Spilled Coffee on my MacBook Pro

Yes, I'm an idiot. Now that's out of the way...

I spilled a sugary coffee on my MacBook Pro, mainly on the bottom keys of the keyboard. I pulled the power, held it upside down, cleaned it as best as I could. I did not remove the battery (I didn't know what the heck to do at the time).

I brought it into the Apple store, who told me they'd charge at least 350, to give me a new keyboard and to check the insides out for damage. (obviously not covered under warranty)

So, the thing is- it never stopped running, I have had no problems with it but the keys are sticky. Everything seems to be functioning ok. The only concern I have is the sound it makes when it "wakes up" from being in sleep mode- the "whirrrrr" seems a bit junky sounding to me. (I apologize for my lack of technical Mac lingo)

What I'm wondering is how much damage I could have done to it, given that it is running fine. Should I just have them take it apart and take a look it? (god knows I can't do that myself) or just leave it be b/c it's working fine other than some annoying sticky keys.

Thanks for your advice and wisdom...

You could have done all kinds of damage to it. The fact that it's working is a good sign, but the longer you leave it before you take care of it (ESPECIALLY if it's on, but even if it's off), the worse it could get.

What could you have damaged?
Keyboard (obviously), touchpad, hard drive, battery, optical drive, logic board... anything in it, really. Make an appointment and take it in. Also be aware that since they've seen the machine and know what happened, it's likely that whatever warranty you have left on it is gone forever. Apple tends to flush their warranties when the computer is damaged. Say you have 6 months left on the warranty, and you get it fixed. Then say that the hard disk dies in 5 months. It is highly unlikely that Apple will cover that repair. They'll claim the coffee damaged it, whether it did or not.

I hate to paint such a bleak picture, but I'm not going to lie about it. You need to get it cleaned up properly, one way or the other (and you might HAVE to do it yourself, or have someone other than Apple do it. Apple may take a look at say, the logic board, see dried coffee on it, and sell you a logic board, rather than trying to clean that one up first), and you need to do it as soon as you can.

Backup?

Incidentally, now might be a great time to buy one of those big external drives and make a backup of everything on your internal drive if you haven't already.

Steve

Thank you. I called my work's Mac guy to see if he can take a look at it before I let Apple work on it. Maybe he will be cheaper. My warranty happens to expire on this month anyway...

I hope that getting it cleaned out will help.

One more question- should I leave it off- or on?

I'll make a back-up of all my work on my external drive for sure.

Turn it off as soon as possible. Leaving it running right now is just about the worst thing you can do for it.