Spilled 16oz of water on my x200, worked for 30 mins, now nothing

So as the title states i spilled a glass of water on my Lenovo x200. During the spill, it was in sleep mode. I wiped everything down, sprayed around with compressed air. Gave it about 2 minutes then powered on. Everything worked. I resumed from sleep, went online, and everything was good for about 30 mins.

THEN, screen went black and i see the little green lights on the bottom of my monitor flashing around. i have no idea what it means but the screen stayed black. i tried with battery only, and AC only. Same cycle with the green lights on the bottom.

How do i go about this now?

 

keep it off for several hours. Take the battery out and make sure it is completely off. Don't power it up until the morning. Remember, it only takes a small drop of water to short out the motherboard.

 

Hi,
Here's my attempt to help. Other's are probably better.

Before you read any more, unplug the power and remove the battery.

ok? Good.

My suggestion: Put a full bag of uncooked rice in a garbage bag, or some other air tight container, set your laptop ontop of the rice, seal the bag, leave it overnight. Hopefully the rice will pull out any moisture remaining in the notebook.

This is not an uncommon problem though. So you might try checking of any of these guys had any luck.
(A lot of )Water Spilled in the Left Fan Louver - R61 Laptop

Er, so I spilled a fair amount of water on my Thinkpad T61p

spilled water

Spilled water on my T400

Water spill on T60 and stupid IBM rep fried my computer.

google search for spilt water on this forum

 

^^ thanks to both above. i wonder if me powering it on immediately after the spill caused the damage?

as of right now AC and battery is pulled and i wont try to power it on again, although i did a few times and felt the fan spin up/down constantly as it was in an ongoing reboot with no display.

 

Not to sound preachy, but the last thing you want to do when you spill something on your notebook is to turn it on. I'd say a couple days is probably better than overnight. Do it and hope for the best. That's about all you can do. Worst case is probably your motherboard is fried. You can probably get on eBay and do the replacement yourself. It'll hurt, but it's not the end of the world. Another option would be to part your machine out. There's still lots of valuable parts in there. Then buy something else. Good Luck.

 

As you already said in another thread louis, I'd just let it dry for a day or two and hope for the best. If it is indeed permanently damaged, if you don't have accidental damage protection than any repairs will come out of your own pocket. ( which is a good reason why I never eat or drink at my computer). Good luck, and let us know how it goes!

 

okay i'll just wait a week. i know i'm a moron and i let that mistake slip through the cracks before. I should've known better considering i have a water cooled PC. lol.

Well whats done is done. it turned on for about 30 mins, then went down. i'll give it until the coming sunday.

Is this a good idea to have the hard drive cover and hard drive removed, the ram cover removed and the laptop sitting next to a cracked window?

 

I have found myself working on the assumption that the keyboard of my Thinkpad is as susceptible to water spills as other more consumer-oriented machines and so I take as much care as I would while handling the consumer-type machines. If I do spill some liquid (hopefully never), I'd probably follow (as best as I can) what JaneL did when she had her accident involving water, ice and her x301. She has described what she did at some place on this forum.

In short, I am overtly cautious and by default don't take the advertised spill-resistant features too seriously.

 

Yeah, I posted a link to my story somewhere here but am too lazy to find that message. Here's the original on LenovoBlogs:

Lenovoblogs - Spill Stores

I don't remember how long I left it sitting on the microfiber towel in the microwave (NO, DO NOT TURN THE MICROWAVE ON!!!) partially disassembled with the light bulb on for gentle warmth, but it was a matter of hours and hours. Even after that, I left it disassembled on a flat surface on a fresh microfiber towel for a day or so. I daresay the OP turned it on too soon and the MB is fried.

 

Personally, if that happened to me, I'd take the laptop apart and dried every piece of it with a canned air before even thinking of turning it on.

 

You would think we all would do that. There was really a good chance of your notebook working once the water/moisture was gone from your machine. If you shorted something out by turning it on too fast, then that's not recoverable. On something like a notebook, I would have just about completely taken it apart, then set it in a bag of rice for 48 hours if not longer. As soon as you noticed that you spilled water on your machine, the AC and battery should have been removed immediately!

 

The solution you use depends on your location and the time of the year. For instance, if you did this in Phoenix during the summer, just set the machine outside in the shade. It'll be ready for use again in about 30 minutes.

 

i know guys, i shouldn't of turned it on. Its been 2 years since i got the laptop and all i recall was reading that it was waterproof/resistant and that the water will drain through the bottom and not harm the motherboard. What happened here???

I'm in NYC and its raining here and about 30F. its been sitting on my desk for 18 hours with battery/hard drive/ac/RAM cover removed. Anything else i can do other than wait? i've already sprayed most parts of the laptop down with compressed air.

 

I don't think Lenovo ever said it was water-proof. They just added the drain holes to make it harder for water to get in, not impossible. If you tilted it at all or dumped more fluid in than the drain holes could handle, the fluid can get in and cause havoc.

 

right right, water resistant then. i've just removed the keyboard from the laptop safely and am letting it for another few days (i'm thinking a week, i REALLY want to see windows boot up the next time i press that power button.)

 

I think of the drainage holes the same way as I do the hard drive "airbag" feature -- or real airbags, for that matter; they won't stop all harm, and they're not something you want to rely upon on a regular basis, but they improve your odds in the event that things go awry.

 

If you can, I would give it another day of waiting.

To give you hope, I've spilled an entire glass of water onto a CRT tube TV when I was a child. The screen went crazy wacko colors and I turned it off. Waited a day and turned it back on. it worked for 10 more years after that.

 

thanks for all the help guys. i think i'll just give it a week. i'm going away this weekend and i'll try once i'm back (on sunday)

i'm surprised theres so much help haha. considering that if it were me i'd call myself an idiot for powering it on from sleep mode and not just forcing the shut down with the water still not completely dried inside.

 

did lenovo not put out a video with a working thinkpad in a pool or something?

 

Why let a little thing like the truth get in the way of a witty add.
makes me sick.

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dYTRA-_p4Lk?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dYTRA-_p4Lk?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='480' height="385"></embed></object>

 

They could have simply thrown the thing into the pool for her to fetch. Anyway, l-o-v-e the a-c-c-e-n-t.

 

important update:

so its been a week and a day 1/17 - 1/25 since my computer "shorted" out since i spilled water on it and turned it on from sleep mode.

i then took out the hdd, keyboard, battery, sd card, and memory slot cover. and used compressed air on all parts of the laptop. i let it sit on my desk for a week while switching sides every other day or so.

Today i assembled everything again, battery in, AC adapter in, pushed the power button and windows booted up on first try. checked temps, internet, sound, and display. everything looks good so far!

proof that 16oz of water can't stop a lenovo =]
i'm in love again

 

Quick, sell it!

At least I know what to do now, too.

 

Good news!

Glad it worked.