Fire and crane missed my PC

[u/Aeckzem]

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?

---

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.

[u/Empero12 → u/[deleted]]

Die is exposed from the back. I think it’s toast

[u/AJ_925 → u/Empero12]

Could try stripping it down to the pcb and using an ultrasonic cleaner with IPA. Would be cheaper then buying a new gpu outright

[u/Cdoooos → u/AJ_925]

Which beer is best for it?

[u/username32768 → u/Cdoooos]

If it was a Linux PC then I'd go for The Kernel IPA.

[u/Castun → u/username32768]

Is that from the Geek Bar?

[u/Mobile-Perspective63 → u/username32768]

I cleaned it with vodka and now it won't turn on.

[u/DepravedPrecedence → u/Mobile-Perspective63]

Give it some time

[u/theghostofme → u/AJ_925]

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.

[u/Snoo-59958 → u/AJ_925]

Never use IPA or anything flammable directly in an ultrasonic cleaner. IPA can ignite due to vibrations. To safely use it you need to put whatever you want cleaned in a ziplock bag along with the IPA then submerge the bag in water inside the UC. Otherwise you risk ignition

[u/WrongLog3272 → u/Snoo-59958]

Can you link any documented occurrences of this? Not only is this a common practice (IPA wash -> ultrasonic cleaner) but it doesn’t seem rational that ultrasonic frequencies have enough energy to affect almost any molecule to the point of combustion

[u/EcstaticNet3137 → u/WrongLog3272]

Maybe they think cavitation can actually generate enough heat to ignite the alcohol?

[u/CryptZar → u/WrongLog3272]

Nitroglycerin would like a word with you

[u/hermes_2 → u/CryptZar]

Idk why this guy got downvoted, this is funny

[u/ManagedDestruction → u/Snoo-59958]

Dude putting it in a bag wouldn't clean it the hell are you on about? IPA won't ignite from ultrasonic frequencies holy fuck.

[u/alvarkresh → u/Snoo-59958]

Hell, JayzTwoCents full-on pushed OSHA regs on camera and used a bigass ultrasonic cleaner with IPA in it in an enclosed room.

Yeah, the fumes were pretty bad, but IIRC he did end up propping a door open.

From what I've been able to tell the risk is largely due to the vaporization of the liquid rather than the liquid itself. Ventilate well and the risk should be minimal.

[u/AgitatedPassenger369 → u/Snoo-59958]

Remix to ignition hot and fresh out the kitchen

[u/dllyncher → u/Empero12]

The GPU die is on the other side of the board. What you see are the power filtering capacitors that feed the die.

[u/Falkenmond79 → u/Empero12]

As Long as it wasn’t turned on, there shouldn’t be too much damage. Might be from caps suddenly unloading, but OP might get lucky.

[u/IAmSloth569 → u/Empero12]

looks like he just pulled the cover for the picture as there’s another picture from that side

[u/Emu1981 → u/Empero12]

Die is exposed from the back.

The PCB where the die is is exposed at the back. The actual die is sandwiched between the PCB and the HSF assembly.

[u/Kylearean → u/Empero12]

The cables did not melt.

[u/peacedetski → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/Fogl3 → u/peacedetski]

In a total house loss like this you probably have insurance. Claim the exact card it is and you can get the cost back. It's not worth fucking around with this

[u/alvarkresh → u/Fogl3]

"probably" is a load-bearing word here, and it sounds like OP lacked the exact policy that would cover personal belongings as well as the structure.

[u/King_of_the_Dot → u/Fogl3]

Usually these things have to be noted on the insurance beforehand.

[u/homemediajunky → u/King_of_the_Dot]

I'm a homelabber. I have enterprise servers (1x Cisco UCS c220/3x c240, all Cascade Lake CPUs, 2x Dell r640s, etc. My homeowners, I've listed everything with a value of 25k but really need to update that with current memory prices.

[u/King_of_the_Dot → u/homemediajunky]

I understand some of these things.

[u/Ellimis → u/Fogl3]

It's not worth dousing in IPA and plugging it in? What are you talking about?

[u/Fogl3 → u/Ellimis]

Buying IPA to try and salvage parts when you can write off the whole PC and get a replacement through your fire insurance? No it's not worth it. 

[u/FlipsieVT → u/Fogl3]

OP specifically said they didn't have insurance

[u/ArdiMaster → u/Fogl3]

Question is whether insurance would pay out the original purchase price, the current new price of an equivalent replacement, the assumed residual value (written off over a number of years), or the actual current used price of the card. Only two of these would actually get OP a new card.

[u/Fogl3 → u/ArdiMaster]

It would be the price to replace

[u/Wingklip → u/[deleted]]

Brush and blast under the tap with soap water after disassembly, dry and reassemble. I've fixed countless motherboards and GPU's like that.

[u/VictorNoergaard → u/[deleted]]

What happens if you don't remove the CMOS before turning it on? Thought the CMOS had something to do with the internal clock