Design Flaw: Aluminum Bathtub, Single Motherboard

[iPhysicist]

The motherboard is not coated? That is very uncommon.

 

[Transporteur]

Sorry, but who EVER said that an SSD is not mentioned to fail, hence doesn't require a proper backup?

That's an illusion, SSD's fail as much as mechanical discs do. Only because they don't have moving parts doesn't mean that they are bullet proof.

 

[myuserid08]

I've spilt a pint of beer on mine, turned it off and let it dry - worked fine a week later!!
I did take it apart later on and cleaned the boards.

So I would say it would take a little more than a "couple of drops" to kill your Air.

 

[double329]

I am sorry about the accident. But, I don't know if I want to call it a design flaw? To me a design flaw is something that don't function as the way it was designed to. I don't think Steve indicated any Macbook is a waterproof device. If he did, then I will agree with you that it is a design flaw. I don't eat or drink when I use or near my computer. When I drink or eat, I want to enjoy that. My computer is not anywhere close. Again, sorry about your accident.

 

[JonLa]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)

Where did the drops land on the air? Keyboard?

 

[animatedude]

was it starbucks **** coffee?

 

[JoeG4]

Call me insane, but I think in the right circumstances you could probably dunk a macbook air in a bathtub and still save it.

Of course, I wouldn't dare try that one because it'd be too much of a headache and take forever to dry out, but yea.. people would describe some kinda catastrophic arcing going on with water shorting out connectors, but laptops don't really have the kinda stuff in them to cause high-voltage arcing that would actually damage something.

The MBA doesn't even have an inverter lol.

 

[jmoore5196]

I doubt there's an engineer or designer alive who will create a product while allowing for every unintentional contingency that could befall it.

Seriously, are we to believe that because Apple designed for beauty and functionality rather than your "two drops" finding their way to the innards of your MBA that they're somehow lying, cheating propagators of low-end cr@p?

The truth, OP, is that you created the problem and Apple's design had nothing to do with your decision to spill liquid on your computer. I could not in good conscience throw my iPhone into a running stream and then claim Apple's at fault because it's not watertight.

I'm sure I'll get banned for this, but let me share with you a lesson I've learned with bitter tears and great sacrifice: Never have liquid on any surface above your laptop.

Learn it. Love it. Live it.

 

[Dammit Cubs]

....turn it upside down....and then hang for a couple of hours?

sorry for your loss.

 

[RandiC]

First of all, I understand I committed an error and the consequences are my fault.

I bought a MacBook Air for $999. Because of the all-aluminum frame and the no-moving-parts hard drive, I expected it to be durable.
Unfortunately, while moving a coffee cup to my lips, I spilled a drop or two of coffee on my brand-new MacBook Air. It shut down in about 30 seconds forever, a total loss. All my data is 100% gone forever. $700 to repair.

Of course, I am responsible for my own mistake. Yet, when you start to google: " 'MacBook Air' water", you see legions of customers who have encountered this problem. Couple drops of water in the top--total loss.

Why? The aluminum housing acts like a bath tub.

The design decision to include a single aluminum housing came with consequences. It introduced a new vulnerability not shared by a machine with a porous bottom, one that cooled through the bottom instead of through the keys.

The design decision to move away from a spinning hard drive to flash memory chips naked on the motherboard also came with consequences. When your data is within a hard drive, it is pretty safe--it's raised off the bottom of the laptop. Your precious data is safe. When it's on the motherboard, your precious data is naked to the wind.

The failure mode of a laptop with a traditional hard drive is not pretty but it's survivable. It sucks but you can usually recover all your data. It's also rare to have a motherboard and hard drive fail simultaneously. It's actually pretty hard to make a traditional hard drive fail--they are sealed up tightly.
The failure mode of a MacBook Air is obscene: two drops of water, rain--and everything is gone, all of your data. Your entire motherboard, hard drive, memory--everything--is toast.

Take a 1" drill bit and make a hole in the bottom of your laptop... No more bath tub we do it all the time it leaks two drops out very well.

 

[darngooddesign]

I'm still wrapping my head around a laptop with a porous bottom. Perhaps English isn't the OP's first language, in which case he/she probably meant something else.

 

[GoCubsGo]

I bought a MacBook Air for $999. Because of the all-aluminum frame and the no-moving-parts hard drive, I expected it to be durable.

I'm sorry that your laptop is toast but please do not mistake durability for water resistant.

 

[PirateP]

You TOTALLY dumped a whole cup of coffee on it. A couple of drops, my arse. That's just silly.

 

[jimboutilier]

No offense but if you look at the tear downs of the new MBAs it's unlikely two drops of water could ever get to the bottom and if they did and managed to pool at the lowest point they would not be touching anything but the battery at that point until the case was fairly full.

So while I'm sorry for your loss, the design has nothing to do with your issue and would be common to a lot of laptops that don't vent on the bottom.

 

[blimey]

sorry op. while your situation could be different, it is just un-heard off. a couple of drops? i sprayed the Zagg mist thingy to protect the palm are and pretty sure i drench the keyboard. i did have the laptop completely off during the application. it's just crazy that a couple of drop fried your MBA.

i know a coworker who spilled coffee on his IBM at work and that was fried!