Emergency: Laptop + Coffee, Wife in Panic

DoctorArch

Hey guys, I'm pretty sure how to go about this, but I want a second opinion.

My wife spills about 3/4 cup of coffee on her laptop keyboard.

Now, my instincts tell me to let it dry, pry the keys off one by one, and clean gently.

Then if necessary, pop the system open to check for water damage.

As far as I know, the laptop has not been running, or been turned on after the damage has occured.

Any help/advice is wonderful.

Fantasma

If you know how to dissamble the laptop (RTFM) use a hair blower to dry it completely, double check all parts after that, redo from the start if necessary.

That should do it

Ruckus

Even if the laptop is boned, the harddrive inside may be ok. You can extract those and install them in a desktop pc (with adapters) to pull the data off.

DoctorArch

My wife was lucky, it didn't short out when she spilled, she actually saved everything and shut it down, after which she set it on end to facilitate drainage.

The Crowing One

I'm having flashbacks to the 4 times I've done this with various liquids.

crack it. hairdry it. go to sleep. pray.

hopefully if there is any damage at all it will be on the touchpad and keyboard, which are generally easy and inexpensive (against say, a motherboard).

You should be just fine. Best of luck.

blincoln

The big problem to watch for when spilling anything other than water or straight alcohol on a keyboard is when the water/alcohol component evaporates and leaves the sticky residue of whatever it was flavoured with in-between the membrane pieces of the keyboard. This can cause sticking keys or short-circuits which will change the effect of keypresses (e.g. pressing q might result in 1, a, w, or tab instead).
For cheap standalone keyboards I generally take them apart and clean them out with rubbing alcohol, but that might not be the greatest idea with a laptop.

Djeet

If there is residue leftover after drying (which may cause a short or heat buildup), this can be removed with degreaser (available at an electronics enthusiast store). Its a mixture of highly volatile solvents that rinse off scuzz. This should only be done in well ventilated area and with machine not plugged into any power supplies. Disassembling the machine and separating it into componente will facilitate better cleaning.

altmann

is it a dell?

Dells are surprisingly easy to take apart. Like, 3 screws and you're done. You can find step-by-step instructions on getting the tops off. Do not pry keys off one by one. New keyboards are fairly cheap and literally are just connected by a cable (kinda like a mini IDE cable). I'd let it dry out, and most likely you're good but if the keys are sticky and messed up from the coffee then replacing the keyboard is simple and cheap.

DoctorArch

altmann wrote: »

is it a dell?

Dells are surprisingly easy to take apart. Like, 3 screws and you're done. You can find step-by-step instructions on getting the tops off. Do not pry keys off one by one. New keyboards are fairly cheap and literally are just connected by a cable (kinda like a mini IDE cable). I'd let it dry out, and most likely you're good but if the keys are sticky and messed up from the coffee then replacing the keyboard is simple and cheap.

Hewlett Packard 17 inch widescreen laptop with a 10-key. I'll probably take it apart today and air dry it, seeing as how it's 90 degrees today.