laptop got soaked (whats likely to be dead)

Matt82

Matt82

Matt82

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to cut a long story short, my laptop got soaked to death, the insurance company have provided a new one, but let me keep the dead one (woo, go me!).

i fancy trying to get it to work again.

i know about your normal desktop pcs, and i imagine a laptop is much of the same but smaller/more compact.

therefore, what is likely to be dead (it was litterally showered when the people upstairs had a water prob the brought the ceiling down)
 
Depends on how well it was dried out and how soaked it got in the first place but probably all of it is dead. The easiest part to test will probably be the hard drive as you can buy 2.5" to 3.5" adapters. The only other easily user removable part being the Ram but that won't fit into a desktop machine you will need to put it into another laptop. Your power brick and the screen may be relatively unaffected as well but not so easy to test.

I'd suggest opening the laptop up as much as possible and putting a gentle dry heat source on it and seeing if you can dry it out completely then try switching on.
 
I would suggest removing the battery and as much of the casing as is easily removable and then leaving it in the airing cupboard for upwards of a week before trying to do anything with it.
If the lid was closed when it got wet, then you actually have a much better chance, as the water is less likely to have penetrated totally into the innards.

I would say that the RAM should work with no real probs, the HDD is possible but doubtful, and the rest depends on how well it dries, when you removed the battery & pure luck.

-Leezer-
 
depending on how long it has been wet and how fast u have left it to try, connecting wires that are exposed eg ribbon of keyboard to main board and things like this will corrode and then go wrong, seen a keyboard where the keys would either not work or come up with the wrong character which was interesting. ram should be ok, hdd should be ok if dried well as sealed. rest of it just needs to be dried and see what it does.
 
depends what it got soaked with? just water?

Then you might be lucky and it could still work, or may be just the HD thats dead. Was it off when it got wet?

My guess is that the battery and HD is dead. Dry it out and then use the PSU only to power it, if it doesn't boot up then if you have a spare 2.5" HD, use that. If that doesn't work then......a lot of things could be broken.
 
iraiguana said:
depending on how long it has been wet and how fast u have left it to try, connecting wires that are exposed eg ribbon of keyboard to main board and things like this will corrode and then go wrong, seen a keyboard where the keys would either not work or come up with the wrong character which was interesting. ram should be ok, hdd should be ok if dried well as sealed. rest of it just needs to be dried and see what it does.
Click to expand...

OMG that it what has happened to our Dell laptop when I spilt fanta on it. We managed to get all the keys workign accept the "at" key? Is there a easy way to replace the ribbon?

Cheers

(P.S sorry for hijacking thread)
 
-White-Knight- said:
OMG that it what has happened to our Dell laptop when I spilt fanta on it. We managed to get all the keys workign accept the "at" key? Is there a easy way to replace the ribbon?

Cheers

(P.S sorry for hijacking thread)
Click to expand...

That won't be the ribbon- It'll be the key itself :(
You only real option here is a new keyboard, soft-drinks are nasty corrosive stuff!

-Leezer-
 
leezer3 said:
That won't be the ribbon- It'll be the key itself :(
You only real option here is a new keyboard, soft-drinks are nasty corrosive stuff!

-Leezer-
Click to expand...

darn it! I never took the "no food near the computers" seriously and I learned the hard way I suppose. I was lucky in a sense, it could have been a lot worse. a lot was spilt on it and for a couple of days it did not turn on. When it did the entire right side of the keyboard had gone (I am using it right now)but it gradually came back (bar 1) Stupid Fanta Icy Lemon, its to good :p.
 
I must be lucky, I have never spilt a drink or food near a comp (with the eception of the chocolate crumbs between *** keys of my kb).

However, I have managed to drop a keyboard and stick *** arrow key on the wrong way and not being able to get it back off. I now have two <-- arrow keys lol.

Dave
 
Matt82 said:
to cut a long story short, my laptop got soaked to death, the insurance company have provided a new one, but let me keep the dead one (woo, go me!).

i fancy trying to get it to work again.

i know about your normal desktop pcs, and i imagine a laptop is much of the same but smaller/more compact.

therefore, what is likely to be dead (it was litterally showered when the people upstairs had a water prob the brought the ceiling down)
Click to expand...


Hey, my mum spilt a full cup of tea over my beloved laptop last night. it didnt turn on until this morning, seems to be ok now but getting some odd temperature readings and the cpu fan (which is normally always buzzing away because its overclocked) is hardly coming on. i'm worried about frying the cpu.

prob going to leave it a few days then get a pro to look at it. will claim on insurance if it is indeed fooked. The thing is, what if it dies somewhere down the line as a result of this? how will i know? what can i do about it??

i was suprisingly calm when it happend but i'm feeling a little bit annoyed now i've realised that it might work but just not very well. (i would feel guilty claiming if it wasnt actually properly broken)
 
I'd still suggest my advice from the start of the thread, open your laptop up as far as you can and apply a gentle heat source. No guarantees it will work perfectly afterwards but it is your best bet.

If something dies later on down the line then that is unfortunate but there isn't terribly much you can do about it, drying the laptop off thoroughly is the most likely way to avoid future corrosion but that is about all you can do. :)
 
Defcon5 said:
Was it on when it got wet?
Click to expand...
hey sorry for the late reply- i couldnt get to a computer as the laptop is now totally dead, not responding at all! Yeah it was switched on when it happened, but it was off by the time i got to it. i left it on the table to go upstairs to fetch my mobile. the next thing i heard was screaming coming from the living room, oh god whats happened now i thought- i came downstairs to a sight no man should ever have to see.... £800's worth of latop covered in twinnings finest. not good.

i've been on to the insurance company and they want to take it away to try and fix it!!! i couldnt make her understand that it is rip. still i wouldnt mind keeping it so see if there is something i could do with it one day. Also, what are they going to do? will they give me a replacement based on its market value today or what it originally cost?? surely they should replace old for new??
 
They will try to give you current value, so argue with them. Some companies specifically offer "gap insurance" to cover this which basically costs you extra but they give you what you paid for the item if it is destroyed. If your company doesnt offer gap insurance, you can try arguing the toss for a full refund. Generally a company would rather pay out a little extra than lose a customer.

If you can get a cash settlement, i personally would take it. You can get a much better machine second hand than if they replaced it for you. Especially if they will only offer current value.

Hope that helps.
 
Get shot of the battery as it might be a dangorus.

What brand is it?

Take it all apart. There dead easy, have my Dell running as we speak out the case! Looks cool runs cooler.

If your stuck i'll strip it and have a go at getting it to work again.
 
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