Tea/Coffe Spill help

Hi All,

I am now a statistic and I need some help.

I had a nice cup of tea beside my laptop on my kitchen table and my dear little 3 year old knocked it over...about half a cup spilled on the laptop (z71v) most of which spilled out/off.

Once the initial chaos of moving kids soaking up tea and wiping the exterior of the laptop had passed, I could see the screen saying that there was no boot device. I shut it down and took out the removable components, wiped any tea I could see and reassembled it.

It booted up just fine. I was on line for a few minutes looking for advice when the hdd came loose and dropped to my lap...the panels weren't attached.

Now I get no response. I know it has power - the battery charge light is on. Pressing the power button does nothing...it seems dead.

Do I call for an rma or is there more I can do?...I'm comfortable with removeing more screws and such, but I'm wondering if there is any point.

Is it dead or can I revive it?

I do not have stupidity insurance, so I expect to pay.

Cheers,

David

 

... you have about a month to get your information off your computer and give it a proper goodbye.

There is a chance that you didn't hit any crucial things, but soda and coffee usually do their damge over time. I wouldn't suggest you take your system apart and try to clean the board because it's dangerous as it is...... but we've done it a few times and were able to save the board... you just have to be on an anti-static mat. Otherwise, in about a months time your system is just going to crap out and be worthless.

No warranty is ever going to cover that, so taking it apart my not be such a bad idea... take the cpu, ram, wifi and hard drive out of the system..... storing it upside down initially would have been a good idea so that it didn't drip onto the motherboard but at this point it's probably too late.

 

Well, my laptop finally booted up again after doing some work.

I will look into doing some cleaning...I think I got the majority of the moisture already...the cpu was dry as was the rest of the bottom of the unit...the dvd rom had a spec of tea on it...I also removed the keyboard and was surprised little moisture there was.

I did put the laptop top upside down trying to protect the motherboard - a reflex.

So, whether now or later, I'll have to get the motherboard out of the case and wipe it out...

What happens? Corrosion? I'm hoping I dodged a bullet.

Thanks for your reply

 

UPDATE: It seems that the keyboard stopped working. Is this one of the symptoms of my laptops impending doom?

How might I go about troubleshooting...does anyone know any good tools for running diags?

Thanks,

David

 

Things probably aren't dry yet..

My friend spilled a can of root beer all over her Thinkpad T40. It didn't work immediatly afterwards. 24 hours of drying later, it worked fine.

About a month later, dead. Anything that isn't just water leaves a residue when it dries, and coffee/soda/tea leaves an acidic residue. It ate through the motherboard and/or associated componants. Hefty repair bill there.

I would take the battery out, clean everything up as much as you can, even take out the motherboard, and don't power it on for a day or two... I've had unpowered things ike flash drives go through the wash and they are fine when they dry out. It's applying power to wet stuff or corrosion that gets you in my experience.

You might also contact your reseller and see what they say about paying for a repair and what action you should take immediatly in that case, to make sure you're both on the same page with the issue.

 

The keyboard should be fairly easy to remove, thoroughly wash, throroughly rinse and thoroughly dry. This was done successfully a couple of times on a friend's Toshiba. Tea without sugar and milk will be easier to clean.

John

 

Ok. The keyboard is back again. Obviously I need to do some more cleaning.

There wasn't much sugar in the tea, but tea is acidic on it's own...I can't image much of the board is affected. That said I plan to completely diassemble the beast and clean...any resource on how to get the case apart?

Cheers,

David

 

Yeah... take the keyboard out... you can run it under water and use a blowdryer to dry it off, but shake it out and make sure it's dry... let it sit before you connect it back up.

..... even filtered water is bad..... but corrosion is a killer.

 

The link in the Asus FAQ points to an assembly guide at http://www.synnex.com/sb/sept05/Z71A Training.pdf . If this doesn't suit your model you can search the FAQ for other guides.

John

 

Thanks everyone for your help...I'll see if I can tackle this tonight.

I'll let you know what I find.

Cheers,

David

 

There is some special cleaning solution (spray) for electronic use. It does not leave any grease or coating and vaporises (sorry about my english) h2o with it when you're cleaning. I dropped my communicator to instant noodle soup, opened it, wiped off everything I could and cleaned with the spray and 'cotton sticks' left it to dry for 24hrs on top of battery (those thingies on the wall that radiate heat, usually under windows) and it's been working ever since.

edit: spell check