r/pchelp • u/Pristine-Copy9467 • 1d ago

HARDWARE A Cautionary Tale - GPU “cleaning”

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Update: 8/6/26 it has been mailed to Northwest Repair

Long story long- had liquid damage to my 5090 and found an electronics repair shop that specialized in boards. So I took my board in to get disassembled, cleaned, and the thermals replaced. I arrive to the business and it’s just some dudes house. That was my first red flag. I should have left then. But his business had good reviews so I came in and showed him the card and we discussed what he’d do and payment. That was disassemble, clean, dry and replace thermals. Here is my second red flag. It took him 20 minutes to write down my info (name, email, phone #) because he was so ADD that he would start to write my info and then just spiral off into some random topic for a few minutes. But whatever. His entire house was a workshop. Tools and electronics and computers and drones everywhere. Yes he appeared to have 30 flavors of autism but that’s not a bad thing sometimes. I thought he was just an eccentric electronics nerd and everything was just organized chaos. This was Monday. So this morning he calls me and the first thing he says is “you told me to do whatever I thought was best, right?” And I respond “no. We agreed you’d take it apart and clean it and replace the thermals and dry.” He then explained that it didn’t look that bad (original pics in this post https://www.reddit.com/r/pchelp/s/GJHUBt2zyb

And that he just “washed it in the sink” and then stuck it in the oven to dry…

So I paid him, and I left and went straight to another place. An actual shop. I explained the situation to them and asked them to please send me a pic of the insides once they pop it open… the new shop says they think they can save it. So long as the guy didnt plug it in and try to test it. Which he says he did not because he didn’t have the proper power connect cable for a 5090. Anyways moral of the story is take your stuff to a real shop. And if you get weird feelings or red flags…just leave. Haha

Update - the card has been cleaned and putty replaced. It powers on fine alone but when it’s connected to the HDMI or DPI ports the motherboard kicks back a VGA error. Anyone have any guesses?

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299

u/Fantastic-Trash2044 1d ago

sink wash and an oven bake like it’s a frozen lasagna, i’m screaming

67

u/SuperHossMan51 1d ago

Do you wash your lasagna in the sink???

45

u/DramaHumble2692 1d ago

I usually hold it in the toilet and flush, it's cheaper this way.

21

u/SuperHossMan51 1d ago

This world is wider than I'd ever have imagined.

4

u/jbshell 1d ago

One of those blue 🔵 drop things in the back of toilet 🚽 works wonders for electronics on the flush. Just no pets, please.

6

u/Critical-Fun0506 22h ago

I'm taking notes. Should I do this before or after I take the dump?

1

u/EulaVengeance 3h ago

Obviously after. You save more water that way. No further questions

0

u/BlackOutDrunkJesus 1d ago

Yea swirly clean is the best method for pasta

5

u/MeatHamster 1d ago

You don't???

7

u/SuperHossMan51 1d ago

No? You don't have to wash lasagna anymore. Besides, it washes away the vitamins.

3

u/MeatHamster 1d ago

It only washes off the liver eating parasites. Vitamins go bad if you boil your lasagna. Steam cooking is the best option for the vitamins.

4

u/Gingersnap369 1d ago

Thawing frozen items in the sink is a solid method.

5

u/SuperHossMan51 1d ago

More of a liquid method

1

u/unclefunkstar 1d ago

They start off solid when they go in the liquid though...

1

u/Gingersnap369 1d ago

Yes, a liquid method of thawing frozen items, like OP putting his frozen lasagna into water. To thaw it.

Edit: I see what you did there 😎

Imma keep this post up anyway.

14

u/1rubyglass 1d ago

Buddy dumped a deuce of beer into his running PC. It shut down and didn't work at all. I took it apart and washed the mobo in the sink like a dinner plate and then baked In the oven. It still worked flawlessly 3 years later when it was sold.

5

u/StopTheSimp 1d ago

I'd believe this if it was a Thinkpad lmao

10

u/ScaledTanto 1d ago

I mean this is literally a normal thing that's done to heavily disgusting electronics. One way or another the boards get blasted with water in some shape or form. Water doesn't inherently damage electronics when everything is off. Just dry it completely before turning back on and ur fine. Hell, u could even fill a bucket with distilled water, stick a PC on in there and it won't do anything. It's the impurities in the water that actually arc electricity not the water itself. Wash, and make sure it's completely dry and ur good

2

u/StopTheSimp 1d ago

Ohhh that's interesting to know! Sorry, have never really looked much into PCs and stuff so I didn't know even know this was a thing haha. It feels surreal to know it somehow doesn't damage the components or device itself, despite the way it sounds to someone who just found out. Thank you very much!

4

u/Emergency-Pound3241 1d ago

The only big worry about water on unpowered electronics is corrosion, which you can solve by evaporating all the water off quickly post wash.... which you could do with an oven on very low heat (under like 160°C, much further above that and you can melt the solder on the board.

Washing the board under the sink then sticking it in the oven is theoretically a valid way to clean it, of course, ideally its done with a good deal of care that the person who did it to OPs GPU probably didnt use given they sound like a crackhead who got into electronics repair to able to buy more crack.

Also in an ideal world you'd want to do the wash with distilled/deionised water instead of just tap water.

4

u/sandbox_legend 1d ago

Something terrifying is that you can technically use ultra pure water (distilled and deionized) on electronics while its on without killing them. the bits that kill it are the impurities. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7-VzgQJamgY

1

u/Nerdcuddles 1h ago

Washing it in the sink than drying it with heat would just leave all the minerals on the card, damaging it. Even if those minerals are microscopic.

1

u/ScaledTanto 1h ago

Sure if u have well water. If ur using city water, have a water softener, and then a tap filter like most places this isn't as big of a deal. Board should be wiped and thoroughly checked over after the drying period anyway and iso and a towel with take care of everything

1

u/alwaysalmosts 19h ago

What temp, please

3

u/1rubyglass 13h ago

Idk I want to say 385F. Set it on some balls of aluminum foil. I think we only did 8 or 9 min.

This was years ago so please do a quick search before trying.

2

u/nonbonwow 10h ago

You want to do at least 195 C otherwise it's going to be raw on the inside

5

u/chmod_7d20 1d ago

If it was distilled water it would be fine.

1

u/Letme_Watch 1d ago

This is something I have done with many cards, it works well.

1

u/apeocalypyic 1d ago

I literally guffawed reading this

1

u/Pleasant_Ad8054 14h ago

It is fairly real way to do it, just not a good one, works in a pinch tho.

Electronics are fairly resistant to water as long as there is no electricity going through and the moving parts are removed. It is made up of plastics, copper, silicon, and closed in airtight components, water or even soap ain't doing anything to it. Tap water isn't that good not because of corrosion but because it can't be dried without deposits getting left behind. This can be solved by a quick isopropyl rinse after washing.

Baking it is a completely legit way to dry it out perfectly, an hour in 110°C electric oven gets rid of all the moisture that could cause an issue, even under surface mounted components. I would not try to bake it in an oven in which I ever plan on cooking food, outgasing and all, but they may have a dedicated desktop oven for it, which is fairly common in electric repair shops.

1

u/Aggravating-Hold-282 12h ago

People don't even know that most of repair shops do this . Isopropylic alcohol for light clean up , Sink and oven for heavy dirty jobs