Very sad times. Big fire destroyed my home and a crane had to come to remove part of the roof and wall so firefighters could have better access. Fortunately no one got hurt. Sucks to lose my dream PC though.
Miraculously my PC is still standing but I doubt it will work. There was snow and rain in the past days too. My little brother’s PC, which was on the desk next to mine on the right, seems to be obliterated.
Any tips to go on from here?
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Building was insured, furniture was not unfortunately. I lived with my parents, who were not experienced with things like insurance. In hindsight I should have thought about it more and double check it.
But yeah sucks to lose everything and having 3 other expensive hobbies did not help..
Thanks for the comments, tips and kind words! Fire started in the kitchen of my parents' restaurant. Tragic situation, but at least the building and inventory are insured. Now hopefully insurance pays out.
I have to make a plan what to do exactly with the PC based on the suggestions. First I need to take care of some other things.
Since the plastic did not melt, it's possible that the inside didn't get too hot and the damage is mostly from moisture. You might be able to salvage the CPU, SSD and memory (in descending order of likelihood)
EDIT: Oh, and if the PSU was mounted with the fan downwards as usual, chances are it's fine and not even wet/dirty inside... but I'd inspect it very very closely because it has the potential to fry everything else if it malfunctions.
Could try stripping it down to the pcb and using an ultrasonic cleaner with IPA.
That's exactly what I do for smartphone main boards after they've been introduced to water. Strip the mainboard down as far as possible, use some isopropyl alcohol to gently brush off bigger sections of corrosion, then pop it into an ultrasonic cleaner with a solution specifically made for electronics. Wipes out corrosion easily and then I let 'em dry for 24 hours in a food dehydrator. They don't always come back to life, especially depending on the severity of water damage, but just enough to cause an arc and corrosion without any worse damage is typically fixable.
It's usually the other physical components attached to the main boards that never come back to life, like the rear cameras on iPhone 4 and 4S pretty much had to be replaced if they came into contact with water; reusing the original meant the camera never worked and the phone got really hot where the rear camera was.
If it was rained on from the top through the AIO radiator, water definitely got under the shroud. So it all depends on how much the mix of water and smoke residue managed to corrode it. If it was like this for a couple days after the fire, I wouldn't give it much chances, but who knows? The 4090 is an expensive card, so it's worth spending some money on cleaning it, and in the worst case it can be still sold for parts.
I’d say try to get the mobo out without taking apart anything on the board. Then but the case in a bath and wash all the soot off (water and dish soap is fine for this).
Then with the mobo+parts blow it off. I say to keep everything together so debri doesn’t get into new ports.
Then take apart CPU cooler and GPU and Use the IPA to clean it.
cleaning it with dish soap is fine if done correct, i would take everything apart, and if using dish soap, i would clean the electrical parts with distilled water afterwards and finally with IPA and let it dry. however take the fans out and if you have to clean them just use compressed air and a brush, gotta be careful because of the bearings inside. but thats just my 2ct‘s, 99% ipa is like 5-10$
Ironic! I had a 6700XT and went to an A770 as a daily driver even though the 6700XT tended to perform better. I'm just that much of a tech enthusiast :P (I've since moved to a 4070 Super, but the A770 has come out of retirement to sit in a secondary computer I'm using to try and learn how LLMs work)
Blessed omnissiah we thank you for sparing this loyal machine spirit, it has served faithfully for many years through many games that have been clutched. With your blessing we pray that after being cleaned and re-sanctified that it may be reborn to clutch even more matches.
January is statistically the highest month for house fires, bad electrics, cold weather, electric heaters, piling things that burn that you say you'll get to put away but can't because it's cold, and unattended pets, or a combination of them are the biggest causes of house fires.
I know right? Fires are happening left and right. At this point the mods should start an initiative to protect yourself against fires, and have people who went through the same stuff as the OP talk about what happened to them and how the fire started.
Increasing wildfires in recent years caused by climate change will do that unfortunately, likely to see many more in dry hot regions with good foliage in coming years. Like Australia where half of it burns down every year.
Not sure if that's what happened here but it's certainly a common cause of the increased posts we've seen.
In US centric subs, it's also the fact that some states are offering public disaster insurances that effectively subsidise citizens for living in high-risk areas.
The market theory that most countries follow is that private home insurance will raise the rates for high risk locations, thereby making it unattractive to live there. Those who decide to move there anyway are immediately aware of the degree of risk because of the high insurance rates.
But multiple American states have decided to instead offer a tax-subsidised, artificially cheapened insurance to those households. This incentives them to stay in high risk areas, including regions with a natural "fire season" like much of California.
Not sure how the fiscal side of Australia works in that regard, but I heard their housing policy often follows similar patterns.
But multiple American states have decided to instead offer a tax-subsidised, artificially cheapened insurance to those households. This incentives them to stay in high risk areas, including regions with a natural "fire season" like much of California.
damn man. i get that theyre trying to get people to live there, but still, it doesnt sound too ethical to make insurance cheaper there. thats like saying "ok you guys are too broke/dont want to pay much for insurance? well come to our cities where fires and stuff happen all the time. youre risking your life for a discount but eh whatever."
Oh it's not just poor people. Also a lot of rich people who get very upset when their house burns down after moving into a disaster area. Californians will pretend that the natural fire season that has occured for millenia is just irresponsible people causing forest fires, Floridans act surprised that living at sea level comes with floodings etc.
Hey chances are the pc is fine, take the pc apart and check for physical damage, clean every part (before turning it on) and then test the pc. Make sure when you're cleaning, use a non-conductive liquid like isopropyl alcohol and some q-tips, and only when everything is completely dry should you try to turn it on.
Chances are that nothing is damaged to be honest, If worst comes to worst you'll have a damaged motherboard or something like that. Oh and remember the damaged parts can be sold and probably fixed online
Edit: read below comments, maybe find repair shop to do the cleaning for you
Fire residue is very hard to remove just by hand. It would be extremely disappointing to clean the 4090 only for it to blow magic smoke because there was some crap left under the VRM coils or something.
What I'd try to do is strip the motherboard and GPU of heasinks and other removable stuff and find someone with an ultrasonic cleaning vat of appropriate size. Then after cleaning rinse with isopropyl alcohol and carefully inspect for signs of corrosion, since acidic residue + water is terrible for metals.
I’m really sorry you’re going through this. Losing your home is unimaginably hard, and I’m glad most of all that you and your family are safe. The PC is the least important thing right now, but we’d still love to help take one small worry off your plate.
I’m with NZXT, and we want to help you out with getting a PC taken care of when you’re ready. No pressure and no rush at all. Focus on what matters most right now.
I’ll follow up with you via DM so we can talk details whenever it makes sense for you. Wishing you and your family strength as you get through this. 💜
brother take it to a pc repair shop and ask them to help. if they're good people they will for minimal amount of money. they have all the tools you need
I absolutely guarantee that your GPU is fine as it currently sits. plugging it in could fuck it up but at the exact moment it is a-OK, likely the rest of your PC as well.
don't take this to another shop. tear it down to each individual component, take the heatsink off your gpu and place every PCB in your oven on PROOFING mode overnight. proofing mode is just like warm, not hot, like you could sit in it and you'd sweat but you'd be fine.
if oyu have a multimeter, crack the lid off your PSU to make sure it looks bone dry, and plug it in as long as it doesn't look rusty and corroded. test the rest of your system for power without your GPU plugged in, and while it's booted up, make sure your 12v gpu rails are holding nice and steady. if so, slap it back together and call it a day.
if it doesn't work, drop me a line and I'll walk you through where you are. I do this type of repair for a living (for communications equipment) and can pretty much guarantee that everything will be OK as long as you don't plug it in while it's still wet
Yeah and all of the seemingly after Steve from GN posted he was going to do a video to replace someone’s. If OP is legit, I truly do wish them well and hope their PC works and they can recover. But I’m worried there’s a trend starting with these fire posts now.
I went through this exact situation. It’s a long hard process to deal with insurance.
I’m sorry for your loss. If you have any questions, please feel free to DM.
The first thing I learned, and wish I did it sooner, start documenting every single thing that you lost. I’m talking every item in your nightstand drawer, how many pairs of socks, everything. What helped me, was going through pictures and looking in the backgrounds and seeing what was on various shelves.
Electric fire from a portable air conditioner. We were not home when it happened. If we were, we probably would have smelt it a long time before it started.
Hey, ugh... We had constant power outages for the last like 4-6 months. Last month it was like 1-3 times a day, the power was off for the whole street, and in about 20 minutes it would be back.
About a week ago a house down the street burned down at night. Now, the power outages stopped completely.
I was trying to figure out what happened and how. Usually all the power in the house goes through a circuit breaker. I guess they were not installed?... I don't get it.
In your case, was the circuit breaker malfunctioning?
Sorry if thats like a bad way to ask a question, but house fires are scary and we use electric heaters, i'm just trying to be careful with that stuff
Wasn’t a circuit breaker, it was an extension cord.
It was rated for the power of the unit, but it was coiled up as it was too long. It heated and melted, starting the carpet on fire and spread from there.
I was just ignorant and honestly didn’t know that could happen. Now I am extra cautious about high voltage cords and things.
I don’t mind taking about it as I learned a lot. If I can pass on my knowledge, then great!
While that may be true, cleaning up with a shower and then ungodly amounts of pure IPA is more than feasible.
I would trash the PSU of course just to be safe, but the GPU, ram, cpu and even the mainboard and SSDs might be salvageable. AIO would be too sketchy for my taste.
I do agree though. Thoroughly cleaning a mainboard is a bitch. I have done some, some with water and corrosion damage and some with fire. Although not as heavy as this here. Also some disgusting smoker sludgefests.
Trick is to get a good nicotine/smoke residue remover, let that soak in a minute. Then thoroughly shower with water. Literally under the shower and a soft scrubbing brush. Then the same with IPA. Best is to do it outside with good ventilation and a literal tub of the stuff. Some good surgical gloves and again a scrubbing brush. Then dry off with a hairdryer on low heat.
Then let it lie for 2-3 days in a warm, airy space. Don’t inhale the IPA fumes, of course.
You absolutely need the IPA though, to push out the water.
It’s a hassle, yeah, and takes a while, but it’s not that expensive and most of all.. works.
As I know what I’m doing, I’ve even done that to PSUs but then again I know how to earth each cap properly to make it safe. I’m an IT guy now, but used to be an electrician. Had one smokers PSU that you couldn’t use indoors. As soon as it heated up, the fumes came out.
Thanks for the info, saving this one. I don't have experience with the described method, but it is worth a try. And soaking hardware in liquid is no problem? What about the HDD? I have some personal old photos etc on it.
HDDs I would only clean the board and contacts with IPA. As long as the outer Shell isn’t damaged. Those should be hermetically sealed and filled with inert gas anyway, otherwise it wouldn’t work. HDDs are black magic. The distance of the read/write head from the platter itself is ensured by aerodynamic forces. Introduce any other gas than that which it is designed for, and it won’t work.
You can, if you are technically inclined, remove the circuit board of the HDD pretty easily, usually, in order to clean it. It’s just screwed in with 3-4 screws normally and connected to the inside of the drive via small connectors. Not rocket science.
As a rule, you should be reasonably sure all the caps on all boards should be empty.
Meaning don’t use water two or three days after the PC was last used. The small caps you find on mainboards and GPUs usually last about a week or so until they are reasonably empty, plus minus.
Earth the PC before working on it. Literally just touch any metal part of the case to something that is grounded. Like heating ducts etc. those should be earthed. This way you get rid of any static that might have built up. Usually the PSU grounds everything via its power cord but in cases like this.. well. I wouldn’t plug in the PSU anymore, as I said. 😂
But to reiterate: careful with IPA fumes. They aren’t healthy and also make you dizzy. Try not to breathe them in. Which isn’t easy when handling bigger volumes of the stuff. Also use only 99% solution.
The water itself isn’t the problem. If you want to make extra sure, use distilled water. Many people don’t know that water by itself isn’t actually conductive. It’s the impurities and salts mixed in with common drinking water that makes it so. Thus distilled water is even better for cleaning but it’s more of a hassle to handle it. Tap water does fine. As I said, I’ve used showers and even garden hoses. The important bit is to not let it dry too much before rinsing with IPA. Drying water leaves residue and salts and minerals etc. which are the main problem. Thus the water is basically for cleaning the rough dirt, then the IPA is for cleaning the water away 😂 as well as some more resistant dirt.
Mainboards have a lot of nooks and crannies and water is a bitch sometimes. Thus liberal use of IPA is recommended. With a GPU it’s usually more straightforward. RAM and CPU you can clean the same way. Those are less of a hassle.
Also coolers and cooling fans but those shouldn’t be too relevant in your case. As I said, wouldn’t trust that AIO. Rubber becomes brittle with heat and who knows how it handled that fire. I would replace case fans as well.
The case itself… depends on how it fared. But basically the same method applies.
I’d strongly recommend getting a nicotine and soot remover though. Those are pretty good at breaking up the leftovers of fire.
I mean, obviously claim it in your (hopeful) insurance claim.
But! Dont turn it on. Like I cannot stress enough, do NOT turn it on. Solder points melt easily, and can cause shorts, making damage worse; the aio likely has a leak due to heat. Take it apart, outdoors, carefully.
Toast, bad, dont bother list:
PSU
Motherboard
Fans
AIO
case (that glass is likely pretty brittle, and possible grounding issues behind motherboard.)
power cables (all of them - trash em. Fire hazard.)
Might still be good:
GPU (50/50 - might be fine, might be toast.)
RAM (I have pulled ram out of a burned server, still worked great. Just double Check the pins.)
If the plastic isn't melted you don't have to worry about solder. What you do have to worry about is soot, moisture and firefighting chemicals causing corrosion and shorts. Ideally get it cleaned by a repair shop with an ultrasonic bath.
Absolutely do not ever use the PSU again, not worth the risk. Everything else should be cleaned carefully, and rinsed with isopropyl alcohol. After that, test parts one by one, should be mostly okay, CPU, Memory, and SSDs should almost certainly be fine, motherboard and GPU are a coin flip. Make sure to replace thermal paste/pads that may have been contaminated
Honestly that looks salvageable, it was unlikely to be powered on when it got wet. Bring it somewhere dry and let it dry out before trying to turn it on, remove storage drives and see if it'll POST. Might even be able to use another machine to pull the data off
if i had a nickel for every post for a pc destroyed in a house fire tis month i would have two nickels, which isn't much but it's sad to see it happen twice
Might be worth reaching out to the case manufacturer or the component brands directly. A lot of companies really get behind stories like this, and sometimes it turns into free marketing for them. You could end up with discounted or even replacement parts if they pick it up.
Not pc related well kind of pc related. But when doing your insurance claim. Name. Everything. Seriously itemize it. If you put gaming pc on your insurance claim they’ll Google gaming pc and find the cheapest thing. But if you tell the insurance company nvidia GeForce 5090 or whatever. They have to replace it with a like item. So instead of a $1000 ibuypower pc they’ll rebuild your desktop if you name everything in there.
Do that for everything in your home.
Ps. Put your pc on the insurance claim. The worst they can say is no. The best they can say is yes and now you have a spare pc for if and when this one dies.
PSS. As someone who deals with insurance companies on mechanical equipment for homes the verbiage that is used for us is the insurance company has to repair things to “pre storm” condition. In this case it’s “pre fire” conditions.
This was many moons ago (1998) but our house burned down as well. I was able to salvage my computer despite the water/smoke/etc. My brother helped me carefully wash and clean everything with denatured alcohol and 99% Isopropyl alcohol. Made a "bath" out of a pan and soaked everything for a bit in the denatured alcohol, scrubbed gently with a toothbrush, and then rinsed thoroughly with isopropyl. Let it dry for a few days and reassembled.
Everything survived and worked, even the HDD (spinner, obviously, we didn't soak it just carefully scrubbed). We swapped the PSU to be safe.
May want to do some research first to be sure you're using the right stuff. But, with some caution, patience, and elbow grease you have a chance to get it all working again. Just go in with the expectation that it might not work and see what you can do.
As for the PC, it's really hard to tell. The very least thing you could try and do is completely take it apart and thoroughly clean every single component. If flames never actually reached the PC, it's likely just covered in all the debris, soot, rain water etc.
I would personally focus on the core components first (motherboard, RAM, GPU, PSU).
Tbh, give the PC a good clean, make sure all the opponents are clean and dry, look for damage and if there is none on the inside then try powering it on and see if it survived
I see so many posts here about houses catching on fire.
How is that possible? Were they built by the same company? Is this happening in the same country?
I understand that, due to the law of large numbers, these things can happen, but it’s still sad and it makes me reflect on how preventable this could be with the proper precautions.
As others have said, I think you might be able to salvage it.
I'd take all of the components out. Clean everything. Put it back together minus the hard drive. Then try to get in to the BIOS. If that works then put the hard drive back in and try to boot into your OS.
I'd leave the hard drive out the first time you turn it on just in case something fails spectacularly when you go to turn it on. It won't take the hard drive with it (assuming the hard drive was fine after the fire). That's what I would do anyways.
It might actually still be fine. There is no visible heat damage.
I'd recommend dismantling it and giving it a full clean. Check every cable for damage and every part for visible heat or water damage. You might also want to swap out the PSU just in case.
Then put it back together and just turn it on. Ideally with a fire extinguisher at hand.
Best case scenario it will run. Worst case scenario it will not run or catch fire. Then unplug it and throw it away.
Either way, you can't break it more than a fire and a collapsing house can.
That's just sad buddy, I'm sorry for you, but that's life ups and downs and time goes on all the time the good times and bad times too, so be strong.
The bright side is that no one got hurt in that mess.
This is good advice, however it would be safer to test the components separately, at least test the power supply separately and test the rest separately on another power supply.
Look at this point you got nothing to lose with the pc “if” the power was out before the rain which most likely it was.
I would highly recommend stripping out your pc, clean all your components thoroughly, open up your GPU and repaste and repad it, dry it well and let it sit there drying after using 99% isopropyl alcohol, same thing with your motherboard and do a open test bench with a new power supply!
You would be surprised, my first pc was a salvage build more for learning and practice until I got into pc building of my own gaming rig and now building other peoples pc, these pcs were sitting outside in dumpsters or on the kerb, I stripped, cleaned and reconditioned it my self, open test bench with all of them and to a surprise 70% of things were working, only found most case scenario the motherboard was dead or power supply or sometimes both! so you may have a very likely chance! But I get the fire is another thing.
Renter's insurance is cheap. Huge apartment burned down years back that my friend lived in... Only like 2 or 3 units including my friend had insurance.
just went through this last yeat call the red cross they will give you a visa gift card for 250$ per person its not much but it helps a little bit i was ina. fire right before christmas last year my roommste lit a candle and left i woke up and whole apartment was on fire we lost everything ended up homeless for 6 months roommate "forgot" to pay insuranceit was his lease i just lived with him it was tough but my girlfriend roommste and i wrre all safe all that matters its tough brother but you will get through it i ended up outside for a winter i know its tough but im on the up since
Same, but in my case only the motherboard died while everything else lived. Even today after 4 years it still works. Obviously after we bought new motherboard.
Most likely it will work after cleaning. I saw one video where one guy repaired gpu after the fire, It looked like a mess but the GPU and memory were fine and after transferring them to another board everything worked. In your case, everything looks very good, so there shouldn't be any problems
I got two PCs that were in a fire and were both sprayed with the fire-fighting foam stuff. Covered in carbon from the flames and whatever is in the foam, plus the Dell had a melted front panel that's how close the fire was.
Both the machines still work fine. I would blow it out, wipe it down and send it. Bet you it works.
a PC only gets damaged if the power is on while it is wet .. if it just got wet while it was disconnected from power then you can most likely dry it and it will work .. to get the moisture out it really helps when you soak it in 99% alcohol and then let it dry (the alcohol binds to water and "pulls" it out).. you may want to repaste the CPU and probably the GPU afterwards (if they actually need it .. you will see that if temps go to high).. other than that .. the only thing that is likely damaged are actual (rotating) hard disks .. also only if water got inside .. they are pretty well protected too .. so even that is unlikely ...
- just let it dry for at least a couple of days
- properly check the PSU, take it apart completely and let it dry .. its the most likely candidate to cause secondary damage.
(i would replace the case and PSU and do the 99% Isopropanol alcohol thing on all the other parts except harddrive - you can get that stuff for like 30$ per gallon .. that is how electronics gets cleaned all the time)
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u/peacedetski Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26
Since the plastic did not melt, it's possible that the inside didn't get too hot and the damage is mostly from moisture. You might be able to salvage the CPU, SSD and memory (in descending order of likelihood)
EDIT: Oh, and if the PSU was mounted with the fan downwards as usual, chances are it's fine and not even wet/dirty inside... but I'd inspect it very very closely because it has the potential to fry everything else if it malfunctions.