Thinkpads Forum

I'm panicing right now. I was in a meeting and a tall water bottle spilled onto my keyboard. Everything worked fine and I dried the machine off. I put it in my bag and now it won't power up. I've removed the keyboard and dried everything down. It didn't appear to have gotten to the motherboard... I'm freaking out right now because I don't have the time to send it away for a week for service!

Any ideas!?

You don't try turning it on for at least 24 hours after you've spilled water on it. You're also supposed to cut power to it as soon as possible after the spill.

Keyboard tray is also only capable of storing water when the laptop is horizontal.

Stop trying to power it up, unplug all sources of power, let it dry for a day, then try again. Consider using a hair dryer without the heat to accelerate the process.

Also, not appearing to have contacted the mainboard is not enough; all you need is one tiny fleck of water to bridge two contacts, and you'd have fried part of all of the board.

Good posting by the Colonel, and all I can add is to suggest that you remove the battery and then place the machine in a warm airing cupboard.

Some people suggest placing the machine in a sack of rice because the rice will absorb moisture. I never have that much rice in the house.

Colonel O'Neill wrote:Keyboard tray is also only capable of storing water when the laptop is horizontal.

+1

putting it away while wet probably killed it. Hope you have backups. Let it dry for a couple of days before turning it on and you might be lucky.

Remove your harddrive as soon as possible!

killer wrote:Some people suggest placing the machine in a sack of rice because the rice will absorb moisture. I never have that much rice in the house.

If you happen to have some of those silica gel packets left over from whatever dried food packaging, those work too. Any dessicant (within reason) should work.

Thanks for the replys. Luckily the ssd was not damaged and I also have weekly external backups of my data.

I took apart the machine down to the board and used a blow drier on max to really dry down the inside of the machine and any components in every nook and cranny. Sadly it doesn't power on still...

Sigh... Well that is what accidental damage protection is for. Sending it in!

Fortunately you have accidental. Should still leave it for a fair while; a little moisture could form a coherent short-circuit.

Handling a spill is all about the first few seconds. It is absolutely crucial to know how to rapidly unplug the AC and battery on your laptop for situations like this, as well as the protocol to follow afterwards. (i.e. Resist the temptation to try turning it on for 24-48 hours.)

Last December while I was on a plane, I spilled half a can of orange juice onto the keyboard of my HP netbook. Miraculously, the computer survived -- it's amazing that HP uses spill-resistant keyboards even for their netbooks. Afterward, a friend and I talked about this accident and he insisted that the best thing to do right after a spill is to keep using the laptop. His rationale was that the heat from the laptop is the best way to remove all the fuild, through evaporation. What do you guys think?

NO.

Ha ha ha, tee hee hee.

I'm very happy with IBMs support so far.

They said I would have a fixed machine in 3-5 days!



Update: Machine fixed and returned back to me in two days!