DIY hope for liquid damaged MBP?

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So I posted on here a few days ago that my laptop died when I plugged my phone into the USB port. It had been acting funny for a week or two, freezing up and requiring a hard reboot. I did some research and did an NVRAM(?) reboot, which seemed to help for a while, but then I plugged my phone in and *blip*.

I took it to our nearest Apple place (a 3rd party joint) explaining what had happened and that I understood this to be a fairly common problem in macbooks (correct me if I'm wrong) and that the USB port got fresh with my logic board and things went south. They opened it up and informed me of liquid damage, but I haven't had any spills. It doesn't matter, because it got there somehow and has voided my warranty (it will be just a year old on the 26th, which makes this suck even worse). They described it as pink and sticky, and I do drink a lot of cranberry juice so that's probably the culprit. I didn't get to speak to the tech who looked at it and they were pretty dismissive and uninformative when I asked questions like, "Is there any chance these could be separate, unrelated problems?" and "Did you test the USB ports after powering it on?" It would be nice to know if it's safe to try using them.

Can anyone advise on whether it would be worth opening up and cleaning myself with isopropyl alcohol? Is that at all a legit course of action? Is it too late for the rice trick? What would you do in my position to avoid having to shell out $900 for repairs or buy a new one?
 

pigoo3

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Can anyone advise on whether it would be worth opening up and cleaning myself with isopropyl alcohol? Is that at all a legit course of action? Is it too late for the rice trick? What would you do in my position to avoid having to shell out $900 for repairs or buy a new one?

Cleaning probably won't help...the damage has already been done. The only thing that would happen if you cleaned it is...instead of a "dirty" non-working MBP...you will have a clean non-working MBP. Plus if you tried cleaning it...other things may be damaged.

Too late for the rice trick???...yes...the damage is already done.

$900 is more expensive than what we usually hear about. A new logic board (if that is all that is needed)...usually costs around $500. But if more is needed...it could be more $$$. $900 is a lot...and probably not worth it...unless we're talking a $2000 MBP (you didn't say what exact MBP model you have).

- Nick
 
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Alas liquids + electronics = death all too often. Even more so if this is cranberry, other juice or soda pop. Your computer had indicators built in which show liquid damage. Is it worth repair? Agree with Nick just not worth that.
 

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