W520 trackpoint & touchpad misbehaving after water spill

[fredsmith999]

I spilled a few drops of water on my W520, near the volume buttons. I wiped it off immediately and everything seemed fine so I foolishly left it running and went off to do something else.

When I came back, the mouse wasn't working so I rebooted (bad!) and found that everything was fine EXCEPT that although both the trackpad and trackpoint could move the cursor, clicks didn't work using any of the 4 buttons or by tapping the pad. The keyboard worked fine except for one or two keys (the 'D' key) which required extra pressure.

I left it a few hours and tried again (I know...). Right clicking started working with either button. The D key was worse.

Today, I tried again. The keyboard is fine. Both left mouse buttons don't work. Neither does tapping. The cursor moves of it's own accord (very slowly but continuously and always in the same diagonal direction).

I disabled both pad and pointer in BIOS and plugged in an external mouse. Everything seems fine (I hope...). How can I fix the internal pointer/pad? I know that the trackpoint and its button use the keyboard cable. Since both trackpoint and trackpad have the same problem I assume it isn't a hardware problem with either of them.

Since the rest of the hardware is fine, I assume the problem is midstream between these devices and the important stuff. Can anyone more experienced in thinkpad hardware give me a clue? Thank you.