Coffee spilt on laptop

[herbster]

A friend of mine spilt coffee on his laptop, what can he do, if anything?

[popch]

Switch it off, unplug it from the mains, remove the batteries NOW. Wait for more advice (from someone who knows more than I do).

[tcpip4lyfe]

Take it apart and clean it with rubbing alcohol on a q-tip and let it sit over night. Blow dry it with a hair dryer on low heat. This probably won't fix it but maybe you can get it to boot to get the data off of it. It's most likely ruined. The keyboard probably won't work anymore. :/

[Blue Heron]

reason_against_laptop++;

[detgar]

How much coffee did he spill?

[Foster Grant]

To follow up detgar's question, where did he spill it?

Every bit of liquid needs to be drained or allowed to evaporate; lay the screen as far back as it will go and turn the computer over on its face.

Once the exterior drains and dries, wipe down the exterior with a cloth dampened (not saturated) with rubbing alcohol. Pop the keys off and wipe out the keyboard bed if need. Put the keys back on if needed (in the right order, of course), boot and see what happens.

(I'm guessing it's not a Toughbook.)

(Hey, wonder if I can get Linux running on a Toughbook?)

[herbster]

Dang, looks like these measures won't do much. He had spilt it last night and after draining out all of it and wiping it down, he left it sitting. He called me when I made the thread.

Is it going to be a warranty issue for him? I also read via googling that homeowners insurance could cover it.

And he said it was a little less than half a cup, but knowing him it's probably a bit more hehe.

[Colro]

For what it's worth, he might be able to take the harddrive out and salvage the data off of it by mounting it on another machine :/

[SuperSon!c]

i'm pretty sure warranties don't cover negligence. not sure about homeowner's insurance, but that's a possibility.

[Vadi]

I didn't have success in installing Linux on a toughbook because the external CD drive wasn't being recognized. Tried to do a net install, but that didn't work either for some reason.

(don't have a toughbook either anymore, it turned out not to be so tough. Oh well, I got linux sooner)

[Ocxic]

take the whole thing apart. Clean every little bit of it, reassemble, everything should be fine so long as nothing shorted out or overheated.

[beercz]

A colleague once spilt a glass of water on his laptop.

This is what we did:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1019203

Good luck with fixing your friend's laptop.

[herbster]

Beercz, ouch!

Well, I'm with him now and we just booted up the laptop after using a blow dryer on cold air all over the thing, wiping out any visible stains, etc. and it works so far! He just got into XP and all is working so far, I would say fortunately the keyboard appears to be the only issue here. Most of it works, only certain keys like ENTER, P, [, etc. aren't responding no matter the pressure applied to the key.

Looks like a keyboard replacement is necessary. And his warranty expired last year anyhow. I've never had a laptop but despite the googling I'll be doing now, can any of you recommend what to get? Should it be replaced with a specific model or just some replacement available at a Best Buy-type store?

[aaaantoine]

Beercz, ouch!

Well, I'm with him now and we just booted up the laptop after using a blow dryer on cold air all over the thing, wiping out any visible stains, etc. and it works so far! He just got into XP and all is working so far, I would say fortunately the keyboard appears to be the only issue here. Most of it works, only certain keys like ENTER, P, [, etc. aren't responding no matter the pressure applied to the key.

Looks like a keyboard replacement is necessary. And his warranty expired last year anyhow. I've never had a laptop but despite the googling I'll be doing now, can any of you recommend what to get? Should it be replaced with a specific model or just some replacement available at a Best Buy-type store?

Maybe the keyboard can still be salvaged. Are you able to get to the contacts of these keys?

[intense.ego]

(I'm guessing it's not a Toughbook.)

(Hey, wonder if I can get Linux running on a Toughbook?)


I didn't have success in installing Linux on a toughbook because the external CD drive wasn't being recognized. Tried to do a net install, but that didn't work either for some reason.

(don't have a toughbook either anymore, it turned out not to be so tough. Oh well, I got linux sooner)

Thinkpads (or at least my model) have a similar feature to what I think you are talking about. There are holes that allow any liquid spilt on the keyboard to drain out of the bottom.