How much water is harmful?

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I just saw a nickel-sized drop of water on the trackpad of my Macbook -- not in the middle, but covering the trackpad's edge. I'm not sure exactly how long the water was there. Could it have been a bigger splash that seeped through the crack around the trackpad, or is the space between trackpad and the rest of the body too thin to let enough water through? Should I be using my Macbook right now? Just wondering how much water is dangerous...

ETA: Wow, I did not notice the stickied water spill thread at the top of this forum; sorry. It only applies to big spills, though... doesn't really answer my question. Feel free to delete this though.
 

pigoo3

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Just wondering how much water is dangerous...

There's no fixed quantity of water that's considered dangerous...and it's not just the quantity...it's where the water is as well.

Don't let any water/beverage near or on your laptop, and everything will be fine.

- Nick
 
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Water + MacBook = Expense!

Solution? Avoid!
 

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BTW, the logic board is right under the keyboard on most of these things.. and there is no barrier at all to prevent any liquid from passing through. My wifes laptop evidently had some water intrusion and this fried the logic board.. we have no idea when this occurred, there certainly wasn't a spill of any type.. the only thing that she can think of is maybe some condensation dripped off a glass, but it's now trash.

even ONE drop can kill it.
 

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The good news is your droplet was in the best possible spot it could have been in. All that rests under the trackpad is the HDD and battery (right side if looking down on your track pad is HDD, left is battery). It's a pretty tight fit there too, so hopefully your MPB was okay. What are you posting this topic from? Was your MBP on when you found the spill? If it was turned off, I'd say leave it turned off, pull the battery and HDD, and let it dry out for a day or 2. You should be fine, and hopefully dodged a bullet.
 
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That first drop can be fatal, only time will tell alas and do as advised.
 
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If you're talking about the aluminum uni MBP, if I remember right, the trackpad rests on part of the unibody enclosure. So even if a drop of water did squeeze between your trackpad, there is a chance it didn't touch anything besides the aluminum unibody. Good luck.
 
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Thanks so much for your help!

I looked up pics of a disassembled 13' Macbook and it looks like the water went on the black metal bit just below the battery... let's hope it didn't reach the battery! Just out of curiosity, how will I know if water did get on the battery?

Yes, sadly I did have it turned on after I noticed the water there... not more than 15 minutes. I'm still hoping that surface tension did its job and that the space between the trackpad and shell was too small to let water through.
 
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the battery is actually probably one of the more water-resilient components. If it's still working a day or so after the spill you're probably OK.
 
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Good to hear!

I'm going to ask one more question (sorry) -- I haven't opened the unibody case yet... should I open it and take the battery out; open and leave the battery in, or leave it closed?

Thanks again... I'll try to stop asking questions now!
 

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