- Feb 11, 2015
- 18
- 0
- 4,510
Hi all.
I'm trying to fix a computer for one of my friends. It is about 4 years old. We were playing a game the other day when he got a warning that his core temp was too high, so he shut the computer down. He had a self contained liquid cooling unit, similar to the Corsair H80i but a knockoff brand, not sure what kind. He took it to the geek squad, guy said he didn't want to try fixing it because he wasn't sure if it was a leak or something and it would take a long time to diagnose. Strange.
Anyways, he brought it to me, I unscrewed a tiny bit of the bracket holding on the heatsink, and sure enough it had a pretty extensive leak. I screwed it back on and the leak stopped immediately. Prepped the area with cotton balls, took the rad off, cut the pipes at the rad and drained the whole thing outside of the case - there was hardly any liquid left in it. My guess is there's been a slow leak for a while since he's been having performance issues for a while, the coolant was almost all gone, and it smelled rancid so clearly something got in there, bacteria or whatever. With my cotton-ball levy I pulled the pump off, very little actually leaked out, and I was able to soak it all up instantly into the cotton balls.
Slapped in a new cooler (actual H80i this time) for him aaaaaand.... nothing. Hit the power button, nothing happens. The mobo has power, because the board lights up - mobo power and reset buttons are illuminated, but even using those buttons I can't get anything to happen. I've disassembled the entire thing piece by piece, nothing. Is it possible the liquid hit something and has destroyed the board? Wouldn't a destroyed board give errors instead of just... nothing at all?
Just looking for some input. I'm hoping I can salvage this thing even if I have to clean it somehow, its like a 500 dollar mobo.
Thanks!
I'm trying to fix a computer for one of my friends. It is about 4 years old. We were playing a game the other day when he got a warning that his core temp was too high, so he shut the computer down. He had a self contained liquid cooling unit, similar to the Corsair H80i but a knockoff brand, not sure what kind. He took it to the geek squad, guy said he didn't want to try fixing it because he wasn't sure if it was a leak or something and it would take a long time to diagnose. Strange.
Anyways, he brought it to me, I unscrewed a tiny bit of the bracket holding on the heatsink, and sure enough it had a pretty extensive leak. I screwed it back on and the leak stopped immediately. Prepped the area with cotton balls, took the rad off, cut the pipes at the rad and drained the whole thing outside of the case - there was hardly any liquid left in it. My guess is there's been a slow leak for a while since he's been having performance issues for a while, the coolant was almost all gone, and it smelled rancid so clearly something got in there, bacteria or whatever. With my cotton-ball levy I pulled the pump off, very little actually leaked out, and I was able to soak it all up instantly into the cotton balls.
Slapped in a new cooler (actual H80i this time) for him aaaaaand.... nothing. Hit the power button, nothing happens. The mobo has power, because the board lights up - mobo power and reset buttons are illuminated, but even using those buttons I can't get anything to happen. I've disassembled the entire thing piece by piece, nothing. Is it possible the liquid hit something and has destroyed the board? Wouldn't a destroyed board give errors instead of just... nothing at all?
Just looking for some input. I'm hoping I can salvage this thing even if I have to clean it somehow, its like a 500 dollar mobo.
Thanks!
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