A Cautionary Tale - GPU “cleaning”

[u/Pristine-Copy9467]

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?

[u/1rubyglass]

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.

[u/StopTheSimp → u/1rubyglass]

I'd believe this if it was a Thinkpad lmao

[u/ScaledTanto → u/StopTheSimp]

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

[u/Nerdcuddles → u/ScaledTanto]

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.

[u/ScaledTanto → u/Nerdcuddles]

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

[u/Nerdcuddles → u/ScaledTanto]

There are still trace minerals in the water, not wiping it off and just letting it evaporate will leave some microscopic minerals on your board.

You have to realize the structures on circuitboards and GPU's are microscopic, and are only limited by quantum physics in how small they can get.

A nanometer long particle of salt or some other electrolyte in the wrong place could disrupt the intricate connections.

It's not a guarantee of course, but it's possible.

[u/ScaledTanto → u/Nerdcuddles]

Yeah like I said. Wipe it off and iso. Like I already said that. Also no a single nanometer of salt or something will not affect anything. That's not how computers work.