A housemate spilled a half-full medium glass of water on her desktop PC as it was powered on. It got over EVERYTHING because the case (NZXT Vulcan) was designed for airflow. Screen immediately went black, the fans got noisy, and an electric smell came from the exhaust vent. I told her to unplug the system then give it to me.
After this, I rushed to take it apart, but due to the case being old and this event happening past midnight I didn’t have the time to do so fully, and only took out the GPU, PSU, RAM and CPU. I wiped down everything I could with a paper towel.
Luckily, very little water appears to have actually gotten on the motherboard, but the GPU’s PCB was almost entirely covered in water and I hear some kind of sloshing when I shake it gently. I haven’t taken it apart since due to a lack of time. The CPU was dry, the PSU itself appears to be fine with no water visible, but I’m especially concerned about the RAM and the DVD Drives.
This housemate has 2x4 GB, so I took out both of them and dried them off and found that one had a drop of water on the pins, so I’m concerned if water got in the RAM slots. As I was removing the ram I noticed that the DVD drives were absolutely soaked and I could see water getting inside one of the drives. I couldn’t get them out without removing the motherboard, so I had to dry off what I could without removing them. I also noticed some water on the bottom of the case, which I dried up on sight, but with how cramped it is I probably missed some.
I’ve done some googling and found that it’s best to take apart the PC, dry off every component, wait 2-3 days, then clean any corrosion with alcohol. However, almost all of the results I got were with a far smaller amount of water and not enough for a dehydrated gerbil like our situation here.
You’ve already done most things what I had in mind.
Getting all components completely dry is essential. For that you might want to use e.g. a hair dryer (carefully) with its lowest temperature, preferably without any heating.
Note that the machine may have some dust inside which also should be removed if possible.
Anyway, as you already got some smell out of it, it is possible that some components are burned. If so, at least those components should be replaced. But I guess getting a new machine would be the safest thing to do. Unless you know a good electrician who can check if the machine is still usable.
such cases usually have a detachable front panel, you can then remove the drives to the front.
apart from that, letting it dry for several days, cleaning corrosion and potentially still wet dust and then putting it together and connect it and power it on with one hand near the power plug to disconnect it in case something goes wrong shouldn’t be such a big risk.
I would try it without a hard drive first, in case it is still good, to not damage it when trying to turn it on again, and in case that goes good, trying to boot from a Live boot medium first before entering the hard drive. After all, thats where the data is that might still be the most valuable thing in that whole PC
The CPU might still be damaged in case something on the motherboard shorted out.
Edit: don’t forget to disconnect the mainboard battery before letting it dry.