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

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Just a few hours ago I spilled water on my MacBook Pro ( yay ) to be honest I have no idea exactly how I did it, yet I did, I was able to unplug it, turn it off as I was running into the kitchen to get towels to clean it up. I don’t think much water got into the Mb but as I was turning it off I heard a little crackling sound. As it leaked into the top vents? Manage to clean most of the water up and out.. I used a blow dryer with the cool setting for 45 minutes. Hopefully drying any and all water damage. Other than not turning it on for a day or two.. what else can be done to hopefully not have a broken MB. I was reading google and they said to take it apart and see what else is visibly damaged etc. but I don’t have the right tools for that.

Welcome to our forums Kate.

Do not turn on your MacBook Pro until you can get inside of it and determine if anything was shorted out from the water spill. As for the tools... since you do not mention where you are posting from, we can not recommend a place to buy them. Here in the US we would recommend going to www.ifixit.com for instructions on how to take apart your MacBook Pro and buy the tools you will need at the same time.

You also should be aware that water damage sometimes can take a while to appear especially if corrosion occurs on the main board or other components. The crackling sound you heard could have been the sound of a short occurring or the sizzling of water as it landed on hot components. Since it's rather late here (or early Monday morning) you probably will get more replies later in the day, so stay tuned.

I live in the US. I know a computer guy and asked him what kind of tools I needed- P3 pentalop ? In the process of this titanic-ing my Mac my iPhone also took a hit, well most of the hit. And it’s fine, I read quite a few story’s in this thread and I’m skeptical that and I hope this is an easy fix.. I use this MBP for work and I pray that it’s not damaged beyond the point of no return aka the hard drive is gone. Thanks

@KateB

Welcome to our Forums. I'm really sorry this has happened to you.

Crucial question for you - do you have a formal Backup such as Time Machine or a cloned BU such as Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!?

I'm thinking of the worst case scenario.

Oh, and by the way, treat your phone with caution too, as problems don't always disclose themselves immediately.

And do keep us posted.

Ian

I am too I won’t have any liquid near my MBP anymore. Unfortunately no I don’t have any form of back ups, I’m somewhat new to Mac, and will definitely be getting one of them, not just for me but also for work. I do have some back ups from my pc laptop. Last night I was able to get 4 screws out from the top, I’m guessing they were lose and I used the smallest screw driver I had made sure I was careful and didn’t strip any and I opened it up a little to where I was able to get a fan blowing in and has been on it for 5-9 hours. I know that i should open it fully. Probably will go out today and buy the tools for it.

Thanks Ian.

Hey guys back again with an update. After 72ish hours of fan drying, it still was turning off. Took it to a Mac store and told them it was turning off. I had the service it the day before thanksgiving. Just got it back Tuesday. They said they did a lot of stuff. And there was also a malware on it and they removed it.. Working completely fine was on it for 2-5 hours that day. Here comes today.. used it for 5+ hours at work, Completely fine every. I decided to put my cover/case on it. Within 45 seconds of it being on it turns off.... weird???? The only thing I can think of I had it plugged it the whole time I had used it for both days. The last hour and a half of using it was fine till I put on the cover/case... possible battery issue??

Also that hour and a half was off the charger

It could be any number of things. Was the battery low when it turned off?

Spontaneous power off is often the result of poor cooling, which seems likely if it just happened when you put a case on it. It could be a bad fan, clogged duct or too much thermal compound applied between the heatsink and the CPU/chipset. Since you just paid to have it professionally repaired, I wouldn't wait to see what happens. Follow-up with Apple.

i too have spilled

Hi cwa107
This is my first post so please bear with any wrong moves. I spilled water on my MacBook about 20 minutes ago. I dried it off, powered down and unplugged then held it upside down to shake as much water out as I could. It's now resting upside down on a pillow. In your original post you suggested removing all power including the battery. Does this mean I should try to open the machine and take the battery out? Thanks.

LauraH said:

Hi cwa107
This is my first post so please bear with any wrong moves. I spilled water on my MacBook about 20 minutes ago. I dried it off, powered down and unplugged then held it upside down to shake as much water out as I could. It's now resting upside down on a pillow. In your original post you suggested removing all power including the battery. Does this mean I should try to open the machine and take the battery out? Thanks.

Click to expand...

Sorry to hear about the liquid spill. Bottom line is...if there was enough liquid that you had to "hold it upside down to shake as much water out as you could"...you may be in for some unfortunate news. And if this was a small or large liquid spill...the last thing you should have done was move the computer & shake it. Since this would only result in distributing the liquid throughout the computer!

This thread is 28 pages long...and probably contains just about any scenario & advice possible when it comes to liquid spills (please give it a read).

Lots of luck,

- Nick

I just picked up an 11 inch MacBook Air 2012 for $80. The seller stated he was selling AS-IS, water damaged, no power, no SSD, no further testing performed so I figured this will make for an interesting project. I recently restored my 2015 13 inch MBA the same way and spent less than $600 for it

My initial plans are to buy a new 2015 upper case/keyboard assembly, updated 802.11ac/bluetooth card and 2015 2.2GHz i7 8GB logic board. My guess is that the , upper display assembly, I/O board and Battery will be okay.

MacDr said:

I just picked up an 11 inch MacBook Air 2012 for $80. The seller stated he was selling AS-IS, water damaged, no power, no SSD, no further testing performed so I figured this will make for an interesting project. I recently restored my 2015 13 inch MBA the same way and spent less than $600 for it

My initial plans are to buy a new 2015 upper case/keyboard assembly, updated 802.11ac/bluetooth card and 2015 2.2GHz i7 8GB logic board. My guess is that the , upper display assembly, I/O board and Battery will be okay.

Click to expand...

Definitely run the numbers before purchasing things. Many times parts for Apple computers can be pricey...and the total of the repair parts + initial purchase cost...can exceed the value of a 100% working model.

For example...a 100% working 2012 11" MacBook Air can be gotten for $250-$300. If you think you're going to need to get at least an uppercase & logic board + the $80 spent already...things add up quickly.

I'm pretty sure if you're talking about getting a 2015 11" logic board with 8 gig of RAM...that won't be cheap. A replacement 2012 logic board for a 2012 11" MacBook Air goes for around $200. Thus a 2015 logic board with the fast CPU and 8gig of RAM is certainly going to be quite a bit more.

If it makes sense...go for it,

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

Definitely run the numbers before purchasing things. Many times parts for Apple computers can be pricey...and the total of the repair parts + initial purchase cost...can exceed the value of a 100% working model.

For example...a 100% working 2012 11" MacBook Air can be gotten for $250-$300. If you think you're going to need to get at least an uppercase & logic board + the $80 spent already...things add up quickly.

I'm pretty sure if you're talking about getting a 2015 11" logic board with 8 gig of RAM...that won't be cheap. A replacement 2012 logic board for a 2012 11" MacBook Air goes for around $200. Thus a 2015 logic board with the fast CPU and 8gig of RAM is certainly going to be quite a bit more.

If it makes sense...go for it,

- Nick

Click to expand...

Nick, price for repair costs all depend on where you go to source the required parts. If you know where to look you can refurbish an Apple laptop for much less than having to pay more money. I have been doing this sort of stuff for quite some time and realize just how much things can add up. Best part is that I don't need to build this 11 inch MBA right away. I have my 13 inch MBA, 15 inch retina MBP and 13 inch MBP that I can use... so there's no hurry to get the 11 inch up and running at this time. Time is on my side and I can wait to find the best cost to get parts for this laptop

MacDr said:

Nick, price for repair costs all depend on where you go to source the required parts. If you know where to look you can refurbish an Apple laptop for much less than having to pay more money. I have been doing this sort of stuff for quite some time and realize just how much things can add up. Best part is that I don't need to build this 11 inch MBA right away. I have my 13 inch MBA, 15 inch retina MBP and 13 inch MBP that I can use... so there's no hurry to get the 11 inch up and running at this time. Time is on my side and I can wait to find the best cost to get parts for this laptop

Click to expand...

I hear ya...been doing this sort of thing an awful long time too!

And like you said...if you're not in a hurry...then you can source the parts when you find the right deal. Just don't wait until 2025 to do it. Cause by that time...even a 2015 11" MacBook Air won't be in very high demand! Lol

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

I hear ya...been doing this sort of thing an awful long time too!

And like you said...if you're not in a hurry...then you can source the parts when you find the right deal. Just don't wait until 2025 to do it. Cause by that time...even a 2015 11" MacBook Air won't be in very high demand! Lol

- Nick

Click to expand...

Good point Nick!

I got my 11 inch MBA yesterday in the mail and checked it out. I connected my 13inch MBA power adapter to this laptop and tried booting it up after performing an SMC reset. The laptop started booting and all indications appeared normal initially then all of a sudden the laptop shut itself off mid-cycle. I then disconnected the power adapter, opened up the back case and took out the battery. I then noticed where the liquid spill had occurred so I thoroughly cleaned the area carefully. The area was around the trackpad which had leaked into the case and left residue in the area and on the battery. I cleaned off all affected areas then reassembled the laptop. The laptop booted up and I was able to perform the extended Apple Hardware Test and found there were no other issues with this laptop. It did not have the storage drive so I booted the laptop using an external 1TB 7200RPM drive I had Sierra installed on and the laptop booted. I have saved an 11-inch MacBook Air from being thrown away as a "parts computer" and it will live another life in good hands... Not bad for an $80 pickup

I will be sourcing an NVMe M.2 Samsung 1TB drive for this laptop soon....

100% agree MacDr. $80 spent...you came out way ahead on this one.

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

100% agree MacDr. $80 spent...you came out way ahead on this one.

- Nick

Click to expand...

Thanks Nick! You know I got lucky. You never know what you get when you roll the dice and buy a liquid-damaged laptop. All in all, I will be in this for about an additional $210 (512GB Samsung NVMe M.2 drive and Sintech adapter) + MBA, so just under $300 for a fully functional mid 2012 11-inch MBA. So even though I had to put some work into restoring this laptop, I saved somewhere between $200 -> $400 depending on who you see selling a similar configured 11-inch MBA on eBay...

Probably worth more now that the 11" MBA is becomming extinct like the "Dodo Bird". LOL. Good show!

chscag said:

Probably worth more now that the 11" MBA is becomming extinct like the "Dodo Bird". LOL. Good show!

Click to expand...

Thanks!!