Could someone help me?

I am somewhat aware that this is the wrong section to post in, but it seems that people in this section are more friendly.. so here's a shot..

My water bottle in my backpack exploded and submerged my laptop in water..

Everything was fine except for my RAM. which now registers as 1 GB( 762mb usuable)

Right now I have that much without any ram sticks in it. I thought it was the ram that was bad, but i just ordered a 4gb ram stick and the computer doesnt recognize it... so im guessing it is the motherboard.

the computer was only $800 and dell says the mobo will be 418..

its not cost efficient to buy a new one.. so is there ANYTHING i can possibly do?

Thanks

 

eBay is your best bet for a new motherboard. Although it will void your warranty, it will be significantly cheaper. It might cost $150-$300. In the future, either carry your laptop in a different bag, or keep your waterbottle on the outside of the bag.

The first thing you should've done is taken the battery out, disassembled the laptop, taken out the motherboard and put it in a large container/pan of uncooked brown/white rice, sealed it off and left it there for a day or two to soak out all the moisture.

 

I would let the computer run for a few days. It might dry out some more and the remaining RAM reappears.

You don't say which model Dell you have. Older ones may not support 4GB modules.

John

 

Definitely disassemble the notebook as much as possible... the parts that got wet... and set it out to dry in the driest place you can find... in front of an airconditioning vent should do it since this air has its water content lowered by the cold condensating coils. Let it dry thoroughly before trying to use it. Remove the water and the electronics are likely to be ok provided you did not damage anything trying to power it while wet.

The rice idea may work, although the basic idea is to suck the water out by exposing it to a drier medium... rice, newspaper... dry air.

GK

 

The take-it-apart approach is the safest and most reliable one. However if it wasn't pure water but some drink containing other ingredients (especially sugar) it might not work since the sugar will remain after the water has evaporated.
It woul have been even better to disassemble the laptop immediately after the accident and clean its components with isopropanol.

 

Take it apart, compress air the crap out of it. Then put it in rice. Is the 4GB just 1 DIMM or is it 2GBx2

 

This happened about 2 weeks ago, and i did take apart the computer, half the screen used to be watermarked but its completely gone now..

The computer is a

Studio Laptop 1440


they dont even make it anymore which is extremely frustrating considering it was pricey..

It used to have a 2gb 1 DIMM, but now i put in a 4gb 1 dimm. it SHOULD support the ram considering theres options for a 4gb stick on the dell website.

i ran out of warranty 5 days before the accident.


Another thing, I actually bought this 4gb stick from best buy

Kingston Technology - 4GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SoDIMM Laptop Memory - KTA-MB1066/4GETR


Now i know it says apple. but my friend, who is an computer science engineer says that the ram SHOULD work in my laptop... is he right ? or did i just buy an incompatible RAM...

Also, it was all water..

the thing that baffles me is that everything else runs PERFECTLY- graphics, running programs (albeit very slow to load) but videos, and even medium end games run on it.
so im really curious on the posibility of the mobo ram slot being damaged.

the bad part is, when the water got into the computer, the laptop was on..(in hibernate/standby, i forget which one since i was just in lecture)

so.. POSSIBLY something may have shorted? but that doesnt make sense because like i said, everything runs ..perfectly

 

The memory module should work. The specs match your system and brands shouldn't matter.
However, there is always a little risk that a specific module doesn't work in a specific laptop because of discrepancies from the electric specifications that exceed the tolerances.
I'd try another module to check if the mainboard is ok.

 

This Cnet review says that the Studio 1440 has the Nvidia MCP79 chipset. However, I can't find anything that states that this chipset supports 4GB modules.

John

 

Interesting, thanks John.

I dont recall where I read it but it says the computer supports up to 4gb of RAM.

The thing is, there is only 1 RAM slot and the computer came with a 2gb stick + 1gb of (virtual?) RAM ? - which is what Im running on.

So I was thinking if i put a 4gb in. it'd just max out at 4gb.. otherwise....its dell's false advertisement? Considering ive never seen a sole 3gb ram stick before....