My old Athlon 750 I donated to my mate's Mrs at Xmas was sat in the 2" of water that recently flooded the whole downstairs floor and before I try anything with it I want to get a little advice.

Its now "dried out" but the bottom inch of the motherboard has a kind of white film residue on it, as does the bottom two PCI cards (56k modem and ethernet) Also the HDD was sat upright on the floor of the tower, so the bottom 1" of that would also have been submerged (not sure water tight the HDD would be? If just the bottom bit was under?)

I think the board, 2 PCI cards and the HDD could be knackered, but I try plugging stuff in and that - any hints and tips. Would be nice if the HDD was fairly safe to re-use in another system and I remove the athlon 750 processor and graphics and ditch the rest. Maybe then look for a new socket A (is it A for the 750?) board and go down that route?

Jason, if you are perfectly sure its completely dry then power it up. All being well it should work, the HD may be ok it depends on if its the sealed type or not. We had a fire at work a couple of years ago caused by lightning and a laser printer and several PCs were drenched by fire hoses. A week later and both were working perfectly.

OK - so when the PC catches fire and burns the house down I know where to come.

hair dryer to make sure dry cicuit boards should be ok, cp fan may be knacked so watch for over heating.

Make sure it is very very dry, and try and clean it as best you can, not only water is conductive (you should see what a thick layer of dust can do to a PC).

My advice would be to take everything out and lay each thing on it's own in a warm dry place (airing closet for example). Then I'd give things a good spray with WD40 where I think there may still be a bit of damp (you could also spray with WD40 before putting it in the airing closet).

So long as the thing wasn't switched on when the water got in and it is properly dried out there is little reason why it wouldn't continue to work.

Well - It doesn't even power up. Power button is on and I heard it crackle when I put the power cord in the back of the PC. Its very very unalive at the moment though. :(

Can only assume the board is knackered?

If nothing what so ever happens then sounds an aweful lot like the power supply has foobared. You can turn a power supply on on it's own if ya know which wires to short (the ones that the motherboard uses to send a signal to say i've been turned on). Search on google for the ones to do, I think it's green and a ground wire (black). May need a bit of resistance to kick it off. least that'll tell you whether the PSU knackered or not.

P.S. sorry I haven't been online to help ya overclock your rig, been a hectic week this week. Will msn ya next week if ya still need a hand.

No probs.

The only thing could have affected the PSU would be when the extension cord got wet. It was a 4 into 1. The plug itself seems OK as it attaches to the new 4 into 1 and gets power into the PSU itself. I have a spare one anyway - Will be giving that a whirl.

Maybe at the point of being wet, the power sent a surge into the PSU and it gave way saving further damage? Would be nice to think that.

The lifespan of any electronic device even partially submerged in water is limited. If dried out properly you might get a couple of years out of it but eventually copper tracks oxidise anyway and the device fails. I've had a TV, a combi boiler ignitor unit and mobile phone go down that route. The phone was in a foot deep in a pond for 2 hours and survived. All of this gear failed disastrously after about a year except the ignitor unit which i got 2 years out of.

Jason, I have an Athlon XP 2000+ with MB and possibly a 60BG HDD here if I can upgrade my PC.

Of course, it'll go cheap to yourself

Need to upgrade mine first though, so if speed isn't essential, maybe

Bearing in mind that I am on an old AMD 350 MHz right now, if anyone is needing a home for some of this exotic gear you young lads seem to throw out with the newspapers, please keep me in mind!

Didnt know that Nick. If I upgrade and Jason has no need for it, your next in line. Just wondering what to upgrade to...