What to do if you spill liquid on a laptop - OS independent.

[Michael Havens]

Thanks for the how-to Jim. I only wish I would have known about that
before. Oh well. I got a new laptop. I am only trying to make this one live
a bit longer.
Isn't it strange though wow the escape key worked. It doesn't beep anymore
like there is a stuck key. I even started it while holding the escape key
down.... it just happily boots windows or what is in the CD-ROM.

On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 12:56 AM, Jim March <1.jim.march at gmail.com> wrote:

> OK, somebody (probably you!) just spilled something on your laptop.
> What do you do?
>
> *Immediately* yank the power cord, flip it so that the keyboard and
> screen are both pointed "down" with the screen open at a normal 90deg
> angle, and pull the battery out.  It should be angled like so: ^ and
> in that position, set it down.  If you have to close it a bit tighter
> than 90deg so it'll stay that way, OK, fine.  No more than 45deg if
> possible.  This is the "tented" position and it keeps as much liquid
> as possible off the motherboard and screen internals.
>
> What to do next depends on the liquid.  In the case of something
> corrosive, which includes:
>
> * Vinegar;
>
> * Cola or most other sodas;
>
> * Anything with a lot of citrus content;
>
> * Anything else acidic;
>
> * Light alcoholic drinks such as beer or probably most wines.
>
> ...you need to open it up, take it completely apart and clean
> everywhere the liquid touched.  Rubbing alcohol is by far the best and
> safest cleaning agent.
>
> You'll need to pull the keyboard and clean it thoroughly.  Believe it
> or not, flushing it under hot tap water works great.  Dry it as best
> you can with a towel and let it dry.  Be sure and pull out things like
> the memory banks and WiFi cards and clean the contacts on both the
> cards and motherboard with a Q-tip or the like and rubbing alky.  Be
> also sure you get any tiny fibers out that could hose the connections!
>
> What about straight water?
>
> Well there's differing schools there.  The power-down part and tent it
> is still vital - you must not apply power while the circuits are wet,
> period, end of discussion.
>
> I'm of the opinion that you are best off taking it at least partially
> apart and applying a hair dryer to the insides FROM AT LEAST TWO FEET
> AWAY - in other words, go slow, have patience, dry it the hell out.
>
> There's an alternative though: bury it in dry rice!  I know, sounds
> weird but the stuff sucks up water like crazy and sometimes from a
> considerable distance IF there's not a lot of humidity in the air
> (such as Arizona!).  You may still have to take the keyboard out and
> painstakingly poke the rice out with a toothpick or the like -
> something stiff but non-metallic, wood or plastic.  This will likely
> work better if it's somewhat hot - on a cold winter night like right
> now that water won't want to travel as far and is more likely to make
> something rust, I think.  (The rice trick is also well-known for
> cellphones and the like, and yet again, pull the battery first!)
>
> Only once everything is dry do you bolt it back together and re-apply
> power.
>
> Now, if you don't know how to take a laptop apart...well, honestly, if
> you're on a budget and really depend on your lappy, you need to do two
> things ahead of time: google for a good set of teardown instructions
> and bookmark them on another computer or otherwise keep them
> available, and go spend $16 at Radio Shack for a set of
> laptop-and-small-electronics screwdriver bits:
>
> http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3932539
>
> If you let a laptop sit overnight either wet or esp. with something
> corrosive inside, it won't live to morning and a trip to a repair
> shop.  OK?  Flat out, there will be corroded contacts somewhere and
> you're looking at a new motherboard minimum.  Plus labor, and if it's
> an older rig it might not even be worth it.
>
> I saved a laptop of my own some years back from a coke spill at a TFUG
> event.  I powered it down and "tented" it within seconds as described,
> finished the meet, did a full teardown and cleanout at home that same
> night.  The only damage was to the WiFi card and I had another
> available that turned out to have more range and better drivers so no
> biggie.  I have it on good authority that the critter lived to a ripe
> old age and probably still works as somebody's backup machine - I sold
> it with full disclosure of it's history about a year post-spill.  If
> I'd had to buy another WiFi card it would have been $20 or less on
> Fleabay, $35 tops at SWS in Tucson or cheaper at Fry's in Phoenix.
>
> This was brought on by a recent post describing somebody else's spill :).
>
> Oh yeah.  One last thing.  Let's say the sucker really ends up dead.
> Maybe it shorted hard before you were able to pull the power.  It
> happens.  Odds are the hard disk is still OK.  And since we're running
> Linux or the like, we're in luck: that same drive/OS set can boot some
> other computer just fine, with maybe a bit of video driver tweaks or
> whatever.  So you can find any laptop that takes the same sort of
> drive, new or used, bolt your old drive in, odds are you're right
> there back in biz with no farting around.  You can even bolt it into a
> desktop if you need to get up fast and just don't have access to
> another lappy yet.
>
> I would recommend running a disk diagnostics set to see if the HD took
> any minor damage along the way though - something like Disk Utility
> from the latest Ubuntu family (Lucid forward) will do nicely.
>
> Jim
>
> PS: what if you spill mineral oil on it!?  Well other than cleaning
> the keyboard and letting the majority of it drain, don't worry about
> it!  It's non-corrosive, non-conducting.  You can run a whole computer
> dipped in a tank of the stuff no sweat, and some people into extreme
> overclocking do exactly that!
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-- 
:-)~MIKE~(-:
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