Help!!!! Im Freakin Out! Soda Attacked Alien!!

I would love to go into detail and I PROMISE I WILL LATER but long story short...a cup of soda got knocked onto my Alienware and she powered down and is now unresponsive. I disconnected everything as fast as I possibly could and now have yanked out the battery and disconnected all devices and plugs and have the back plated taken off. I do not know how to disassemble the rest of my lil girl and I am in need of desperate help! I'm not a novice but I definitely am not a pro like you guys. Man I will let all of you clown me later...but please help me try to save my girl right now!!

 

Do you have accidental warranty or something?


BTW I would google M17x disassembly and take that notebook completely apart and clean out the soda.

And try to resist turning it on for a couple of days.

Disconnect the CMOS battery if you can.

 

I have strong doubts that the M17X is a little girl...

Anyways, take the battery out, unscrew the visible screws, pop the cover and take out the RAM, the hard drives, and the GPUs. If any soda is on them, clean them with electronics rubbing alcohol and a wipe.

Once this is done put everything back together. If it does not work, I just hope you have accidental care...

 

Some repair shops will try to fix your motherboard after it's water damaged (soda in this case), so that might be a last resort.

 

Your off to a good start, take apart as much as to feel comfortable with, clean as much soda off everything as possible, use a slightly damp rag (water on plastic covers) (alcohol on the electrical peaces). once your done doing that, you will need to let it dry for 24 to 48 hours (depending on the severity of it all), of you use a hairdryer, DO NOT use heat, just air. If your laptop is still on "accidental warranty, then just call Dell.

 

Ok I'm starting the disassembly process right now. I have 3 yr extended warranty but I do not remember anything about accidental warranty mentioned which is why I think I am screwed about called Dell. Now I have helped other people before and I know about the denatured alcohol which my girl is on the road going to buy now. However this has never happened to me so instead of having a clear mind im kinda freaking out!! I have a project that is due on friday and this will absolutely KILL ME if she is dead for 5 or more days...HENCE the freaking out!

 

Man i appreciate all the comments so far. Removing the hard drives and ram now. I know my way around laptops but for some reason never wanted to open up my M17x so I have no idea what she looks like inside.

 

I would suggest that you use rubbing alcohol to clean the soda off instead of the damp rag. If you do a complete tear-down and clean everything with the alcohol, you don't need to let it dry for two or three days due to the fact that the alcohol evaporates within seconds. Good luck man.

 

Lestat (isn't that the name of an Anne Rice vampire or something?) you have pretty much done the right thing by disassembling and drying. The gentle alcohol treatment of sensitive parts is probably one of the better things to do, since you can remove sticky soda residues and dirt better with it, and it will dry without adding to the residue problem. Truth is, most of the electronics are not all that sensitive to liquids as long as they don't get shorted (but you turned off real fast) and you get them clean and dry before trying to run again. Motorized components like hard drives might be more of a problem, but it isn't like you totally dunked it, so I think you're going to come out of this just fine. The longer you can keep from using it the better, since you can better ensure complete drying of the boards and components.

 

NO LIQUID on any of the RAM or Hard Drives

 

What part of your laptop got splashed?

 

However I am not sure how to get to the keyboard from the bottom so I know have the YouTube running to see how to de-assemble her carefully to pull the keyboard out and wipe her down. On the bottom half there is no liquid at all present. Yo my peeps...wish me luck.

PS. voiceIntheWilderness....yes I was a huge Rice fan before they started making crappy movies about her books a LOOOOONG time ago and my idiot friends made it stick and Lestat was my fav character so I was cool with it.

 

Tear down step by step via the service manual. The sugar aspect is what you have to worry about. Sadly, I think you are still going to run into issues simply due to the 'sugar content factor'.

Documentation

If its just the keyboard, just buy a replacement keyboard.

Best of luck

 

The keyboard..the drink fell on the keyboard...and I swatted it off in bout a sec and a half and immediately picked up the laptop and turned it over....then I unplugged it and powered it down and disconnected all of my external drives (4) and laid her on the ground to drain

 

I have a question, could he rise off his keyboard, then dry it, just like desktop keyboards, making sure its dry afterworlds? This would keep the keys from sticking.

 

Fan is out and no liquid residing there either.

 

Thanks BatBoy...Im using the support doc and Im struggling on getting the keyboard off but i'll let u know how it goes!

 

Just took apart my M17x R1 about ten minutes ago. I got an exchange system so I figured I would tear the R1 down before it went back so I could see if I wanted to change out the thermal paste in my R2. However for the keyboard. Tilt the screen all the way back pop off the command strip that has the power button on it. For this you just pry a flat top screw driver in the side of it and lift it up. Be carfefull with it the clips are fragile. It also has a small cable you will have to disconnect from it. Then once that is off the keyboard has five screws holding it down at the top underneath that command strip. Take those out then the keyboard slides out. It also has two cables that need to be disconnected from the motherboard side.

 

Thx Timbo.. I have gotten to my keyboard and pulled it out. There is only minimal liquid underneath the fold. So we wiped everything down and we are going to wipe it all down with denatured alcohol let it sit and then start assembling the beast again.

Somebody tell me if i need to look anywhere else before reassembling. Thanks

 

The touch pad panel comes off pretty easily to. You could check there depending on where the soda spilt. Theres just three screws underneath the battery for it. Then its snug in there but it just slides out away from the keyboard then lift up on it. Just be very gentle with the gloss black trim. Its not glued on very well I broke mine off a little and had to glue it back on. The only other place after that would be to take off the whole top gray magnesium panel. Underneath that is the motherboard and cpu.

 

Good luck to you my friend. The accidental is covered on the 2nd tier and up warranty plans.

 

for future ref "rice" is the best at taking out moisture of electronics, just something to keep in mind if you drop your phone in water just put the phone in a box of rice for a night and it will dry out alot quicker then if left to air dry. not sure if it can be done with a laptop. man it sucks that its soda because it makes stuff sticky afterwards.

 

Does the M17X have any water markers? On mobile phones they turn red if they get wet.

 

i hope all is well when u put everything back together. good luck. keep us posted.