I Spilled Milk on my Graphics Card & Mobo while the PC was on. What should I do? - Page 2

Please do not use more water to clean a GPU....comeon man. I hope its DEIONIZED water (not distilled, deionized) otherwise you're definitely going to cause a problem if there wasn't already one. So, please use some high % rubbing alcohol (this way it DRIES)

As everyone else said, if you managed to get it out before it shorted out, and you managed to clean/DRY it well (i mean perfectly), then you could in theory be good.

Leave it in a bag of rice or something for at least a day. You want to be 100% sure theres NO moisture or crap left. Only once its 100% dried and cleared of crap can you even consider putting it back in.

Although I will say man, that loud sound you hear was probably electricity (sparks, shorts, etc). I guess it could have also been milk being sent through a fan (lol...) and such, but it sounds like it was electricity meeting a liquid.

Honestly though you'd most likely know if you got it out fast enough: the pc would've still been working fine. Then it would've just had some milk on it but not shorted out. IF (key word) you got it out in time you'd probably know, as you would've had to been FLYING to turn that power off, knocking over everything in your wake. I've done that before, not with a PC but with other electronics: spilled something and had to literally jump across a room to unplug it before the liquid made contact with electricity.

Also someone asked a very important question: was it chocolate milk, or just plain? I love dairy in all its forms but if it wasn't choco then it wasn't worth it in this scenario. Only delicious, hand made with UBET syrup (the best one, no debates) would be worth frying a gfx card.
Edited by kmac20 - 7/22/12 at 9:27am

Carefully take out your mobo and remove everything (GPU, cmos battery, and other cards you may have) put on anti static gloves and wrist strap, pick up mother board take it out side AND HAMMER IT WITH THE PRESSURE WASHER!!!! (follow same directions for GPU.... then once thoughly rised, install back into case, install GPU and other stuff, once everything is back together put the case back together take off one side and lay it down on its side and dump a whole giant bag(or 2) of rice right into the case till it's full!.... let it sit for a few days then start it (leave rice in) was there any booze in the milk? bailey's???

Stick it in a dishwasher....

I've actually spilled milk on one of my boards while it was running, right on the VRMs. System immediately shorted and shut down.

I dismantled it, washed it thoroughly with hot tap water, dried it very well (compressor + blowdryer + a day or two in a hot dry place), reassembled it, and it worked fine.

^THIS

Dunking your components in pure distilled and allowing them to dry in a safe place will likely revive your components. I have spilled many a thing on electronics and revived them in this manner. Don't use tap -water though, it's full of minerals, and it's also not de-ionized.
You can pick up a gallon of distilled for like 2 bucks at almost any grocery store. Also at walmart, or an AIM/Culligan, whatever.

You don't even need distilled.

Tap water in most places that don't have well water or hard-water problems is considerably cleaner than the layer of crap left on most brand-new-fresh-out-of-the-box motherboards. A final rinse in distilled isn't a bad idea if you have it handy though.

Soaking does work, specifically Isopropyl, I guess its better because you could just take it out and the residue comes off, Contact cleaner might be finicky to work with. I've tried bathing the CPU socket area with Isopropyl, 70% before, Didnt do any harm to my rig at all.