How I Survived a Water Spill on my Laptop

It was bound to happen. Parking my laptop on the island in the kitchen with two boys under five precariously drinking out of open cups as we wean them from the sippy is an accident waiting to happen. So it was quite a surprise when I found myself spilling my very own glass of water onto my ThinkPad’s keyboard!

The system shut down immediately, which I deemed either a very good sign or a very bad one. I leapt in to action and immediately unplugged the power and then yanked the battery. Ask anyone who makes toast whilst taking a bath–water and electricity don’t mix. When something like this happens I quickly watch my computer’s life flash before my eyes. When was the last backup? How quickly could I get up on a new computer? What data would be lost forever? Why am I such an idiot?

There are worse things to spill on your computer than water. Soda and juices contain sugars that can leave a nasty residue behind. If no electronic damage was done, water mostly just needs to be dried up and things should be just fine. Or so I consoled myself.

Perhaps a normal person would have simply used some paper towels, a hair dryer and some time, but I needed to disassemble the entire laptop. No stranger to a Phillips-head, soldering iron, and piles of scrapped electronics, I flipped the thirsty ThinkPad on its back and removed as many screws that I could find. Removing the keyboard, I saw that the main circuitry was mostly dry with only a bit of water near the edges. The keyboard took the brunt of the damage. After blotting up any water found, I did what any desperate person would do and proceeded to remove every key cap from the keyboard in an attempt to rid it from all water. Putting these keys back on proved to be the most challenging part of the repair.

Heat and moving air are the enemy of water, so I employed the wife’s hair dryer placed on “split ends” mode for a time that seemed ample. Not confident that I had done all I could, I attempted something I had only heard about and baked the keyboard at 100 degrees in the convection oven for about fifteen minutes. Like a freshly baked pie, I left the keyboard on the counter to cool and perhaps dehydrate as long as I could bear to wait.

Now feeling confident and calm, I waited until after dinner to attempt reassembly and testing. Everything went back together fairly simply except for the key caps which I left off until I could prove it a worthy project to continue. With everything secure, I place the battery back in, crossed my fingers, and powered on. Success! Everything started fine and my only real problem was trying to type a password on a keyboard without the keys. Through trial, error, and another computer as reference, I took my time leisurely replacing and confirming each key. Of course the first thing I did was a complete system backup, and then had a nice cold drink from the safe distance of the next room.

Moral and advice:

• Back up your computer regularly. Use an external drive or online service. Why not do it daily.
• Keep large quantities of fluids away from your computer.
• If exposed to liquid, immediately remove all power and batteries from the computer.
• Dry out the computer as best as you can–or dare. If you are not the adventurous type, bring the computer to a reputable repair shop and let them know what happened.
• It is most likely that even if your computer was permanently damaged, the data on your drive may be unharmed or certainly recoverable.

3 comments March 16th, 2008