laptop + tea = ?

capriboy1978 · 14 Jan 2010 at 16:18

oops.

The inevitable has happened and a guest has just spilt tea on my hp lappy. It was only a splash and landed on the touch pad area. This was quickly wiped off and the machine held upside down and turned off / batt removed.

I've stripped it down and a small amount of tea has seeped through the touchopad onto a surface mount chip underneath which i've removed with blotting paper and left the chassis disassembled to air. i can't strip the touch pad out as the top cover of the laptop has 2 security screws i can't remove. there's lots of bend in the cover so i've propped it open.

Anyone have any similiar experience/advice they could share? don't fancy shelling out for a new one and it's too damn cold in the office at this time of year to go use my i7 rig every time i need to send a msg.

Ta

c

JonJ678 · 14 Jan 2010 at 19:30

Get the security screws out if you possibly can, are they torx bits or something more exotic? Aside from opening this you've done pretty much what you can. Getting IPA on a cutton bud and cleaning the board which now has tannin stains developing would be a good idea but might not be required.

At a guess you're going to lose the use of the touch pad, but the laptop will otherwise be alright. Better odds if the surface mounted chip is cleaned properly. Don't turn it on for a couple of days either way, maybe longer if it's always in a cold place.

I hope that doesn't sound too negative, you've reacted quickly enough to save the laptop.

capriboy1978 · 14 Jan 2010 at 19:51

Hi Jon,

thanks have run out of iso so used some tim cleaner instead - the only tea was on the chip under the touchpad. Security screws look like + with a very large head and extremely shallow. Nothing I have will touch them and I cba to machine something to do it - it'll have to do!

First time i've stgripped it this far and it wasn't too difficult so not a bad use of my time.

JonJ678 · 15 Jan 2010 at 05:10

Very large and shallow is a new one to me, odd. Nothing I've got would undo that either. Wish laptop manufacturers stopped using such measures.

Taking them apart is relatively easy, remembering where all the screws go when putting it back together on the other hand normally causes me some distress. All good fun though.

Good luck

capriboy1978 · 15 Jan 2010 at 14:06

yup.

tosh helpfully no. the screw holes, 10, 5 and 3 which appear to be the lenght of thread. Put it back together and amazingly I donb't have any left over. Which is a first and must be bad. Borrowed a dehumidifier last night and ran it in a sealed system with the laptop for a few hours. Will power her up tomorrow and cross me fingers.

Aod · 17 Jan 2010 at 17:31

touchpads are relatively unaffected by liquids - let it dry out somewhere warm and dry for a day or two and it ought to be fine.

hey, at least it wasn't coke!

neil_g · 17 Jan 2010 at 17:38

if it was only a splash then it cant be too bad..

on the other hand i knocked an entire mug of hot sweet coffee into my old dell latitudes keyboard once.. dell had it back on insurance and replaced the motherboard and most of the plastics. even though i pulled the battery and power straight away it was toast.

capriboy1978 · 18 Jan 2010 at 19:52

it was very sweet tea, my fallback when out of full fat coke. Using the laptop now, all good except ocassionally theres a noise like a fan catching / arcing - if i lift it off my knee it stops and starts again when put back for a little while. For the life of me I can't replicate it pressing on the casing anywhere even when it's beem doing it and I lift it up.

Hasn't done it today, yet which must be a good thing

Will just keep using it and see what happens!