Water in laptop. Help please

[Macontour]

Hi all you computer geeks there. My darling 4 year old Daughter spilt water onto my laptop keyboard and I only discovered it hours later when I couldn't get anything to come upon the screen. I then noticed water dripping onto my leg. I turned the laptop on its side and water dripped out of the USB ports etc but I think most of it had already dripped out. I tried to puull it apart and got all the screws out that I could see but no joy and didn't want to start forcing things with screwdrivers or knife blades!!!

I removed the Battery, Hard Drive and Memory Board cover and sat it on top of my Dehumidifier for about an hour. It now appears to be working fine(I am using it now) but is there more that I should do? Do I need to take it to an expert who will tell me I need a new Flux Capacitor or something?

Can't growl my Daughter too much, shes a great kid and it was an accident.

Cheers.

[GSF]

I've heard tell that leaving it in a container full of (uncooked) rice for a few days or alternatively those little packets of dessicant that you get inside new shoes can help a lot too. Draws out moisture.

[Rhys]

Back up everything and use it until it goes pop, it should be fine it it was only water

[sil3nt]

Without taking it to anyone all you can really do is dry it out as much as possible and pray. I would not have touched it for a few days to be safe.

http://www.wikihow.com/Save-a-Laptop-from-Liquid-Damage

[steve_t]

Back up everything and use it until it goes pop, it should be fine it it was only water


Without taking it to anyone all you can really do is dry it out as much as possible and pray. I would not have touched it for a few days to be safe.


Yup. This is the same as when people drop their phones in the toilet or put them in the wash - DO NOT TRY TO TURN THEM ON until they're totally dry. Most electronics will work after they've dried out. If there's still water in there, it can short out and destroy it.
Once it's dry and running, back up everything and continue to do so. Eventually components inside will rust and the device will shit itself but the time until that happens is highly variable

[Macontour]

Thanks for all the advice. I will shut down now and see what I can do with the Dehumidifier. Cheers.

[Gremlin]

As others have said, dry it out, then see if it will work. You've already powered it on, but ideally you want to be drying for 24 hours or more.

Ultimately, rust will probably get it over time, but back things up and see how it goes...

[FJRider]

Just needs a tap on the bottom ... :innocent:

[SMOKEU]

Drop it in a container of cooking oil. Ensure the HDD (if it has one) doesn't get oil on it.

[Haggis2]

Drop it in a container of cooking oil. Ensure the HDD (if it has one) doesn't get oil on it.

Needs to be more specific - hot or cold, new or used oil?

[SMOKEU]

Needs to be more specific - hot or cold, new or used oil?

Fresh cold cooking oil - it displaces water and since it's not electrically conductive it won't short circuit anything. You'll never get the laptop clean again though, and you'll have to leave it submerged in the oil forever. Oil cooled computers do work quite well (Google it - I'm not taking the piss).

[Buyasta]

Fresh cold cooking oil - it displaces water and since it's not electrically conductive it won't short circuit anything. You'll never get the laptop clean again though, and you'll have to leave it submerged in the oil forever. Oil cooled computers do work quite well (Google it - I'm not taking the piss).

Oddly enough, immersion cooling just never caught on for laptops, I wonder why that could possibly be? :facepalm:
Also just on the off-chance you weren't trolling by suggesting cooking oil, if you are going to do some DIY immersion cooling, you want to be using mineral oil, not cooking oil.

[imdying]

Cooking oil does indeed work fine!

But the others advice is probably more practical. Backup everything immediately and thrash it till it dies. Of course, you pay your home and contents, so you might as well claim on it. More water will help that.

[pete376403]

If it was just plain water it should be ok, fruit juice / coke etc are death to laptops .

when it finally needs replacement, consider getting a Lenovo - the keyboard sits in a tray with drain holes though to the base.

[Katman]

I spilt beer all over this laptop a couple of months back and never did anything about it.

It went through a couple of weeks with the cursor going haywire but has since come right (although it's lost the use of the right hand shift key).

[FJRider]

I spilt beer all over this laptop a couple of months back and never did anything about it.



Another preventable accident .... :innocent:

[bosslady]

if you put your ear to it.....









can you hear the ocean?

[Zerker]

yes more water would certainly help the insurance claim, being powered on while water is being poured would help (be very careful not to touch the water or laptop, electrocution and all)

if you were to use oil to displace the water (probably not worth it at this point, just keep drying it, use rubbing alcohol (as pure as you can get) to clean up any hard water deposits that you can see) then don't use vegetable or cooking oil this stuff will turn rancid over time and will feel and smell awful, yes it is non conductive and will displace the water but not worth the mess.

I would also consider the laptop to be a ticking time bomb, the water just needs to conduct current between to points of contact and the whole thing will go, or rust to weaken a part to point of failure.

I would suggest you use a shared drive over your network (either from your router if it can take an external drive or a computer that will always be on) to store your information you want to keep and access it with the laptop (except stuff that needs fast access like game save files and game data), that way when the laptop goes 90% of your stuff is on the networked drive and the rest should be able to be rescued from your regular backups, just plug in an external once a week and leave it to do it overnight, then it's only one weeks worth of info to loose at the worst.