Selling up - advice?

JoeUk

JoeUk

JoeUk

Associate
Joined
2 May 2006
Posts
137
Hey all,

Last year I bought a MBP 15" - I5 - mid range model with antiglare / hi rez screen. I've treated it like a baby the entire time and it literally hasn't got a scratch on it (probably because it never left the room!). I previously decided however that I don't really need a laptop, even as a student - and figured I'll sell it and buy a nice desktop pc instead!

Problem is - last week.. I knocked a glass of water onto it.. couldn't believe it! Woke up with a hangover and my arm bumped it.. straight onto the keyboard. It was on too - and promptly .. wasn't on. I reacted pretty quick and drained it (haha) opened the back and took the HD and ram out and put it in the airing cupboard.. and cried.

Fast forward 4-5 days and I've turned it on - it works! Booted straight up and everything seemed fine (tested sound, wifi, bluetooth etc). It was a little slow on first boot, with the app tray taking a few seconds to pop up - but after another reboot it works same as always.. even playing Warcraft without issue (no corruption etc.. i *cough* tested it for 5 hours)

Problem is the keyboard isn't ok. Lower case works fine - however shift + punctuation etc.. comes up with some ASCII characters instead.. the question mark is upside down (wtf?) and I can't use the command key to switch between spaces. Totally random. I've plugged in an external keyboard and its working fine.

What's my options? I'm scared a bit to take it into Apple as I think they might charge me a fortune (even though the logic board appears to be 100% fine?) and obviously if I claim I don't know why the keyboards messed - they might be able to see the water sensors? I don't have insurance sadly.

Anyone had anything like this before? Ideally I'd like to fix it up perfectly and sell it on, as other than this.. it's as new haha. Any idea's what it would be worth? Fixed and.. unfixed?

Cheers
 
no home contents insurance either ?


changing the keyboards are supposed to be hassle but might be worth looking at guides and prices to see exactly how much hassle , id be slightly concerned about it breaking again in a month and the new owner taking it to apple and finding out its previously been drowned :(
 
Take it to the apple store and play johnny innocent. (provided you have apple care).

Similar thing happened to me on my birthday at the start of the year but much worse. I got out of bed and knocked a pint of water into the back of mine whilst it was on stand by. It didn't recover. So I left it on a radiator for 5 days, took it to the apple store and said it was on stand by and hasn't come back since :(

They fixed it under apple care and I dodged a £500 repair (and another one done since too as the graphics card went pop).

Moral of the story is if you are lucky you can get water damaged things fixed under apple care, otherwise pray for home insurance.
 
Ok - cheers guys. My landlady has home insurance but in no way shape or form wants to use it for me haha.

I'll take it into the apple store and play innocent - see what I can do.
 
If the worst comes to the worst, and a repair bill is going to kill the profitability of a sale, sell it half price for spares and repairs with details of the problem. Someone who knows what they're doing will take it off your hands and be glad of it.
 
Yeah I think your right - if I have to spend £4-500 to fix it (hope not) and can sell it for £700 .. then its not worth it. Hopefully it won't be quite that much. What a pain! Just teaches me that I can't have nice things haha
 
Just thought i'd follow this up - I took it in and.. got it repaired for free! New top case, logic board - cost = £0! Apple :)

Of course.. I took it home and its now got some graphical corruption but at least that's not my fault this time haha. Back to the store I go, wonder if it keeps going wrong if I can get a new one :P
 
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