meyerjg

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Nov 3, 2013
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I had an unfortunate incident of a beverage spilling onto my PC case. The RAM and parts of the motherboard ended up getting wet when some splashed in through the top vent.

After disconnecting, cleaning (with rubbing alcohol), and drying everything, my system will now not post (no surprise). Everything turns on but there's no video, no beeping, and no red LED for a RAM issue. The HDD activity LED is also showing nothing.

Now my dilemma is trying to identify what needs to be replaced. The mobo was the hardest part to clean, so I assume that is most likely the issue since I could have missed some clean up. But what I want to avoid is ordering a new one only to find that the actual problem is just my RAM or, worse, with the CPU.

Anybody have any suggestions to try and deduce what components need to be replaced?

I have tried each of the DIMMs in each of the slots with no change in behavior. Same result I get when I have no RAM installed at all and attempt to power on. I am wondering - would I normally see anything if I attempted to boot up without any RAM installed?

Also, one other odd thing - I can power it on just fine but, once it's on, I can't turn the system off via the power button. Doesn't matter if I press the button quickly or hold it down...nothing happens. I have to either unplug or switch the system off via the power supply.
 
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Unfortunately this isn't easy to diagnose unless you have access to spares and can test your components elsewhere. More than like the part that died is the MB, if it's getting past POST then it hasn't really gotten to the point that any of the other components are being started. CPUs are pretty resilient to little accidents like this, I have more experience than I'm willing share. Replace the MB first. Even with the other parts removed a good MB should be able to post but will then start beeping it's heart out, of course that doesn't rule out other things. Good news is it's one of the cheaper parts to replace and if it's not the MB you're probably spending money upgrading the entire system anyway so you're not out a whole lot.

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ddpruitt

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Jun 4, 2012
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Unfortunately this isn't easy to diagnose unless you have access to spares and can test your components elsewhere. More than like the part that died is the MB, if it's getting past POST then it hasn't really gotten to the point that any of the other components are being started. CPUs are pretty resilient to little accidents like this, I have more experience than I'm willing share. Replace the MB first. Even with the other parts removed a good MB should be able to post but will then start beeping it's heart out, of course that doesn't rule out other things. Good news is it's one of the cheaper parts to replace and if it's not the MB you're probably spending money upgrading the entire system anyway so you're not out a whole lot.

Of course this assumes you didn't kill your PSU. You can use the decidedly low tech method of taking a sniff to see if anything's burned. If so replace that first and cross your fingers that it didn't kill everything.
 
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meyerjg

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Nov 3, 2013
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Thanks for the reply! I was able to boot up another system with this power supply, so I assume that it is fine. Unfortunately all of the other components I have are not compatible between the two systems so I can't test much else.

I'm inclined to think that it's the motherboard as well, but I have never had one die on me before so I wasn't sure what the symptoms would really be. I was mainly curious about the RAM since that was directly below the top vent in the case and was hit the hardest. I wasn't sure how the system would react to having bad/damaged DIMMs installed vs having no RAM installed.
 
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ddpruitt

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In all the years of worked on mine and other computers I think I've only ever come across couple of bad RAM sticks. Keep in mind this is over a decade worth of computers. In only one case did it prevent the system from booting, the other times the system had weird errors after boot. Given that and the fact that the PSU is working I'm even more inclined to go with the MB.
 
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