Spilled water on HEL80

As you can read I was stupid enough to spill water on my brand new HEL80 from the right side on the keyboard.
I immediately shut down the laptop, turned it upsidedown and dried it with hot air.
Tested everything and everything still seems to be working.

Does the Compal build allow water to drip down to the mainboard?

Should I still do something? Probably all the water is already dried up now.

I was probably extremely lucky, one thing is sure, will never happen to me again!

 

I wouldn't use the computer for a week or so, just let it dry out. Water itself isn't so damaging to the computer, it's the fact that electricty+water don't mix. If you turn it on while still wet it could short out.


If you are using it now, it probably has mostly dried out--but there could still be some "pockets" of water--I'd try to take it apart a little and let it air out for some time.

You did seem to get lucky

 

Hmm, it might start to oxidize after a few days, then you'll be going to have some problems. I would try to carefully clean the components. But ask someone else first if that's a good idea. I'm not familiar with situations like this .

 

This unfortunately is not an option. I'm now running running some tasks to warm all components up.

Is this a good idea?

Is there an easy way to take the keyboard off?

 

you shouldn't have spilled water on your laptop. i would also avoid other liquids from coming in contact with your laptop; urine, battery acid, pigs blood etc.

 

It'll probably be fine. Check in a few weeks to make sure that there's no rust under the keyboard, you should be able to disassemble it fairly easily.

 

I also think your HEL80 should be OK. Just keep an eye on it for strange behavior.

How much water spilled and how quickly did you get it out?

Taking the keyboard off is quite easy. Look through the HEL80 Owner's lounge for some pictures/instructions (somewhere between post #330-365 or so). You basically pry off the strip above the keyboard (start from the left side and be gentle and work your way towards the power button). Then unscrew the keyboard (two screws in the corners near the hinges.

 

Now I think it was not that much, most of went under or against the right side. Also my laptop is tilted to the bottom side.

Now I have let it run for 10 hours at 100% cpu, a dvddrive constantly working and a graphics demo in a loop. Still no problems and it was very heated up so I think almost most all water should have been vaporized.

Edit: I just tried to take out the keyboard but the upper panel was too firm and I wont take the risk of breaking something.

 

It is in there pretty tight. I know what you mean by thinking you might break something. Once you've taken the panel off once, it's not as scary.

Just make sure you're somewhat gentle and don't poke the screwdriver in too far if/when you do it.

Just hope you've learned your lesson about drinks and laptops not mixing .

 

Can anyone comment on this? Should all water ahve been vaporized?

Instead of taking off the keyboard I went beneath it with a strip of water absorbing paper, the paper left no traces of water.

 

No one with a drink gets in the neighborhood of my pc now

 

Don't overdo it... maybe 10 hours of 100%cpu and DVD will make your laptop overheat and then you'll have more trouble. Heat is almost as big an enemy of electronics as water. Your eletronics will degrade and age faster and a DVD drive has mechanical parts that wear with usage... I say you stop this nonsense this instant young man!

you were lucky, nothing important got wet inside... call it off now

 

Will not repeat this, but my previous laptop had many continuous hours of 100% cpu and it was the worst you could have for heat production: Pentium 4.
I use my laptop as a desktop and it has to handle intensive tasks.

 

I'd say don't waste your time worrying about it, but just keep an eye open for possible issues in the future. It's probably fine, but in case something comes up later you can consider the water as a possible cause.

Don't stress yourself out over something that seemingly has had no negative affect on your system. You can't "unspill" the water.

 

I've now stopped worrying about it. But wouldn't you worry for some time when something happened like that on your brand new pc?