7805u accident and new 7801u

Hello all...
I had a 7805u for 2 months before my nephew spilled chocolate milk on the keyboard!!!!!

I took it to a repair shop and they told me it was ruined. They told me that everything was ruined in it...motherboard, processor, hard drive, even the display. I am not sure if I believe them completely. The owner of the shop told me he could build me another laptop for less than the price of buying a new one. I don't think this computer can be beat as far as price vs. performance, especially with the 1920x1200 display I was lucky enough to get.

I purchased a 7801u from TigerDirect, and with the discount I got (thanks to one of the threads), no shipping and no taxes, it was cheaper than my 7805u. The only thing I saw different between the two was the resolution and the hard drive speed. So I purchased a 320GB, 7200 rpm WD hard drive to go along with it.

I am going to purchase an external enclosure for the old hard drive that came with my 7805u to see if it is working. If it is, can I just replace it in the 7801u, so I don't have to reinstall all my apps? Or is the hardware different, so that is a no-go? Also, is the OS license/serial # tied to the motherboard, making this impossible?

One last question, besides the case, is there anything that might be worthwhile to save out of the 7805u? I am hesitant to try the CPU/and or memory in the new one, in case something on it has shorted out. The same with the other components, anything worth trying to save?

Sorry to ramble on, just curious. Also if some of the components are good, maybe I will offer them up to other board users if some of the parts work.

Thanks a lot.

 

My 7801 came with a 7200rpm hitachi 320GB drive. I think some of the specs online are wrong.

 

how much milk was spilled? hard to believe it got to the CPU and EVERYTHING....just through the keyboard.

 

It was a lot of milk. I immediately cleaned up what I could. I opened up the hard drive bay, and it looked clean. Opened up the other bay with the processor, and didn't see anything. When I tilted it at an angle, quite a bit of milk came out.
The computer was on when the milk spilled on it. The display was frozen, I couldn't turn it off. I removed the battery and then after I cleaned it up, it would not come on.
The repairman told me the CPU, motherboard, memory, display, hard drive, and keyboard were all ruined. I was skeptical, especially when he offered to dispose of it for me. Unless the whole motherboard shorted out, I don't see how it could all be destroyed. If it had shorted everything out, why would the display have stayed on?
I am not to familiar with laptop motherboards, but it seems weird to lose everything. I told him to at least save the hard drive, memory, battery, and AC plug in, but he kept telling me it was all ruined. Finally I picked it all up and paid him the basic estimate fee, $50.
Could I do damage to a new motherboard by trying out the memory and CPU in the 7801u I purchased? I should be getting it Monday. Also, does the display just hook up with one connector to the MB? Unless it electrically damaged the connector, I don't know how the display would be bad. It was the WUXGA display, so if it is good I am sure someone could use it.
Thanks for the posts, just trying to see what I could troubleshoot without doing any damage to the new computer.

 

Seriously, I believe the repair shop was exaggerating the problem so they can charge you more.

 

Or they believed they could repair the issue and keep the laptop.
Here is something that may sound "out there" I used to repair computers all sorts of stuff and sometimes the liquid damage wouldn't damage the unit if power was cut fast enough to prevent a short, test the hard drive with en enclosure I’m sure they still work. And if there is still milk chocolate this will be bad but it won't hurt any more than what has been damaged but remove all removable parts and dip it in water. to remove all chocolate milk from the system then dry it out with a hard dryer on COOL and leave it to dry for a week or more depending on the moisture level in your home, then place them back together and you’ll see if it really is shorted out. But you MUST use your hard dryer to speed up the process. But be delicate you can still short it out if you educe static electricity.

I have done this with a computer my sup let me have as an experiment since she bought another one and it was very old only thing it did was launch up but crashed since the hard drive was bad. I dipped the laptop in water with all power sources removed left it to dry for 2 weeks and tried to boot it up and it did with no abnormal damage or anything. Been 5 months and it still boots up (i still haven't replaced the hard drive to it still BSODS but everything is still working) Ohh and the Laptop is a Gateway.

**TRY AT YOUR OWN RISK**

 

It is hard to believe that the display is dead as the milk would have had to travel against gravity to get into the display. Thus, I would expect that at least the display is still good. Similarly, if the HDD was dry and clean when you extracted it, I doubt it has been damaged.

Definitely try the old HDD in an external enclosure. The risk of hurting your new system is very low. If the old HDD is still good, you should be able to swap it into the new computer and boot fine. You won't have any issues with the OS as the 7801 and 7805 have basically identical hardware. At most, you might have to re-activate windows since your new system will have a new network card with a new unique ID. However, MS has always been reasonable. If you call and explain what happened, I'm sure MS will give you a new activation code by phone.

You can test other components from your old system, like the CPU and memory in your new system if you want, but there is not much point. There are no open memory slots in the new system, so you cannot use the old memory. Also, the new system has the same or better CPU, so there is nothing to be done with the old CPU either.

Good luck,
Ira

 

Good luck repairing the laptop. If you decide to sell it for parts, please PM me what you would like for the little plastic bezel that covers the optical drive, if you're willing to sell that alone.

 

I personally think the repair guys were either inept, or sleazy and trying to get the laptop from you, if you chose to let them "dispose" of it!

 

I'd definitely try the display.