The portability of laptops mean you can bring it anywhere with you and work practically everywhere. But with portability there is also an increased likelihood for accidents to happen. We’ve all heard of horror stories where someone inadvertently spills something on their laptop or gets it wet. Liquids are one of the worst enemies of electronic devices, especially laptops but even if this happens there is still a chance you could salvage it.
When you get your laptop wet the first thing you should immediately do is to turn it off. This is to avoid the circuits from shorting. Time is of the essence here so you have to turn it off fast. Don’t go through the relatively long process of shutting it down. What you need to do is to press and hold the power button and it will immediately turn off. You should then unplug the power charger in case you’ve got it plugged in when the accident happens. You should also take off all of the attached devices like the mouse, external drives, the printer and even the battery.
Get some clean rags and lint-free cloth and start blotting the liquid from the laptop. You can turn the laptop over to let the liquid drip off. Shake it a little if you need to. Get that cloth all over and let it sop up the liquid that gets into the nooks and crannies.
Now leave the laptop to dry. You can put it in a dry and warm place so that the liquid can have time to evaporate. If you want to hasten the drying process a bit you can use a fan and direct the air flow towards the laptop. Don’t use a blow dryer because the warm air will heat up the computer parts unnecessarily and also force dust into the laptop because of the strong air current it produces.
If you are comfortable with your technical skills you can open up the laptop to get into the innards. Use a lint-free cloth to wipe the liquid off the internal parts. Be aware that if the laptop is still within warranty, opening the laptop will void it. It’s best to open it if you know the laptop’s warranty has lapsed.
If the liquid you spilled is something like soda or coffee then the parts will have to be rinsed off. If the liquid you spilled is water soluble, you can use deionized water to rinse the parts. For liquids that are thick or oily, a mixture of denatured alcohol and deionized water will be a good solution to rinse the parts off. Remember that over rinsing can also damage the computer parts so do it sparingly.
Photo from 4tnz.com
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