Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Melan

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
126
24
Ok so yesterday I really messed up and spilled beer all over my barely-a-year-old macbook. A few seconds later the macbook lost all power and wouldn't turn back on. I immediately drained all the liquid I could out of it by turning it upside down, then left it upside down. Someone later recommended putting it over the radiator which I did for some absurd reason. The radiator was lukewarm at the time but turned itself up for some reason and when I took it off the whole thing was pretty hot. So I'm not sure if that made the problem worse or much worse. I was pretty sure at that stage it's screwed anyway. Then I looked up on the net to find it might not be beyond repair.

So what do I do now? The laptop's still under warranty which obviously doesn't cover accidents. Should I therefore lie about it or would it be obvious what happened to any technician? I was going to take it in about the bit at the front peeling off anyway...

Is there something I can do? Would the heating have destroyed much that the water didn't? I don't really mind about the HD since everything's backed up thanks to Time Machine, but I don't think I can afford a whole new laptop and may have to even.... don't even want to think the thought... go back to Windows to save money. Anyone have any tips about this?
 
There is absolutely no doubt an Apple technician will notice this.

Best thing to do is leave it off for a day or two more, then turn it on.

Good luck!
 
dude, you must be watching something crazy to spill your beer all over :D

well agreed with Jack there

i dont think lying will work, the IT will probably found out that something spilled and cracked the processors or anything that got spilled on

and technically speaking, any electronic stuffs that got spilled by any liquid are mostly "supposedly" over
 
Hmmm.....well I have experience dropping coffee on my laptops in the past and I would let it drain in front of a fan for at least 2 or 3 days. Then take apart the keyboard and try to clean everything with rubbing alcohol....one of the times everything went back to normal, and another time only a few keys didn't work and I had to replace the keyboard, but I was lucky both times that nothing else was damaged.

Try doing that id you like! Good luck
 
thanks for the heads up about lying... I'd feared as much.. saves me from looking the fool in the Apple Store anyway.

ok so the general concensus is "leave it for 2 days" right? and a fan?

can excess heat ruin the parts in the macbook? that's one thing i'm worried about... it was almost too hot to hold when I took it off.

thanks for all your help people!
 
I'm pretty confident that if the plastics outside your laptop didn't melt from the heat - it will be fine.

The only thing I can think of that is ultra sensitive to heat, would be your battery. Some Lithium Polymer batteries have "thermal fuses" that protect them from catching fire - that might have tripped - but again, at the temps you're talking about - not likely.

Immediate concern - is your beer. The water will evaporate - but beer has all sorts of other things in it that will NOT. You need to remove this before power-up.

I would suggest attempting to open it up (search the web on how-to) and cleaning it with Deionized water first (or distilled). This will dilute any of the sediment left by the beer. Follow that up with some IPA if need be. (don't think you will need it) Do not submerge your hard drive in the water though! (but do clean the outside of it, if need be)

After the "wash-down" let your laptop dry for a couple of days - to speed the process - put somewhere warm - or pack in an air-tight bag with a desiccant - or dry white rice.

EDIT!!! IPA = Isopropanol -- NOT Indiana Pale Ale. (that was the problem in the first place!)
 
There is absolutely no doubt an Apple technician will notice this.

Best thing to do is leave it off for a day or two more, then turn it on.

Good luck!

I don't know about that. I used to own a Toshiba laptop before my mac, and once I did the same thing and spilled beer into my keyboard. The laptop still worked fine afterwards, but my keyboard was fried. So I brought it into a Toshiba centre in my city and lied about what happened. I said that the keyboard suddenly stopped working, and they replaced the keyboard for me, free of charge.

I probably got lucky... but I'd recommend you lie first. The worst thing that happens is they catch you for lying and make you pay for the repairs anyways. So you really having nothing to lose.

Cheers!
 
dude, you must be watching something crazy to spill your beer all over :D

well agreed with Jack there

i dont think lying will work, the IT will probably found out that something spilled and cracked the processors or anything that got spilled on

and technically speaking, any electronic stuffs that got spilled by any liquid are mostly "supposedly" over

Cracked the processors? :p
 
Karma is a good reason not to lie.

Why didn't that post the first time I wrote it?

Must be bad Karma...
 
My first post was this really revolutionary thing called a joke. Heard of them yet?

Without the smilies the subtle jokes sort of get lost.

Try jumping in that pool again...

attachment.php
 
This happened to me a couple years ago with an old dell laptop. I knew it wouldn't be covered by the warranty, so I dried it out for a week or so. It turned on fine, but then but not all the keys were working and some were sticking, so I removed the keyboard and soaked it in warm deionized water, which didn't really help much. So when I finally called dell, it turned out that I was able to buy a replacement keyboard for $14!. With the new keyboard, everything has been fine since. I think I really lucked out that nothing below the keyboard got wet.
 
You should have washed your keyboard with soap and water - and then rinsed with DI water.

Obviously - the sooner you "fix the problem" the less long-term effects will be there.

I actually know how and why water can permanently change a circuits function - but it is tedious, I've posted it many times before - and isn't fun to talk about.

So I'll just say that - powering up a circuit with moisture / FOD on it - can permanently affect things for the worse. So remove power, clean and dry (thoroughly) - and you "should" be o.k.

Dig up some of my old posts related to this problem (you're far from the first person to have this happen) if you want a bit more info.

And NO I am NOT smaht, you've been warned.
 
Water sensor tabs. They turn red if they get wet. You can see one of those tabs in your cellphone, usually there's one right under the battery (little white dot about 3/8 inch diameter.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.