Thread: Waterey Apples!

so...my girl has a brand-spankin-new black macbook...she just got it a few weeks ago...

well, last night, I was tuckin her in before leaving to go home, and set her computer on her nightstand...I left it open and on because it was syncing with their time capsule (apple family...dad used to work for em in the early 90's)

Well, it turns out that while setting it down, I knocked water onto it....like, a glass full, spilled all over it, but the light was off, so we didn't notice...

she wakes up the next morning, water is in a puddle on the keyboard, had all night to soak in...the laptop's off...
she's a smart cookie, and instantly pop's the battery out...

well, this was SUNDAY morning.....it's been near 24 hours now...

what should we do?

Here's two ways I would recommend going in this situation: (good thing it was water, not soda of coffee)

Step One, if you don't have extra $$ to throw back to Apple after a large purchase of the laptop:
Go to drug store/grocery store purchase a bottle of isopropyl alcohol (DENATURED, not drinkin' alcohol); a bottle of deionized or distilled water, a can of compressed air and a box of Q-Tips.
Carefully remove back cover, RAM sticks, Hard Drive, main battery, and CMOS battery; if you have an old toothbrush, grab it too. There should have been a plastic sheet under keyboard, to dispel liquids from falling directly into laptop, and should have diverted water to edges of keyboard, hopefully.
Stand laptop on end, where all water will settle to one end, preferably an end where rear cover leaves a large opening for water to drain out; and preferably away from any CD/DVD drives, let stand in that position for about an hour or more, use toothbrush to lap out water puddled in bottom, then Q-Tips to absorb the water the toothbrush couldn't get, and around keys on k/b.
What you want to do is use toothbrush by dipping it in alcohol to allow bristles to soak up and hold a small amount of alcohol. If you have a small "squirt" bottle, you can "mist" alcohol onto unit as well, but don't flood it again. Usebrush to apply light amounts on top end of laptop to drain through circuits... alcohol absorbs water and leaves no residue from calcium deposits, chlorine, flouride or other minerals in water to dry onto circuits. Alcohol rinses away these deposits. Same goes with keyboard, just tip laptop with keys up, but keep angle of drain towards same end.
Now don't apply any alcohol to Hard Drive, this is too delicate even for alcohol rinse. You have to assume it didn't get in there for now. Even if it did, since it's a new laptop, you won't be losing that much data that can't be reinstalled from OS disk, or Time Machine backup.
(I saved an LG Voyager Cell phone this way, with no issues afterwards, goin on 2 years now.
I've seen people use WD-40 before, but there are lubricants in it that can cause more trouble than good. The alcohol won't short anything out.)
After through using whole bottle of alcohol up, you can slowly dry it with a hair dryer on low heat or just air blowing through to dry alcohol; this won't take long, since most would have dried within seconds anyway.
Repeat rinsing with deionized or distilled water after alcohol bath, and dry again.
Lightly brush RAM contacts and battery contacts with alcohol as well, do not use a pencil eraser to "rub" contacts, this also leaves residue from rubber.
Carefully re-assemble parts, and boot from battery only, do not plug into wall just yet.
Listen for any new, unwanted sounds from HD and see if it boots.
Even if it starts OK, there still may be corrupted data on HD, if water entered it.
**Most laptop HD's are sealed so dust won't enter them, so you may get lucky here.**
Check through C:\ and see if data can be read or copied to another folder, try this multiple times with multiple files/folders: (move data and re-read) see if HD is functioning correctly. I would advise running chkdisk if files are copied OK, with no noticable issues.
If no boot, you may need a new HD... cheaper than whole laptop.

Step Two, call Apple customer service and schedule an appointment to visit an Apple store to drop off laptop, and wait a couple weeks while they do same thing and charge you $200-400; (while you sit at home, listening to all the reasons you are never to touch her laptop again).

Of course I accept no responsibility for damages that may arise from this list, but search around on google, many have had this work for them.
Good luck and let us know how this turns out...(glancin' at my macbook).