Thinkpads Forum

Hi,
I saw that several times, water or cofee on a T60 or T61

The lenovo drainage system works perfectly.
So first thing to do,

Just take the power cable off then

DO NOT TOUCH EVERYTHING
If you move the thinkpad, the liquid will go straight to the planar ( systemboard )


The Thinkpad will shut off.

Wait for couples of minutes, let the time to the liquid to go under the laptop.
( if you have a look on the back you can see 2 hole with a tear, this is the drainage system )

Then when you are sure that there s no more liquid, take off the battery.

Make a power reset,
( Push the power button for 1 minutes without battery and ac adapter pluged in )

Remove the keyboard and keyboard bezel screws.
( thoses with the little keyboard on the side )

You can see the MIGR-62800,
How to use a MIGR ?

go to www.lenovo.com
Then on the lenovo banneer on the top of the site
Type: MIGR-62800
You ll see a document for removal instruction

Dry your Keyboard and touch with an hairdyer 3 or 4 times, 2 minutes everytime.
Don't be to close of the components.

After 3 or 4 hours
Plug back the ac adapter.
The power LED should light on.

Then plug back the keyboard and the touchpad, turn on the computer.

The computer should work properly.
The keyboard may be damaged as the touchpad.
On the T61 the keyboard was defective after that.

If the computer shut down during the OS loading or at anytime its mean the there s still some water on the keyboard or the touchpad.
don t worry it s just a security.

If the planar run one time, it s okay, it s will work perfectly, just check your touchpad and keyboard.

crenshow wrote:DO NOT TOUCH EVERYTHING
If you move the thinkpad, the liquid will go straight to the planar ( systemboard )

Is this really true? I was taught to immediately remove all power sources. This means unplug the power cord AND remove the battery. The Thinkpad will not turn off if it's unplugged with a charged battery installed. Removing power sources prevents electrical short-circuits that can ruin the electronics.

Perhaps tipping it forward and upside down, with the screen open, to remove the battery is the best strategy.

Anyone with knowledge in this area care to chime in?

Yup, it is also good practice that in any case of liquid spill, plug out the power as soon as you can to prevent short circuit formed by liquid.

Just take the power cable off then

DO NOT TOUCH EVERYTHING




but when it happens to me, no time to unplug it, computer shuted down in few second.

T60 4 ever lol

crenshow wrote:Just take the power cable off then

DO NOT TOUCH EVERYTHING




but when it happens to me, no time to unplug it, computer shuted down in few second.

T60 4 ever lol

You were lucky as I do not think that your laptop has a autoshut down in case of liquid.

Depending on the quanity the volume would overwhelm what ever drains were incorporated. I would not depend on this working well at all!

You forgot one very important step and that is to kick yourself over and over for spilling liquid into your laptop!

I would expect that "what is best" depends on the details of the spill. From past experience (we won't ask) if it is a little clear water, fine, let it drain. But in general electronics are damaged if there is any moisture, especially with salt or sticky things in it, and any power, including residual power from BIOS backup batteries in a laptop.

If the fluid has gotten to the system board--which you can't tell without opening it up--you would want to pull all power sources, including any BIOS backup (sorry!) and then flush the system with clean water. Distilled or deionized or as close as you can get, then again with some isopropanol (cheap unadulterated rubbing alcohol) mixed in, to promote drying.

Thoroughly air dry before re-assembling and adding any power.

This is the same process they used to recover the flooded radio onboard the original Kon-Tiki raft, it works for all electronics and camera gear--at least as well as any other field procedure you can try. Is it extreme and intrusive? No, it is the least intrusive and most conservative way to remove fluids and contaminants after a spill. Anything beyond "pure" water may leasve deposits and problems if you don't flush it out.

A spill of something sticky, like coffee with cream and sugar, is going to require flushing for sure.

hellosailor wrote:I would expect that "what is best" depends on the details of the spill. From past experience (we won't ask) if it is a little clear water, fine, let it drain. But in general electronics are damaged if there is any moisture, especially with salt or sticky things in it, and any power, including residual power from BIOS backup batteries in a laptop.

If the fluid has gotten to the system board--which you can't tell without opening it up--you would want to pull all power sources, including any BIOS backup (sorry!) and then flush the system with clean water. Distilled or deionized or as close as you can get, then again with some isopropanol (cheap unadulterated rubbing alcohol) mixed in, to promote drying.

Thoroughly air dry before re-assembling and adding any power.

This is the same process they used to recover the flooded radio onboard the original Kon-Tiki raft, it works for all electronics and camera gear--at least as well as any other field procedure you can try. Is it extreme and intrusive? No, it is the least intrusive and most conservative way to remove fluids and contaminants after a spill. Anything beyond "pure" water may leasve deposits and problems if you don't flush it out.

A spill of something sticky, like coffee with cream and sugar, is going to require flushing for sure.

Hi, I just made myself a problem. I have spilled beer over my T61p, now it won't boot. I know, it sounds bad, but I just been watching CL match and monitoring livescore website for other results.

I have removed keyboard, but have not flushed it. It has been 24h since; unfortunately it won't boot at all, just starts (green light's goes on) and it goes down in 1-2 seconds.

It seems some liquid might have hone bellow keyboard. As I have panicked and moved laptop. A minute later NHC reported that temperature increased over 100 Celsius and initiated system shut down.

Would you recommend flushing disconnected keyboard under running water? And draying it properly again?

I'm just panicking that now my precious laptop is dead forever. Please help me with your advice.

yes, I have used the "Kon-Tiki" method that hellosailor described for decades and it works great, miracles, in fact.

would be perfect for removing beer residue

and he said distilled water not tap water! (tap water leaves mineral residues)

just keep in mind 3 things:

1. after the distilled water flushing and isopropanol flushing (squirt bottle is good for this), you need to get each part really dry before reassembly and applying power, use a blow dryer on low heat for quite a while after you think each component is dry, the circuit boards, especially the motherboard, are the most important parts that need to be uber-dry with the blow dryer, but be careful with using much heat around the plastic case parts.

2. this is a big job, requiring complete disassembly of your thinkpad, and not for the impatient, or those not skillful in disassembly/reassembly of tiny things. (this means 99% of people in the world should leave this job to a pro)

3. order a genuine T61p screw set from mog1669 on ebay, you will very likely need it for a couple of those tiny screws that will get away, never to be found again

PS - there are videos on disassembly of many areas of your T61p at http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com and of course have the the full disassembly/reassembly procedures in the T61 hardware maintenance manual from lenovo.com, up and viewable on another computer or else printed out before you begin.

good luck and take it slow and find an area that is child/pet free to work in, like a lockable spare room! --- take a break when you get stressed!

PPS - don't forget to remove CPU when flushing and dry bottom side of CPU, and motherboard area under CPU!

I have successfully washed some parts from a DISASSEMBLED thinkpad and dried them in a domestic oven.

WARNING - get this wrong and you'll fry your Thinkpad and ruin your oven.

The mobo can go in a 60 degrees Celsius (not sure what the imperial equiv is). <-- Admin note: 140F or 333K

Other parts are fine at 40 degrees C. A fan oven works really well to dry things out and ensure there is no residual moisture.

Make sure you don't wash the adapter, battery, speakers, HDD, CD ROM, LCD etc

YMMV

D