Spilled caramel milk on my Macbook keyboard

Yea yea I knw I knw, I'm a douchebag for putting a drink next to my brand new macbook. My ****in friend knocked it over and I swear it was not my fault. Well anyways, now I can't do anything about it. Even though I want to make that mother****er buy me a whole new macbook, I wanna see what can be done to maybe fix it and waste less money of his...

As soon as the milk was spilt, I turned my macbook over and cleaned up everything with paper towels. Next I used a hairdryer to try and dry the rest of the **** off. The only mistake I made was that I did not disconnect the battery and I started the laptop right away to see if it worked. I shouldnt have done that but I was just petrified to see if it would ever work again.

Now the keys are all sticky. When I connect the charger, the part of the magnetic pin that connects with the laptop and has that little LED on it, does not stay at a solid red or green like before. It is very dim, and it blinks constantly. AND, even though it is connected to the laptop, MY LAPTOP Battery ISN'T CHARGING ANYMORE.

Please help me people, I just bought this two weeks ago.

Should I get it looked at by Best Buy or something??
Should I call Apple and make some **** up and see if they will repair all this stuff?
Or should just accept the possibility that even after repairs this laptop can malfunction in the future and have my friend pay for a brand new one?/

Im in a pickle here, please help!!

 

Well if it's 100% your friend's fault, then he/she should get you a new laptop IF you can't repair this one. Call Apple.

 

No swearing please, even if you are annoyed.

You need to get that keyboard out and give it a good bath and a complete dry. Dried milk with added sugar is guaranteed to cause problems.

You have to hope that the liquid didn't under the keyboard to other electronics.

John

 

ouch sorry to hear about ur problem. the poor macbook is just 2 weeks old .

yeah, people should be careful and not eat or drink near the laptop...

try to clean the laptop more thouroughly, especially around the charger area. however, after reading about the situation i doubt that the laptop is unharmed.

apple is not fixed by bestbuy. they have their own apple store or apple authorized dealer/repairer to have your computer serviced.

no you shouldnt call apple and make something up, coz it will be obvious that you spill something.

MACBOOK are not spill resistant. so after reading about the problem im quite sure the laptop is in very bad shape. if you go to repair route, im pretty sure you need to change lots of things, almost certainly the mother/logicboard. and that means expensive! if you spill a large amount of liquid, and the computer seems damage, i wouldnt bother repairing, i would just get a new one. the hassle and cost of repairing and the resultant reliability of the laptop is not worth it.

 

Not removing the battery and turning on the computer shortly after the spill were some of the worst possible mistakes you could have made, but no worries, sh!t happens, right? Best of luck with it. Call Apple and see where it goes, if they can repair it for less than the price of another macbook then go for that option and have your friend pay for the service.

Best of luck, and please be sure to update us on how it goes.

 

i dont think that apple will repair it...

 

They will if he pays them

 

Yea sorry for the swearing guys, I wasn't in the right state of mind when I wrote that post. Thank you so much for the replies.

I am going to talk to apple store, best buy etc. first thing in the morning and try to find out what they can do in this situation.

Will post here about what I did with this, keep replying if anybody has any better ideas...thanks.

 

ah dont worry, i will too if my laptop is bricked after just two weeks of ownership.

good luck.

 

good luck m8!

 

What he said. Though I'd say it's hosed. And if you took your friend to court, I'd say the court would decide to split the cost down the middle, because you DID put the drink there.

My only suggestion is if this happened at your house, perhaps your homeowners insurance "might" cover it.

 

Actually I have to disagree with you. It is unfortunate about the OP's new Macbook and I know it's not nice to point fingers but in all honesty the fault falls on the OP 100% for placing the drink next to his computer, it was his negligence. Unless the OP's friend dropped a drink out of his hand onto the OP's Macbook then it's the friend's fault.

Caramel milk?? Eww, no offense but it sounds like something a kid would drink.

I don't think the OP should hide the truth about it to Best Buy or Apple either.

 

I just figured the caramel milk was what Mac users drank. I thought it was weird too.

 

Just curious, isn't the Mac Book spill resistant? I know it can't cover everything, but...

 

Nope, definitely not. No drain holes or anything... unfortunately.

 

You made more that just one mistake please refer to the underline.

Anyways, You should of left it off and taken the batteries out, common sense with electronics and liquids.

You can lie to best buy and apple, but once they get it and see that it got something spilt on it, they won't be paying the bill.

 

I gotta agree with you on this. If that happened to me I'd be mad of course, but mainly at myself for placing sticky fluids next to my brand spanking new macbook. I wouldn't say the friend owes anything in this case, but that's just me.

OP, good luck, hope you can get it repaired cheaply.

 

ya, come to think of it, home insurance might cover it aye?

 

Well, I think that if you take it apart and clean it, it should work just fine. How do I know? Because I just had to do a very interesting experiment. I wanted to make Iberia pay for damaging my Sony TZ in flight last year, it's a long story, so I had to "destroy" it for them so they could pay me back in full (it was repaired by Sony Japan).

So, while it was on, I began pouring sherry wine on the keyboard. Then I poured some more. Then some more again. But it was still working! It took quite a bit of wine to actually kill the laptop, so my sense is that you should be able to rescue your Macbook.

Sorry to hear about this, but with 120 million laptops sold each year and thirsty consumers, I don't see this phenomenon ending any day soon.

 

-_- This is why I am so hesistant to buy a Macbook; no accidental damage protection.

With my Dell, I could spill my coffee all over it and just send it back to Dell and get it back in 1-2 weeks fixed and ready to go!

 

doesn't apple care cover accidental?

 

Unfortunately not.

 

Well to be honest that still a poor reason to buy the Dell and not the Apple. I've had 2 Apple notebooks and kept them both for 5 years and never spilled a thing on them. It's your responsibility to take care of your investments.

 

That sucks! I don;t know what i'd do if mine was damaged, good luck

 

I think it is a great reason to buy a Dell over an Apple. I love Apple products but I just cannot stand not having the Accidental Damage Coverage. Sure I am responsible for my investment but things do happen and when they do, I am glad to know I am covered.

I think having an Apple without accidental damage coverage is horrible especially as a student who cares his laptop around everywhere. You are bound to get dings and scratches.

And as you see with the thread maker, it wasn't entirely his fault. His friend was the one who knocked the drink onto the Macbook.

If he had accidental damage protection, he would save money for himself and his friend.

 

Best case scenario:
Replace the top case: parts + labour = $180

Worst case scenario:
Replace the top case, logic board: parts + labor = buy yourself a new one.

AppleCare does not cover accidental coverage.

Advise for people, when you spill liquid on the notebook, immediately remove all power source into it (battery and AC), flip the notebook over so the liquid does not go into the logic board. See a service point right away. Replacing a keyboard is cheaper than the logic board.

 

Really really sorry to hear of your predicament. My work colleague spilled water down the right speaker grill of my MBP 4 days after I bought it and one of my final year asignments was on it. Its not the same as caramel milk though as it didn't have sugary properties to stick to PCB's although it is still corrosive over the medium to long term.

Honestly you may have been a little bit foolish to place liquid beside your laptop but it was someone else who knocked it over. Unfortunately legally you might not have a leg to stand on using the 'but for' test of negligence, if that is accepted in your jurisdiction. They say that ignorance of the law is no excuse but ignorance may be bliss for you if your friend knows nothing about their lack of liability and if they have any sense of decency and friendship they should at least pay half for a new one. Honestly if you can to wait for the new ones to be hopefully announced in september this may have a silver lining (don't shoot, just trying to think positive ). Think aluminium and possibly LED screen. Even nicer than caramel milk.

On a sidenote for the OP and everyone else does anyone here know of any under-keyboard waterproof protector available for mac laptops. I have seen ones that mount on top of the keyboard but they all look like your trying to smother it with cellophane to murder it (don't mind me, I have a criminal mind). You would have to open it up but thats not so hard at all.

Rep+1 for the pain.

 

If you ever wanted to make him pay for it make sure you ask for Judge Judy she will fix him up good ;p

 

Friends spilling milk or water or killing your brand new laptop is a common occurence. They are full of jealousies when they know you have new things to play with.

My so called con man friend David Fernley killed my brand new laptop last year when i lent it to him to go to work on oil rigs. He must have been so jealous of me. I hate that punk he was a con man from hell he used me to make a resume for him so he could lie and con his way to getting an engineering job with Baker Hughes MWD.

 

anyways...., after the repairs, get a iskin protouch for ur model . its a silicone mold that goes over the keyboard and it blocks spillls and other crap that would get underneath otherwise if u spill. also, getting an invisible shield for ur macbook might be a good idea. as to the person who said that water fell down the speaker grills, it won't corrode anything as water, as longs as it wasn't softened( salted to soften) won't corrode anything as it have a perfect Ph of 7, which lasat time i checked is neutral. to the OP, get the macbook fixed as soonas possible as if it is milk, then the more time u wait, the more the milk kills ur macbook.

 

The Invisible Shields are great. They protect the casing from a lot of scratches and dings. I would recommend it 100%.

If you are considering, watch out for discounts. They have a 50% off discount earlier this year.

 

If ya think caramel milk is bad try getting a repair from Apple for this guy. The look on the face of the genius at the Apple store would be priceless.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=536690

 

Wow. I'm amazed at the level of honesty that guy gave on what he... uhhh... spilled on his keyboard. I'm still in shock 'n awe.

 

ahhahah crazy stuff that people do.

 

WOW! i LMAOed at the macrumors thing!

 

Priceless. This is why the internet was invented.

 

well, back on topic, i suggest that u clean it best u can and see if anything happens. if anything does happen go to the apple store and blame it on Bush.