@#$#@!!!! Spilled soda in my computer and now it don't boot....

Well... the inevitable happened since I have been using the comp with the side off. I spilled soda and it looked like it only fell in the bottom. Well the comp locked up while i ran for paper towels and this furthered my investigation... there was some spillage on the bottom of the motherboard by the PCI slots and somehow it managed to fly up onto the AGP card 6 inches above the spill... Well I wasn't getting any video so I cleaned the card off and now I am getting video again...

I then found that it locks up mid way through windows start up... I don't really know what else to think other than my mobo is dead or shorting out somewhere... how likely is it that I'll kill the mobo by spilling stuff on it? Doesn't look like any components burned out... so I am kinda stumped.

Thanks for the help guys... surfing on the server really sucks!!

Did you let it dry for a while?

Personally I would rinse the parts/spots with some plain tap water, and let it dry for 1-2 days.

I've had some condensation problems, water leaked on my V-card, NIC and also into the AGP slot ..lock-ups, green lines...after letting it dry for a day everything was fine

Try a diff video card if you have one lying around. or if mobo supports onboard video, take out your card and see if lock-ups occur with onboard or another vid card. My computer kept locking up because of my PCI vid card voerheating from me overclocking it to heck..lol...well switched to onboard and thing nvr froze up....Roinse everything with water too. Pop tends to stick and could be screwing with system. Make sure its dry before powering up..or everythings done..lol

Nope... I;m kinda lazy like that... but it just booted and it hasn't locked up for 5 min now... hopefully it's back online... I was dreaming of a new Epox 8RDA+ but it looks like that upgrade will have to wait.

Bah...it's really on the fritz now. I tried the video card on this comp and it's fine.

My main comp crashed 10 mins after my last post... When I took the video card out it turned itself on... I turned it off and another 2 mins passed and it turned itself on again... When I put the card back in after testing it I powered up and it locked in 5 mins... I turned off the comp, then got ready for dissasembly.. well guess what it turns itself on again.

I am inspecting the board right now there doesn't look like there is any spillage whatsoever... I think it's under one of these logic chips or the PCI slots... I really don't know what to think... I'm stumped!

GRRR

Edit... at least my avatar is back...

That sucks, I feel your pain. Maybe your computer is possessed by the ghost of computers' past? I've had some scary moments myself. The other day, while monkeying around with a friend's system, I knocked a screw off his desk and it flew right toward the open side of the case. It was like, one of those slow motion moments where I was like "NOoooo!" But the screw landed inside the case but on the CD rom near the mount point. My friend comes running in, "What, what?" Me: "Uhh, nothing."

I'd say your mobo is probably fried but that the worst thing you can do is to keep booting it in hopes it will get better. Strip it down to the bare essentials, dry it off completely, maybe let it sit for a few days, clear CMOS, and try to boot with only what you need to get into Windows and test it.

Clean the motherboard with alcohol (not the drinkable kind!) then dry it with a blow dryer.

Well, I'm typing on the main comp now, I've had it up for an hour without a crash so far... I cleaned off all the spots where there had been spillage a bit better and booted it up... ran it for 30 mins before going to bed and it's been working fine for the last hour... I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Never drink and drive
OR drink and work on electronics

Who else thinks that this accident was avoidable, not inevitable?

Me!!

Yeah... you know that feeling you get... "I think I should move my soda in case I knock it over" or something like that... preminitions if you will. I have them all the time... Yep this was one of them... but now we're closing in on hour two... looks like I'm out of the woods.

I may buy that Epox in a couple months though... just to be safe you know