Oops, it leaked.

[RagingGecko]

I've been hanging around these forums for a while and figure this is as good a time to show my ugly mug as any :D

I was installing a new video card waterblock on my watercooled rig and it seems I didn't get the hose on tight enough. After a few minutes it started leaking. Lucky I'd turned the computer off already. But still, the cooling stuff got all over the video card. I dried it out a bit, reattached the tubing, and I've left it overnight. Now my question is, should I turn it on yet or keep waiting to make sure its completely dry? The cooling chemical is a mixture of water and the koolance chemicals (ethelyne glycol or something like that).

[The Overclocker]

wait to make sure it is compltly dry, to speed this process up, you could try using a blow dryer on it or simply leaving it on a radiator or windowsill

however it is dangerous to use it if you arn't sure it is completly dry as the water could be under a surface mount intergarated component which may cause the legs to be short cirucited

[TheGhengisKhan]

if there are any addatives in your water at all, completely clean any water-exposed parts with some alcohol and clean rags to make sure you've removed any remaining deposits, or they may short out connections, if it got under any chips, you'll need to pull the whole card off, and soak it in the alcohol for at least 1/2 hour to disolve any that's under the chips, then use the hairdrier to dry the whole thing off, and you should be good-to-go

[BBigJ]

Clean the sucker with rubbing alcohol. That stuff will evaporate quickly (give it 30 min to be safe) and then fire 'er up. Don't worry, there is very little chance that anything is damaged.

[NoKtEm]

i think u should let it dry if ur not sure, I fired up my video card after 1 night and it blinked on and died.

[[EG]~NaTz~]

wow. i would say the rubbing or denatured alcohol. then hair dry or fan it for an hour to be safe!

[johnnyw]

I would give you the same piece of advice all the people in this thread said but I´d follow TheGhengisKhan´s idea just because it is the safest.

[EgeWorks]

Definatley use ome sort of alcohol, um ethelene glycol (whatever its called) leaves a really bad lot of crap on anything when it evaporates. I don't know if it's conductive but better to be afe than sorry.

Hope you get it going again. BTW if it only leaked after a while maybe the heat caused something to expand, leading to the leak.