spilled beer, laptop bsod problems

hey i'm trying to help my friend out. he's been having laptop problems with his inspiron 1501 after spilling a beer on it. this is his description he PM'ed me on a different forum:


""I saw your post about your Dell. I dunno if you saw mine. I'm having some issues. My Dell's about 1.5 years old.:

1) memory driver wasn't right. I kept getting BSOD's. I finally found the right one and got it fixed.

2) Towards the end of that, it started turning off. I did research, discovered it was either that driver, or overheating. I fixed the driver, still shut off. I ordered a new heatsink and fan. I installed them, put new thermal compound on. I also upgraded my memory. It still randomly shuts off.

I installed i8kfan and speedfan. I just ran a test with both. They showed me running at about 35 deg. c and my laptop just shut off. I don't know how to undervolt. I also cannot find any bios settings regarding temperatures.

I'm just at a complete loss. I'm out of my warranty, and don't want to pay someone to fix it. I figure I can either do it, or I'll need to get a new one. Do you have any suggestions?""


I posted in a thread about making laptops run cooler with various programs, undervolting, etc.. 35C isn't hot so i asked him if it was a battery problem. It randomly shuts off with that batteries taken out running on AC power. with that out of the way, he said:


""I did have a beer spilled on it last fall, and it stopped working for about 24 hours, then ran fine after a few weeks of weird keyboard/mouse stuff. There were a couple spots that looked like corrosion on the motherboard. I tried to clean it up.""


any thoughts on what to try next?

 

35C is very cool so overheating can't be the problem.

The after-effects of the beer looks to be the most likely cause. It would be prudent to try to remove any traces of the beer. Aside from corrosion, any slightly conductive deposits could be the cause of the malfunction.

John

 

Send the notebook to alcoholics anonymous. It might work properly when its sober. har har

The beer could have damaged sensitive motherboard parts or he could have damaged it himself when he was tying to clean it up

 

whats a safe cleaner to use on a motherboard, if any? rubbing alcohol in select few places? or a light brushing off and compressed air? im guessing he would have to take the motherboard out to do this

its worth a shot to maybe save some monies from not buying a new mb.

 

If he can get a professional cleaner in a shop better give to them.Something might have shorted inside the laptop.

 

Don't use chemicals; for some reason people get it into their head that its OK to clean electronics with Windex. If you use Windex, I will find you and slap you.

Instead, use a damp (not soaking wet) microfiber cloth. A canister of compressed air is a good idea for dislodging dust in tricky places.

Happy cleaning.

 

Open it up, use a hair drier and make sure there is no leftover liquid on it.
Is the keyboard responsive?or anything not working?he should not even try to run it ,there might still be some beer in it, hickup.
And do make sure the laptop is not drunk driving

 

When I am cleaning electronics, I take some rubbing alchohol and dilute it with equal parts water.

 

oh make sure you kill all power sources (cmos battery) and discharge whatever

 

If he had it...does Complete care cover spills as such?

 

You have to check if complete care policy covers Accidental damage

I know Asus' does. For HP its a seperate accidental protection plan

 

He wasted beer?!

 

Beer has salt! Salt is conductive and will corrode and cause all kind of shorts on the board. Take apart the laptop, wash it with distilled water throughly and then blow it out with compress air. let it air dry for a day or so to make sure it's completely dry and then put it back together. Good luck.

 

beer for laptops are bad. it can destroy electronics especially if left to dry by itself. im sure its screwd and you need a new one. if u really got to clean it. try dipping it in water

 

From my knowledge in physics/chemistry, and my previous experiences, pure rubbing alcohol, without any dilution, will work on all electronics. In theory, any liquid can be used on any electronic, providing it is completely gone and dried up, and that it isn't powered on. The reason why liquids cause shorting is because the electricity from one place can travel THROUGH the liquid to ANOTHER place that it's not supposed to go to. It's sort of like on a highway. The median in the road prevents you from going on the other side (not that any of you would anyways =D). If you remove this median, you are then able to move freely to the other side, thereby causing danger to you and others. Water and other liquids will transfer electrical current to other parts of the motherboard, causing a short. Some/all of you may even know this, I may be pointlessly talking, but basically, PURE rubbing alcohol will work well because it has a low boiling point, or, it evaporates quickly, thereby not giving electrical current enough time to travel to different parts. Well there's my explanation =D And yeah, again, make sure there is NO power whatsoever, CMOS battery, regular battery, power adapter, NOTHING.

Reps for my AWESOME explanation anyone???? It's worth me asking =D =D

 

Ive always used something that evaporates ( eg. methylated spirits = 95% ethanol)

 

As flipfire, remove ALL batteries. Remove ram, HD, wireless card, cd drive depending on spill amount and area affected. I suggest plain old distilled water to flush removed keyboard and areas of the main board. Keep flushing keyboard till key action is restored.

As long as all power removed and allowed to thoroughly dry, the water won't hurt anything. A low speed box fan over two days minimal. We have resurrected CMOS cameras that were saltwater flooded as long as power was shut off in time, if power not removed then things got ugly.

Have a beer while waiting to dry, good luck.

 

Thanks Dorado for posting that, I've been busy the last week.

The beer was spilled six months ago. I didn't think it was the cause, because everything ran fine.

I pulled out my motherboard finally, and have been cleaning it with windex (I mean a microfiber cloth and 1/2 rubbing alcohol, 1/2 water). There are some spots of corrosion, I think I got them cleaned up. I'm going to put it back together tonight or tomorrow - gotta work today, can't do it. I'll post a TR as to how it's running.

Warranty's done, so I have to do this on my own.

 

No, some idiot did.

 

Ok, I cleaned the corrosive spots off the motherboard. Put it back together. I think I killed my hard drive. I ran diags, it can't find it. Buying a new one. It ran for 3 hours last night in the diagnostic program. Thanks for your advice.