Sound Card microchip any hope?

Before anyone rants about being more careful, this was completely an accident, so here goes. A sugary liquid dropped on my mouse pad, which I cleaned up, and I thought nothing of it. 15 minutes later the sound went all funky, then totally stopped. Long story short I disassembled my laptop and found the liquid in jello form around my realtek processor. I have 2 a larger one and a smaller one. So after throughly cleaning it out with alcohol and trying time, I started back up expecting it to be working. No luck. I got only random popping/crackling sounds. I let it sit for a few hours. Started it up and Tada! working sound with an occasional pops which eventually stopped. ~30 minutes into operation, sound dies again. So question is should I leave it off all night and hope it works. Do you think there is any hope that it will work normally? I'm just afraid something was short circuited and damaged in the chip. Any insight is appreciated.

 

you should have let it sit longer than "a few hours". 48 hours is standard to be sure it's all gone.

 

Yeah, also there could be crap underneath the chip. You can't clean it, but maybe you could try vacuum it. If you do do so, make sure not to break anything else as a vacuum can be very strong compared to chips soldered on a board.

 

There is probably still liquid somewhere there. If anything gets wet, it takes a long time to dry by itself out of all the nooks and crannies. A blowdryer could do the job in five minutes.

If there is residue, it isn't going to harm anything if it is dried, and a vacuum isn't going to do anything either way, let alone suck parts off the pcb.

 

Lol. But that is what accidents are. A lack of care.
What sense would it make to rant about being more careful if something was done intentionally? Just sayin'.

That said, sorry to hear of your bad luck. I hope you can fix the problem cost free, and with minimal effort.

 

well at least you have options if it doesnt work like buying a usb card. My deepest sympathies go out to you sir/madam i know how scared you can get in that situation.(i had something similar happen to an very expensive mouse)

i think it has a good chance of being fine though (gotta keep hope alive )

 

You mean liquid fell on your touchpad, right? Not mousepad... I don't see how could the liquid have sprinkled all the way over to your sound ship if it is a mouse pad you are talking about.

Anyway, you should just let it dry for like 2 days as someone already mentioned, and if it doesn't work then you can just buy a USB soundcard or a USB headphone/headset. There are also ExpressCard soundcards which are usually better but more expensive.

 

Rejoice, you now have yourself an excuse to get an USB sound card that will sound much better than your on-board sound (Just that your notebook speaker won't work any more, hey, you can now get a sound system on top of that).

 

I highly reccomend the express slot sound card i have. It is alot better then the integrated internal ones. Sound is louder and clearer. Echo Indigo IOx is my card.

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Analog Input

1 stereo 1/8" connector
Frequency Response: 10Hz-20kHz, ±0.5dB
Dynamic Range: 104dB A-weighted
THD+n at -3dbfs, 1kHz sine wave: <0.003% A-weighted
Nominal Input Level: -10dBV
Maximum Input level: +7.0 dBu
Input Impedance: 10KOhm
Analog Output

1 stereo 1/8" connector
Frequency Response: 10Hz-20kHz, ±0.5dB
Dynamic Range: 106dB A-weighted
THD+n at -3dbfs, 1kHz sine wave: <0.003% A-weighted
Nominal Output Level: -10dBV
Maximum Output level: +7.3 dBu
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24 bit data resolution maintained throughout signal path
Multiple sampling rates supported: 32k, 44.1k, 48k, 88.2k, 96k
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On-board 24-bit Motorola DSP for mixing and monitoring
Headphone amp with volume control
Host Interface

Bus mastering ExpressCard host interface


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Thanks for all the replies. I already have had a USB sound card, So I am set there just in case it doesn't work. As an update last night it was consistently working but just very distorted. I haven't used it yet today, so I will let it dry. Fortunately this is an older laptop, and I'm playing on getting another desktop soon so i'm not all that worried. I'm still wondering how it got into the motherboard. There are some spacing on the left click button so I'm thinking it seeped in w through there. When I opened it up though, there was a hard plastic case underneath and another plastic protective sheet under that. I'm still not sure how how it ended up way down in the bottom. Thanks again

Actually accidents are not necessarily a lack of care - more like something that happens out of chance and out of my control. This is what happened, so i'm going to leave it there. Also I have seen many people get answers that are completely reprimanding and give no help the the actual question, so that is why I stated that before starting.

Thanks, I'm sure it will

 

hope this get fixed... but ur really unlucky lol.. i drop liquid on my touchpad often and nothing happens

 

Well I think it's dead. I left it it off with everything unplugged & battery out with cover open for a total of about 48 hours. Started up and no sound audible. Plugged headphones and I get very distorted and quiet audio. It's also mono. Before there was some at first. Well looks like I'm stuck with the USB sound card.

 

corrosion is corrosion. especially if the liquid has seeped into the circuit boards.

however, if your sound i/o jacks (headphone/mic) are on a daughter board connected to the mobo via a ribbon cable, try unplugging that cable. there is chance that the goo might have only blown out or shorted the board that holds the phones/mic jacks, unplugging it from the mobo (if possible) might give you a temp fix.

but if you've waited this long to clean things out, there is a better chance that the goo has messed with some other things; it may be only a matter of time before you lose the mobo completely.

 

It was a tiny bit of stuff all seeped into one place (on and underneath the smaller of 2 realtek processors) I throughly cleaned it out with alcohol and dusted the entire mobo within 1-2 hours of original accident. Everything else is unaffected. I appreciate your input, but I think the processor alone is being affected and as to your other suggestion, alack there in no cable -- I'm pretty sure the chip is shot so I will just use my USB card. I might do some homemade job to hook the speakers up to the card. Thanks

Update: It's working as of now 5+ hours