CPU/Mobo Look what I went and did !!

E

Eazy

Skilled
I went over to my Dentists place to clean out their computer (which I had built for them) and they pulled out this pipe from their Dental chair which they said was used to blow compressed air - so they blew a bit of air inside the case and handed me the pipe to clean the Display card which I had in my hand - I pressed a button on the gizmo and WATER came flying out of this pipe - there were 2 buttons on the pipe one for air and one for water. They did not tell me that. The display card was full of water !!! :O

I immediately dried out as much water as I could with my hanky and they gave me a hair drier which I used to dry out the water from under the chips. We left the card for a day in an AC room and the next day the card was dry and worked fine - worked fine for a month - now a month later the display on the system goes blank for a few seconds and comes back on - this happens every few minutes. There are no system lock ups or rebooting only blanking of the screen. I presume this is a delayed reaction of the water on the display card..... right ??

The problem is that I am now bed ridden and cannot go to their clinic so I have to tell them on the phone what is to be done. They use this computer as an X-Ray machine for their Dental work so it has to be fixed fast. If people here agree with my conclusion that it is a display card problem then I will ask them to think about getting a cheap new one - I can ask some dealers to send me the card home and get the computer to my place and fix it - but I must be sure before I do this.

If I dont do this soon can you imagine how much pain they will give me the next time I go for dental work.... :O
 
Get another display card, a second hand AGP card will cost what 500 bucks.

Also check if the VGA connector is affixed correctly, and the monitor does not go into standby.
 
Hmm, tough question considering the fact that you can't move around.

In this case, its best for you to replace the card (it'll be less of a pain for you) else open out the card and check it up...
 
Thanks for the replies guys..... but this computer is used all day long as an X-Ray machine (I attached an X-Ray thingy to their computer which they got from Germany) as the computer is in use all day and I cannot ask them to dismantle it and send it to me to "TRY OUT SOLUTIONS" I will probably get only one shot at it.

The darn X-Ray gizmo came with a horrible parallel port Dongle which creates a lot of problems when it is disconnected and the computer is run without it and then it is reconnected again. If the Dongle gets unrecognised by the system then the German company has to give a new set of codes to reconnect the darn thing !! :mad: I have NEVER seen any other hardware which was so difficult to setup.

I can see that this whole excercise is going to be a nightmare for me.
 
Why do we assume that this problem has been caused by the month old "accident"? Rule #1 - Thou shalt not blame thyself. :D

Since the cost of the system not working is high, I would suggest that you recommend them to buy a cheap gfx card and replace it. Later you can try to get the old gfx card working and let them keep it as a spare.

Coming to the point about the soaking, if the water was clean and soft, this should have caused no problem after it was dried out. The problem is caused by insolluble sediments and/or the salts dissolved in the water. These will remain on the board once the water evaporates.

If other attempts to find the fault fail, try this: Get a bottle of distilled water from a petrol pump. Dip the card in the water and use a paint brush to gently clean away between components and IC pins. Then blow off the excess water with a decent blower (even a vacuum cleaner in reverse) and then dry the card.

If the problem is because of salt deposits, it will be solved.
 
@Emil - actually the Dentists had budgetted a computer upgrade in Jan 2006 and thats why I am not keen to replace their Display card unless it is abs necessary - they have an old Intel 2.4B based setup using an AGP display card and their next one will be PCI-E based so whatever they buy will be dumped in one month.

The water from the pipe is clean soft water so I did not think it was going to do any harm - all I can think of having goner wrong is the fan on the card whose winding may be affected by the water - right ?
 
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I get your point about the quick fix. You may be right about the fan winding but this would be more obvious to you when you actually manage to get to the "scene of the crime" if you can observe the fan runing (or not :D), monitor the temp of the GPU and the RPM of the fan.

Hard to do when you're sitting in bed.

However I don't completely buy the idea of the problem being caused by your water jet. The detist's water jet, though high speed, is small volume. And most of the water would bounce off at that speed. I doubt that there would have been so much soaking to cause irreversible damage before your surprised fingers released the button again.
 
Open the card out, clean it throughly, dry it, install, Play D3 and it'll evaporate every iota of water in it ;)

Bah, forget D3, play some stressing game which willl run on the card...
 
@Emil - THANKS for all the advise. I think I will ask for the comp to be sent over on the weekend and check it out with my own display card and run it for a while and see what happens.

@Anish - this is a computer based on old hardware - D3 will probably run as a slide show on it - the display card is an old Geforce MX or something as Stoopid. Their Clinic is kept very cold - their AC is set for 21C thru the year. Their computer has only their client database and the X-Rays and a bit of soothing Lounge music which I put on their 40gb HDD - they need this soothing music to drown all the cries of pain from their clients....... when they are presented their bills :D
 
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Could it be a containment breach :eek:hyeah: in the radioactive thingy?
I found this:

Question...images go crazy and there are blinking lites, squares, colors etc. The only thing to get it back is to reboot the computer...

Answer 5.: ...at one place after doing everything possible we found a badly maintained Dental X-Ray machine leaking X-Rays which was causing our problems and killing out electronic equipment that was against that wall closest to the X-Ray machine...
Click to expand...

http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-11184-0.html?forumID=56&threadID=184706
 
Well, i spilt lots of coolant on my 9600Prowhen i was removing my watercooling kit...dried it asap, then hair dryed it..left it in the shade for an hour....still works fine :D
 
dipdude said:
Eazy, blanking of screen/normal one second, indicates a monitor problem too. how old is their monitor :(
Click to expand...

Its an ACER 15" LCD about 3 - 4 years old. One of the best images I have seen on LCDs - text is superb.

I would suspect the display card first as this display card has been with them about 4 - 5 years and I rememebr seeing the cards fan mounting metal parts were all rusted up.

I just remembered one thing they said - when the image came back on screen there was at times some corruption in the image - like 2 mouse cursors or discolouration in images on screen - this mean anything to you ? (Discolouration as in changes in colours)

@hellfire - the gizmo attached to their computer is a receiver of X-Ray signals only, it consists of a probe on a 3 meter wire which goes into the mouth and it replaces the X-Ray film normally used by Dentists. - the X-Ray transmitting machine is the same as you see at any Dentists clinic attached to the wall quite a distance away - about 6 feet at least. They have used this X-Ray system for about 3 years.
 
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slightly ot, but it reminds me of a classmate of mine who literally drooled on my mobo. I totally freaked out...but it still working.
 
eazy, as you cannot go physically change the graphics card atm, why dont you just ask them to change the monitor with a spare & try.

if that does not help, the graphics card can be the culprit, are they savvy enuf to change gpu by themselves, atleast ask them to monitor the temp of graphics card, maybe the rusted fan has conked off :(
 
dipdude said:
eazy, as you cannot go physically change the graphics card atm, why dont you just ask them to change the monitor with a spare & try.

if that does not help, the graphics card can be the culprit, are they savvy enuf to change gpu by themselves, atleast ask them to monitor the temp of graphics card, maybe the rusted fan has conked off :(
Click to expand...
OH YES !!!! ....DOPE that I am..... I did not think about that !!! ......they have a spare ACER 17" CRT lying in their home - I can ask them to try that and get a confirmation if the problem is with the Monitor
THANKS !!!! THANKS !!! THANKS !!!

YOU ARE THE GREATEST !!!

:cheers:

They can change the monitor but they will not be able to remove the display card as their ASUS board (P4PE) has that silly slider to protect the display card from slipping out. I have already got them to open the side panel and they were incapable of removing the card. These Dentists dont know what to do with their hands ...... Arrrrrgh !!!.....:rofl:
 
Eazy said:
I just remembered one thing they said - when the image came back on screen there was at times some corruption in the image - like 2 mouse cursors or discolouration in images on screen - this mean anything to you ? (Discolouration as in changes in colours)

@hellfire - the gizmo attached to their computer is a receiver of X-Ray signals only, it consists of a probe on a 3 meter wire which goes into the mouth and it replaces the X-Ray film normally used by Dentists. - the X-Ray transmitting machine is the same as you see at any Dentists clinic attached to the wall quite a distance away - about 6 feet at least. They have used this X-Ray system for about 3 years.
Click to expand...
I just realized that the monitor is an LCD and my thoughts went to the backlight drive circuit failing intermittently. But then you mentioned the corrupted image and that is almost certainly a gfx card issue.
The X-Ray is still a slim possibility but if that is affecting the electronics, I shudder to think what it is doing to the humans around. Bheja fry?
 
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BTW, if by chance the problem is stemming out of residual sediments on the card, clean it thouroughly with Surgical spirit...that works wonders.....

A surgical spirit bath bought back to life my old Samsung C-100 which was drencehed in Sea water for over 30 mins :O
 
Emil said:
But then you mentioned the corrupted image and that is almost certainly a gfx card issue.
Click to expand...

YUP I thought it is the gfx card too - I have asked them to try the CRT monitor - but Mr Murphy just kicked in on this one - they said that after 2 years of having the monitor on their bedroom table just 2 days back they got fed up with the loss of real estate on their table and dumped the absolutely unused monitor in their attic - and they seem very reluctant in getting the monitor out of the attic ....Ha HA !! this is funny.... :D
 
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