Dropped MBP in the bath. Confirm the worst?

milltown

Swishing a nice bath, iphone and 2020/2021 MBP on one of those shelf/tray things, I knocked my (ironically water resistant) phone into the water. In my panic to fish the phone out I knocked the laptop in 🙄

It was closed and asleep at the time but I reckon probably fully immersed for 15 seconds.

I shook it dry as much as I could and its now open, screen and keyboard down, on a towel in the hot press. Intention is to leave it there for 24 or 48 hours before opening it up and stripping it down to component level to further remove any reachable moisture with IPA and hot air. Ever the optimist.

I suspect I'll be wasting a lot of time and hope on a 5 or €600 laptop though.

What do we think?

Also interested to hear if anyone has any good news stories of house insurance covering such ID10T errors?

10-10-20

…a 25 year old macbook? I'd be writing that off as a good investment at the time!

But yeah - as you know water and electronics don't mix, plus at that age they would have used a HDD drive, and those don't like water at all.

milltown

Oopsie! 20/21 I meant.

Edited original post.

Doodah7

Did it live or die?

milltown

Its still in the hot press.

Will update when I have the emotional fortitude to take it out and try it.

drunkmonkey

Unscrew the back cover first to check for water damage before booting it.

milltown

Sounded promising, with the Bleehhh sound when started but display never attempted to light up. Tried an external HDMI display with same result. If display and video board are dead I reckon its worthless. I'll keep it to see what, if anything, might be recoverable from the ssd but that will be a hobby more than a necessity. Time capsule backups have the important stuff.

machiavellianme

Why did you need more than one device in the tub? Madness.

As others have said, remove the covers and check for water ingress first. The hotpress isn't a panacea. 15 seconds is a very long time. I'd give it a week in the hotpress. I've put phones in rice to draw the moisture out, not sure if that will work for a larger device. Perhaps some of those silicone dessicants if you have any?

reclose

An expensive ****