Why is There Battery Acid on My Wifi Card?

[bursty]

My wireless connection on my Powerbook has been really finicky lately, which I just blamed on my crappy cable company (screw you Charter!). Anyway, tonight I lost my connection a few times so I went to reset my router, and noticed my dads MacBook Pro had a perfect signal and working internet I assumed something was wrong with my Airport card then. I took it out and found this.....

My battery is perfectly fine, no traces of any sort of leak. What else could this stuff be? It was crusted on and I had to gently scrape it off. Any ideas? Nothing's ever been spilled on my PB. I cleaned everything off and its working fine at the moment, but I'm just a little worried about finding something like that inside my PB.

 

[kretzy]

Could it be glue or thermal paste?

 

[thewhitehart]

It looks like thermal paste. But there shouldn't be any on an airport card.

 

[wyrmintheapple]

I've seen this quite often.... It looks a lot like some quite bad oxidation... corrosion. Usually from a liquid. I see it appears that the label stuff under it, the grey area toward the top of the photograph. If it was battery acid, It would have eaten through the label, and the cards are produced separately, so the paste would not have been placed under the label.

Now Orange juice is acidic, It is something to worry about, although it usually goes very sticky and brown, rather than crusty and white, as the sugar does something odd.

The white stuff is often the impurities and minerals in the water being left behind as it evaporates. Think limescale in a kettle.

If there is nothing inside the powerbook, perhaps it was only the airport card exposed to the liquid, or condensation perhaps. Either way, thats what it likely is, spill or no spill. If it hasn't affected the electronics, then you should be OK. Water itself is the least harmful substance usually, although this mineral buildup can sometimes be conductive.