Help! My laptop got wet

It was placed vertically in a bag and my grandma spilled water from a flower vase on my laptop. Good thing it wasn't turned on but The ports were wet and I wiped them with tissue. =(
I placed the laptop upside down in front of a fan to hopefully let all the water inside evaporate. I also dismantled the battery.

What else should I do? Will my laptop still work? huhu. I just got it a few days ago. What luck...

 

You should have it completely taken apart. Don't turn it on for a week otherwise.

Take it to a repairer and tell them to take it apart and dry it out.

You should probably take it in on warranty.

 

Thanks for the reply but Im not in the US. My cousin bought for me while she was still there. Is it not enough just placing it infront of an electric fan?

 

Do you have warranty?

I really think it needs to be taken apart. otherwise you will get rust, it will probably short out.

Any local repair shop shouldn't charge too much just to open it and dry it. But make sure you watch them while they do it. Don't let them scam you. I'm sure they could swap out a good part with a bad and then get you to pay to have it "repaired".

 

thanks for the advice. I'll do that on Monday cause its Nov 1 and the stores are all closed.

I do have HP warrantly. It said global warranty. But when the package came and I read the manual, it says only for US and Canada. =/ Im confused.

 

There is probably a phone number you can call to get your questions answered about warranty.

 

since the laptop was bought in america i think the manual would be for america too, as for global support check your local area for an HP service center.

try to dismantle as much as possible then let it dry the water might pool in a certain area and damage the laptop even more =/

 

thanks! I'll try do dismantle as much as I can. How long should I not use the laptop? Is it really necessary to leave it for a week?

 

if It wasn't on I'm sure no damage was done. Just let it dry for 6-7 days or so, it should be fine.

 

sorry to be Buzz Killington here but unfortunately the factory HP warranty does not include accidental damage, which is what HP would likely classify this as. Honestly I would probably go over the laptop with something like a hair dryer on high, its not going to get hot enough to do anything to the laptop and hopefully it would dry any water inside of it. Get the battery out of it, go over it with the hair dryer (concentrate on the bottom half where the vents and ports are, if at all possible keep it away from the LCD as it is unnecessary to heat it up) , let it sit for a bit and then go over it again. After that let it cool down and then try to run the system. The only other thing I can tell you, which again is not good news, if HP finds out the unit was disassembled this would likely void the factory warranty, but in this case the factory warranty would not help you anyways so its your choice.

Now I am going to try to do my best to explain the convoluted HP Global Warranty Policy. All Consumer products are covered by a 1 year Golbal Warranty, but they can only be repaired in countries where the same series of notebook is available, best example I could give you would be this: The Pavilion dv6 is not available in japan, so there would be no global warranty coverage there for dv6 notebooks, however if you went to say Australia, you would be able to get your dv6 repaired under global warranty? Make sense? Also, depending where you are, it is likely that you may have to use Walk in serivce, that is go to a HP Authorized repair shop and give them your notebook. Get in touch with HP Support like for that country and they should be able to TRY to assist you. Just hope you get someone who knows what they are doing and if not call back.

 

Liquid spills on laptop:
Do Not power the unit.
Do Not point a hair dryer at it.

Leave the lid open
Remove all access doors
Remove the RAM
Remove the Battery
Remove the Hard Drive
Remove the keyboard if you know how
Point a running fan (not a hair dryer) at the unit + leave the dryer on
Let it dry for 3 days or more (yes, no kidding, 3 or more days !!)
(This is the standard manufacturers recommendation for cell pPhones, wireless phones, MP3 players, computers etc… )

Locate and disconnect the Bios/cmos battery as well until it is dry.
This low voltage & moisture can promote corrosion

 

Thanks for all that informative reply bobthenailer. Yeah I called up a local HP service center and indeed, water spillage is counted as accidental damage and the 1 year HP standard warranty doesnt cover it. I'm having it opened and checked today. Hopefully, it will be back to normal. Crosses fingers.

 

Great Tip Imperfect1! So far, its been 2 days since the laptop got wet. All this anxiety is killing me!

 

Just to make you feel better here is a story:

My first laptop was second hand, so I decided to wash it. I put it in a bucket of water (I was little).

Dried it up, but it did not boot.
Waited 1 day, booted fine. Had some water inside the screen, but that dried up after 1 or 2 weeks.

Long story short, the laptop lasted 10 years. Worked great, it was overclocked (33% hardware overclock) all it's life.

But they did make notebooks a lot better back then.

I'm sure if you dry it properly, your notebook will be fine.

 

thanks for the assurance!

 

Hang in there tsubaki! Just keep your fan running next to the laptop, and hold the thought that patience will save your laptop, --- let it have whatever time it needs to completely dry out. If it were me, I would wait the full week, as some of the other posters suggested, rather than just the 3+ days. But I'm sometimes overly cautious. . .

 

Yes, Great Tip Imperfect1! Seems like I've seen that somewhere before. LOL

 

LOL, I don't believe it! I thought water kills electronics!

 

Hello guys. This story ends in a bad way. =S I had my laptop checked at the local HP service center yesterday. We found out that below the HDD is somewhat damp. But we couldn't touch it since it is covered with some sort of plastic. Our guess is that the motherboard is doomed.

What puzzles me is that, the laptop turns on. LCD is okay but no bootable device is found. We tried the HDD into another laptop and it boots up just fine. And also, I can get into BIOS / CMOS.

But nah, my only option would be to give it to my cousin in the US and hopefully let them swap it into a new one. Since the laptop is still 3 days old!!!

Oh well... I wonder when she's coming back to the Phils to bring the replaced one. So I guess I'm stuck again with my desktop. =/

 

I'm so sorry tsubaki --- we were all rooting for you and hoping you would be able to save your laptop.

PS OldMajorDave -- You're absolutely right, you HAVE seen that tip before, because whenever I read something on this forum that I think may be of use to me (or to someone else) some time in the future, I write it down and save it. My tip was a compilation of two other posters' suggestions -- In fact, one of those other posters possibly might/could have even been you (!!!) I'm just sorry that in this case, the suggestions didn't help tsubaki save her laptop.

 

…..matters not. I was just yanking your chain anyway. Sorry, guess the humor (attempt) failed to translate. FYI, Here is the original post. Compilation though…. ??? http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5291635

At-any-rate, don’t give up hope just yet tsubaki. Though the chances are likely slim, if you continue to let it dry, it may at some point still work. As stated above, remove everything you can including also the CD/DVD drive and let it all air out in a low humidity environment (if such a thing exists in the Philippines ). Just one damp connector could cause your issues.

Also, I hope you don’t live on Luzon…. folks there have been taking a serious beating by serial typhoons.

All the best....

 

Normal tap water does, since it has dissolved minerals and salt. But pure distilled water doesn't conduct electricity all too well.

 

Did you buy it on a credit card with purchase protection?

 

sorry to hear about your laptop, just out of curiosity, what model is it? I don't want to get your hopes up but from whats going on its just not detecting the HDD, like other people have said its not over yet. The good news here is that the computer is passing its POST (Power on Self Test) which means that none of the most important things on the motherboard (RAM, CPU, Graphics) are fried or else it would not get this far when you try to power it on. Its just not detecting the HDD, it may even be possible in the BIOS to set it to boot from an external USB drive (kind of unorthodox, but if it works it works). Now as far as WHY its not finding the HDD is the question. As you said they put the HDD in something else and it works so we KNOW its not the HDD, that leaves 2 things, the motherboard or possibly the connector (sometimes a connector board) between the HDD and the motherboard. Tell us what model PC it is and we should beable to look through the service manual to see weather the HDD goes right to the board or if there is a connector. Its not over till its over.

 

OldMajorDave, you devil! It WAS you, and here I thought you just had an amazing memory!!! Thanks again for the good advice, and my apologies for the editorializing.

PS You can yank my chain any time!!!

 

Now this is interesting. I know someone that uses his credit card purchase protection all the time for things that are his fault and he always gets his money back. For example, while doing laundry he got a little bleach on a shirt he bought a a few days earlier. He immediately called his credit card company and they reimbursed him.

Sad to hear about your laptop. My old (and still working) Compaq I use outside rain or shine and have spilt water on it myself too. Only issue is the up dutton and one of the shift keys stopped working.

 

I think the time people should wait for laptop to dry depends on climate. At summer 30Cº , no humidity in air is one thing, another is in plain winter. Also it is good idea to put it near a fire place or in an oven but never surpass the recommended travel temperature. 12 hours in an oven at 40ºC probably evaporates most of water.