Coke spilt on laptop - Please help!

GusherING

Hi there,
I knocked a glass of coke on to my laptop and it went all over the keyboard and presumably, down into the inside where all the components are. Now when I turn it on, you can here it starting up but absolutely nothing happens, the screen is blank it doesn't even light up and the cdrom kicks into action for a brief moment but then also goes dead. Thats about it, except that the power stays on. It seems to be pretty wrecked as you can guess, but is there any hope of it being fixed? Am I wasting my time even thinking about paying to get it fixed? I still have a warranty on it, its a Dell, but I guess thats of little use cos I caused the problem, not dell. Correct me if i'm wrong though! Any opinions, bar the obvious of don't drink coke next to a laptop, would be most welcome. It's a really new laptop so I would be willing to spend a considerable amount if it can be fixed.

Thanks in advance.

2Scoops

If you have accidental damage coverage, Dell will fix or replace it. If you don't, I think you might be screwed because it sounds like it got to the motherboard. Call Dell anyway - at least you can get a quote for the part(s) you might need, which most probably will be the motherboard and keyboard.

On the plus side, your hard drive is probably still intact.

Dont be at yourself

Big mistake to turn it on straight away. You should leave it in the hot cupboard to dry out for a day or two before trying it.

Soundman

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

Big mistake to turn it on straight away. You should leave it in the hot cupboard to dry out for a day or two before trying it.

Not a good idea with coke inside it. The coke will dry on the components and the acid in it will begin to erode the boards and connections.

Best thing I can think of would be try to remove the Hard Drive first, with the power fully off of course.

Take the battery out and with it unplugged from the mains press the power button. Then pour in some water to where the coke spilled to neutralise the effects and rinse the components. Then leave it for minimum of a week to dry out. Leave it open and on it's side so it can drain properly.

This does work believe it or not for a lot of items including €60,000 mixing consoles that get beer in them.

Edit: Not guaranteeing that this will work but as long as you leave it for a good length of time to dry out FULLY, then it won't make matters worse anyway.

cormie

Once you sort it, I suggest you look for what I'm after too

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055190410

GusherING

Bit of an update:
I took the battery out last night before going to bed and left the computer upside down. I reinserted the battery again this morning and everything seems to be working alright after a restart. Should I still be wary of using my laptop or have I got away with sheer luck? Thanks for all the advice guys, I'm definitely buying one of those laptop skins!

fatal

I didnt want to create a new thread but does anyone know whether or not I can buy dell accidental insurance a few weeks after I bought my laptop?

Bass Cadet

fatal wrote: »

I didnt want to create a new thread but does anyone know whether or not I can buy dell accidental insurance a few weeks after I bought my laptop?

I'm sure you can. If you go to the Dell website they have people online who can answer your questions. I'm actually thinking of doing the same...re accidental damage

Bass Cadet

GusherING wrote: »

Bit of an update:
I took the battery out last night before going to bed and left the computer upside down. I reinserted the battery again this morning and everything seems to be working alright after a restart. Should I still be wary of using my laptop or have I got away with sheer luck? Thanks for all the advice guys, I'm definitely buying one of those laptop skins!

Not the same thing but I have a high end digital camera that was dropped into a fountain (drunk friends thought it would be fun to throw me in!)...fully submerged the camera. I stupidly tried to turn it back on straight away and noticed pretty much the same thing happen as your laptop...ie it was trying to turn on but nothing happened, light would come on but then die away. Anyway, when I got home I did the thing I should have done in the first place, remove battery, mem cards, etc and left it for 24hrs in a hot press. Made sure it was completely dry, put it back together again and ever since it has worked perfectly (to the delight of my 2 mates who would have had to shell out a nice amount of cash!)

I don't know if it has affected the life of any of the parts but so far so good (incident happened 7 months ago). I can only presume the same has happened with yours (although there is an obvious differnce between laptop and camera but they are both detailed, electronic products working from a lithium battery). It might be still worth while to put the laptop in a hotpress for 24hrs if you havn't already done so...Coke is a sugary, sticky substance and may need as much drying out as possible...although I'm no expert! (on Coke or drying out laptops!)

Bass Cadet

In fact, I found this, seems like good advice....

www.advicenators.com/qview.php?q=426339


First things first: DO NOT TRY AND DRY IT WITH A HAIR DRYER! This will only bake the toxic chemicals in diet soda on the parts inside.

PULL THE BATTERY OUT IMMEDIATELY! (Laptops are never really "off.")

Now that that has been said: There is good news and bad news... how about we start with the good news?

The good news is that if you shut the computer off right away, your data is most likely safe and sound on the laptop's hard drive.

The bad news is that the laptop may, or may not, ever be ok again.

The artificial sweetener in sodas is called Aspartame, and it is almost as bad for laptops as it is for people, in my opinion. Do a Google search for:

Google


... and you may never drink another diet soda in your life!

Now, as to the proper steps in salvaging your data, here is what you would be wise to do:

Find a computer repair shop that is comfortable working on laptops.

Have them remove the hard drive from the sticky-fied laptop.

Ask them to open the machine and ascertain the damage level.

If the keyboard managed to contain the spill, you can order a replacement keyboard for your laptop from the manufacturer.

If the soda spilled past the keyboard and into the main electronics, you are in trouble.

There are a few "plastic safe" electronics cleaners that you can ask them to apply to the motherboard and other parts in order to try and salvage the machine.

The reason I tell you to specifically mention a "Plastic Safe" electronics cleaner is that most cleaners that will take Aspartame off a circuit board, will also turn every piece of plastic on that board into a puddle of goo.

Now, let us say that everything went well and the machine is working fine... Make a backup of your hard drive IMMEDIATELY. Some problems that arise with a contaminated laptop don't appear until some time later.

Also remember: Laptops were meant to be assembled once, and never taken apart. This is why upgrading of the hard drive or RAM is usually done through a little door on the bottom of the laptop, or by lifting up the keyboard tray.

It takes great care to get a laptop back together once you have taken it apart.

Ask the technician that will be working on your machine: "Are you comfortable working on laptops?"

If they hem, and haw or avoid answering the question directly, leave and find yourself another place.

If they answer: "No, but I will if I have to, or if it is important to you."

... that is a good response. Laptops are hell to work on in general, and anyone who seems really excited about it has either never done it before, or is really stupid. ;-)

If there is a shop near you that specializes in laptops, that should be your first stop.

To give you an idea of the dollar amounts you are looking at here:

If I have to completely disassemble a laptop, I charge $100 to disassemble it, and $100 to re-assemble it.

That is separate from any repairs that it might need.

The reason I charge two fees instead of one is simply that if I open the laptop and it is beyond repair, there is no reason to re-assemble it. This saves you money.

Now, let us for a moment say that the laptop is completely and totally dead.

You had them pull the drive out, right? Good!

Here are your options:

Buy a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter for the laptop drive, connect it to the internal IDE ribbon cable in your machine (Only if you know what you are doing) and use it as a spare drive. You can suck whatever info you want off of it.

You could also buy a handy little external HD kit, which will allow you to put the drive in a nifty case which allows you to plug it into the USB port on your computer and access it that way. This would be my choice in the situation.

These aren't very expensive, and work well for your application.

Last option is to buy an identical computer, and swap drives.

I hope you do well in this situation, and I hope that you will use the feedback comment to let me know how you did.

Good luck,

IncredibleHulk

I'm definitely buying one of those laptop skins

Where do you get them, do they cover the keypad as well? Glad you got lucky