Thinkpads Forum

My T60 got pretty wet in a high water situation here recently during some flooding. It's been aired out in the sun and blown dry with compressed air and "of course" doesn't "boot"! I do get lights indicating it's powered up but nothing beyond that.
Is there a reasonable procedure to do some diagnostics? Just start dismantling and confirming connections?

I don't really have the slightest idea where to begin!

Will Lenovo do an exchange for a "fixed $"!

how long did you leave it out to dry?

Even if you don't feel it there could have been moisture there between the welds and all that. Especially since you dind't take it apart yet you'd need at least 24-72hrs of drying time before i'd turn it back on. If you took it apart and dried each component then yeah that would be quicker but air dry you need lots of time.

You need to take it apart completely and clean it completely with distilled water, or (better) denatured alcohol. Then dry it for an hour in a 200 degree oven. That may or may not fix it.

I was preparing to "scatter" the pieces and clean each. I hadn't thought about the "denatured alcohol" but I had considered "contact cleaner"! The 200* oven dry actually sounds like a "fixer"
I keep distilled water around for lots of things! My cooling system in the car gets the "distilled" treatment!

It's been "air dried in 95*+" for maybe 4 days.

Thanks for the comments!

-Dave

I've used PCB/Component cleaner in an aerosol can. This will blow out water between the components and will dry w. out residue. I would give it *a few days* before applying power. The areas where you might have the most problem are the connectors - you will want to shoot cleaner into all the contacts.

caseyse wrote:I've used PCB/Component cleaner

>> thats Isopropil alchohol in other words....

The current operator thought it best to send it to "lenovo" and they've determined it's a "total loss"! That's what I expected and it won't be returned until later in the week!
Anyone have a "mainboard" and possibly a video card? It's for the T60 machine in my signature!

I would be happy to help. Let me know when you are ready.

Brad

Brad wrote:I would be happy to help. Let me know when you are ready.

Brad

Thanks Brad you certainly have been a "great help"!

The "high water" took a pretty serious toll most everything that was in the bag and a good bit of the machine itself. Brad replaced the system-board with I believe a T60P 2623-xxx and it's now a M66-V5250. There were 3 batteries lost in the ordeal, a 6 cell, 9 cell and a 4 cell. All reported "replace"! That surprised me. The optical drive also didn't survive.

Brad added "Bluetooth" while he was doing the repair and life's pretty good now! If you need some service there's "no doubt" your in good hands with Brad for service!

Brad, thanks again!

Wow, x1300 -> FireGL V5250 is an amazing step-up

Dave,

I am glad that you are back to your ThinkPad. I was happy to help.

I was surprised too that the batteries have all failed.

I agree that the GPU was a very nice upgrade.

Happy ThinkPadding!

Brad

If the batteries got wet, no surprise they died. LiOn batteries have to be kept within a specific voltage range, and if they shorted out and discharged completely from being wet--I'd expect that to kill them. They're terribly fragile little bombs, the battery packs I've seen opened have more on-board charge controller electronics than many gizmos are built from.

Similarly with the motherboard, there will be one (in some computers two) internal batteries. If the board stays damp and that internal battery(s) are connected--the power literally electroplates things apart unless the water is really really pure and someone was very very lucky.

It isn't so much the water that is the problem--but the way it allows power to get conducted to places it shouldn't be going.

Cell phone vendors (including Verizon & AT&T) now have little white paper "dots" stuck inside the phones in various places. They turn red once they've gotten moist--and if a tech sees that, it gets condemned as water damage with no further attention. (The problem is, using the phone in the rain, or in humid weather, also can trip the color change.)

Any stray white paper "dots" inside these machines?

Just curious as to what it cost to have it all fixed/upgraded?

There are companies specialising in recovering water damaged gear. The moment you discover that the piece of electronic gear has become wet you do take out ASAP all batteries, inclusive the backup battery (you'll have open up the machine) and do not, under any circumstances, power it up.

The company will then rinse it and subsequnetly vacuum dry it and there is a very good chance that it will survive. I once had a whole classroom full of desktops wet where the sprinkler system went off during the night and out of the 24 or so there was only terminal casualty.

Often the speakers will require replacement because they often (at lest: used to) have a paper membrane. Those who have a synthetic membrane will survive.

However, if it was my machine I would no longer trust it for mission critical systems.


Hope this helps,
vital-analitix