The Official "I spilled liquid in my MacBook, what do I do now?" Thread

Removing a hard drive from a MacBook or MacBook Pro is a fairly easy do it yourself task. What you will need after it's removed is either an adapter or a SATA external USB carrier so you can attach it to another machine and extract your data. See removal instructions at iFixit: The free repair manual.

Thank you! That site looks very helpful and it does seem like a fairly straightforward process as long as I can get the hard drive out.

This thread brings back horrible memories for me. I had a Pinot Grigio spill and that was the end of a six month old macbook pro! Now that I have replaced it I bought an accidental damage warranty and a keyboard cover. Talk about an EXPENSIVE mistake!

However, I was able to find a company that bought it from me for $400.00. I didn't think I would have been able to get that as other sites and local companies offered me next to nothing for it.

CityGirl81 said:

This thread brings back horrible memories for me. I had a Pinot Grigio spill and that was the end of a six month old macbook pro! Now that I have replaced it I bought an accidental damage warranty and a keyboard cover. Talk about an EXPENSIVE mistake!

However, I was able to find a company that bought it from me for $400.00. I didn't think I would have been able to get that as other sites and local companies offered me next to nothing for it.

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Do you recall what company that was by any chance?

kyler04 said:

Do you recall what company that was by any chance?

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cash4macbooks.com

They will actually send you the shipping label and if you choose paypal as the method to be paid, once they evaluate your laptop they deposit the money. They got my macbook last Saturday at 11:30EST and I had a paypal deposit not even 45 minutes later.

CityGirl81 said:

cash4macbooks.com

They will actually send you the shipping label and if you choose paypal as the method to be paid, once they evaluate your laptop they deposit the money. They got my macbook last Saturday at 11:30EST and I had a paypal deposit not even 45 minutes later.

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Thanks, I will certainly look into this!
In good news, my new iMac is on its way to its new home. Hoping no wine accidents will occur with this!

kyler04 said:

In good news, my new iMac is on its way to its new home. Hoping no wine accidents will occur with this!

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You're going to have to spill an awful large amount of wine to liquid damage an iMac (put on the swim trunks)!

- Nick

kyler04 said:

Thanks, I will certainly look into this!
In good news, my new iMac is on its way to its new home. Hoping no wine accidents will occur with this!

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;D I hear ya! Enjoy!

chscag said:

[...] Provided you thoroughly clean the moisture (and I mean thoroughly) and allow it to adequately dry, the corrosion will not spread. That's for water spills. Other types of liquid spills may require a different approach and the use of special chemicals to ensure corrosion removal. [...]

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chscag, do you have any tips on cleaning other liquids to prevent corrosion? I'm specifically worried about sugars that remain after the liquid dries (in chardonnay in my case), and I'd imagine others who read this thread are, too.

ETA: Found the answer (damp cotton ball) in the first post, which I'd forgotten after reading all nine pages, but couldn't/can't delete this post. Carry on, and thanks all for this thread!

Spilt tea

So last night I leave my husband alone with our 2 kids and my laptop. Unfortunately while I was gone some hot " at the time it was not actually hot" green tea spilt on to the back of my 15" MBP. He said it went into where the vent was but did not get on any keys that he knows of. The computer was on when this happened and my obviously un tech savvy husband left it on and 5 minutes later it completely shut off and would not turn back on or charge. I took the back off this morning to see the damage, of course I don't know what I'm looking at, but other than some dust that needs to be cleaned I don't really see any damage. I'm freaking out cause the laptop was my life and had all my children's photos on it. Is my computer kaput, or do you think there might be some hope?
Any info would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Brittneyl said:

So last night I leave my husband alone with our 2 kids and my laptop. Unfortunately while I was gone some hot " at the time it was not actually hot" green tea spilt on to the back of my 15" MBP. He said it went into where the vent was but did not get on any keys that he knows of. The computer was on when this happened and my obviously un tech savvy husband left it on and 5 minutes later it completely shut off and would not turn back on or charge. I took the back off this morning to see the damage, of course I don't know what I'm looking at, but other than some dust that needs to be cleaned I don't really see any damage. I'm freaking out cause the laptop was my life and had all my children's photos on it. Is my computer kaput, or do you think there might be some hope?
Any info would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

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The best thing to do right now is to make sure it's good and dried out. Turn it off, seal it in a container with some dry rice and let is sit for at least 48 hours. This should wick out any of the moisture still hidden within the machine.

Worst case scenario, if the machine is not repairable, you should still be able to get your data back by pulling out the hard drive and hooking it up externally to your replacement machine.

Spilt tea

Do you think brown rice would work? I have half a bog of it, if not I can walk to the store.. I'm in Korea so rice fortunately is everywhere. Thank you for the quick reply by the way!

Brittneyl said:

Do you think brown rice would work? I have half a bog of it, if not I can walk to the store.. I'm in Korea so rice fortunately is everywhere.

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I wouldn't see why not. It should have the same effect. I believe we've specified white rice in the past, only because there are so many rice products with seasoning and other junk in the mix, when what you want is pure rice.

cwa107 said:

I wouldn't see why not. It should have the same effect. I believe we've specified white rice in the past, only because there are so many rice products with seasoning and other junk in the mix, when what you want is pure rice.

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Thanks again. I will update In a couple of days after it drys and we take it to the tech guy here!

Another victim of water. Worth repairing?

I apologize if this has been addressed already, but I was getting tired of trying to sort through all of these posts with my iPhone. So last Saturday my 2008 MBP 17" suffered a horrible tragedy. It was a nice day so I had it outside, plugged in, using it to listen to some music. Went inside for a while and out of nowhere it started raining and we didn't notice it for a while. Computer was open, on, and plugged in; the trifecta of screwed. D'oh doesnt even begin to describe it. Ive got footprint shaped bruises on my butt from kicking myself. My roommate noticed it first and brought it in an dried it off, and then tried to turn it on. Having never had a problem like this we didn't know how much of a no-no that was. Anyways, nothing happened. Opened it up, pulled the battery, set it kind of upside down near a space heater (but not too close). Later that day I tried starting it, power light came on but no ding, nothing on the screen. Let it sit a couple days, plugged it in and started it up. Powers up and dings but I get a gray screen with a folder icon and flashing '?'. Attempted to boot from disk and just get gray screen with cursor. Opened up computer, unplugged a few things, checked connections, etc. seemed totally dry inside. Put it back together and still the same results. Has been 5 days now and no change. So my question is do you think it's likely cooked or essentially totaled even if repairable? Closest Apple store is about 2 hours away. There is an authorized apple repair place in town that charges $50 for a diagnostic, which I may do, but they said average repair for water damage can range from $600-1400. So should I look into repairing or just cut my losses and hope I can salvage what's on my hard drive? I need to do something soon, getting tough doing work stuff on my phone. Thanks for the input.

There is an authorized apple repair place in town that charges $50 for a diagnostic, which I may do, but they said average repair for water damage can range from $600-1400. So should I look into repairing or just cut my losses and hope I can salvage what's on my hard drive? I need to do something soon, getting tough doing work stuff on my phone. Thanks for the input.

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Welcome to the Mac Forums.

Sorry your first post in our forums had to be this.... Not much you can do at this point in time about the water damage. If your MBP had been turned off and caught in the rain, you might have had a chance of recovery. But being turned on, it's likely your logic board (mother board) was fried from the water shorting it out.

Repairing it will probably cost more than you would want to pay. It may be best to salvage what you can from the hard drive by removing it from the MBP and placing it in a USB carrier and extracting your data with another Mac.

Using a Vacuum Cleaner on MBP after a spill?

I tried this after I had a minor spill on my MBP: 3" diameter of apple cider in the middle of the keyboard.

If you've had a spill on the keyboard and already mopped up all the liquid such that none is now visible and want to get the moisture out of the inside, this might just work.

Using a vacuum cleaner, first vacuum up 1/2 to 1 cup of rice (or sawdust or finely shredded paper).

Then, use the vacuum across the top of the keys. The suction will either take the micro-droplets into the vacuum (where hopefully the rice will absorb it), or the fast moving air will cause the moisture to evaporate. Go over it for 5 to 10 minutes.

I would think you'd only vacuum the places where the water hit, since where it hit is where the water leaving would cause the least damage. Eg, if water entered by the keyboard, do not put the vacuum nozzle at the fan area in the back of the macbook; this would cause sucked-up water to travel into areas water hasn't touched yet.

Obviously, too much water in a vacuum cleaner will kill the vacuum cleaner. (And, I know it doesn't take much water at all to kill most vacuum cleaners.) But theoretically this is for the situation where you've already cleaned up every bit of moisture you can from the outside.

Liquid+Exams=Help

Hi there, a mate of mine accidentally knocked over a bottle of water, which spilled half it's contents over the keyboard of my MacBook. I immidiately turned it off, cleaned up as much as i could and shut the lid. About an hour later, having not read this thread, I turned it on again. None of the buttons on the keyboard worked, so i shut it down again. I took it home and opened it up, dried it as well as i could with a hairdryer (cold air) and closed it up again. As it is now, only two rows of buttons work, and my exam period starts right about now. The computer is about 4 years old, and i was thinking of replacing it soon anyway. So my question is now, do you reckon that these buttons are broken for good, or will the water slowly evaporate and make it all right again?

I have had it turned off and in the teepee position as much as possible, but I have had it turned on for some time, not knowing that i shouldnt have. It has been 2 days now, and nothing has improved so far, besides the two rows of buttons that suddenly worked again after an hours time.

The major problem is not going to be with the keyboard but with the logic board which sits below it. Anything shorted out on that board due to the water spill will require replacing the entire board. Not worth repairing.

Hmm

So youre saying that i have probably shorted my logic board, and it is unlikely that it will improve further?

Edit: I just thought that a short would have messed up the entire logicboard, and left ALL the buttons useless, instead of just half of them