Thinkpads Forum

Not too bad, spashed some on the corner (ESC side) of my T43. I shut it down, took off the battery, dried it best I could and let it sit for a while. Tried it after a few hours and got a few beeps but no boot, so I took off the keyboard and let it sit for a while longer. It just booted (thank god), but is there anything else I should to prevent any more damage that might be done (besides watch where I put my coffee)?

Did you clean the residue off? The residue tends to be what gets you in the end....it causes corrosion.

tfflivemb2 wrote:Did you clean the residue off? The residue tends to be what gets you in the end....it causes corrosion.

thx, will do that

Just had a close one with a work laptop (which has no real protection from spillage).

Basically, spilled my cup of tea onto the keyboard. Then, as has happened to me before, keys started to correspond to wrong characters, like pressing shift will get you W etc...

Switched off the laptop, dryed using a dryer, waited 12 hours, switched on - it works perfectly!

Just a curious thought:

One of the interesting functions that the T43 claimed was the spill resistant keyboard tray, where you could just tilt and get the liquid out (if the spill occurred at the keyboard area.)

Was wondering if anyone really (unfortunately) encountered this experience before.

borez wrote:Just a curious thought:

One of the interesting functions that the T43 claimed was the spill resistant keyboard tray, where you could just tilt and get the liquid out (if the spill occurred at the keyboard area.)

Was wondering if anyone really (unfortunately) encountered this experience before.

you try, let us saner people know how it turns out..

for cleaning it up i would strip it down and make sure that EVERYTHING is shiny and new looking..
i use joy/denatured alcohol (10% more or less) and pure water and have used q-tips..

make sure there is no sugar from the coffee on the system board or anyplace else..

if "THEY" think that a drop of anything ever got weithin yards of your thinkpad, warranty bye bye..

That is unless you have the accidental coverage warranty as well

This almost reminds me of back when I had my first ThinkPad, a 25mhz 486SL based ThinkPad 350C (this was sometime in the 90's) and I spilled a bunch of water onto my keyboard. The thing wouldn't function properly at first but when I unplugged it and removed the battery and let the thing sit to dry for a few days, it worked fine. Just make sure you get rid of any residue (even water will leave residue as it attracts dust) before turning the computer on again and in the future be careful.

I know that when I use my ThinkPad 760, my habbits could use some improvement but forunatley, I have so many spare parts I don't have to worry aobut being screwed if anything breaks.

About 16 years ago I spilled a whole mug of hot chocolate over an Olivetti keyboard which went haywire as you would expect. With nothing to lose but the cost of a new key board, I stripped it down, washed every part thoroughly in luke warm distilled water then left it stripped down in an airing cupboard for 3 days. I've been using the keyboard ever since without fault.

Give it a try, what have you got to lose except a fualty keyboard?

In my bedroom, there is a shelf above my desk and back before I had a ThinkPad on this desk, I had an IBM PS/2 E (coolest desktop around, I really wish I still had it) and there was also at the time a fish tank with a betafish living in it on the shelf. One day, after changing the water, I accidently bumped my hand while putting the tank back on the shelf and that sent a ton of fish water (and fish food since I fed him before putting the tank back) gushing out (luckily there was still plenty water in the tank and the beta was fine) into the beautiful mint condition Model M keyboard I had there. Thank goodness it was a newer (1993) Model M which had built in drainage channels to help prevent spill damage. Luckily there was no permanent damage to the keyboard, which is now used with my Athlon desktop downstairs in the home office but it was just total hell to clean up. Having that thing go would really suck, especially since it's a less common RS3000 version with built in speaker hidden on the underside alongside some other differences from normal Model M's.