Spilled 1/2 cup of tea on running MBA -

[rpg51]

Milk and sugar in the tea. It died immediately. Is it toast? Worth spending $100 for evaluation by well respected local authorized apple repair center? Or should I use the $100 toward the replacement cost?

[maflynn]

Probably toast but turn it upside and drain the liquid. People have had some success putting their computers in a bag of rice for a few days to pull the liquid out but since yours died so suddenly you may have shorted it out.

The sugar in the tea is what will cause you problems I believe

Good luck

[wolfpuppies3]

Kiss it goodbye and when you either pay $750 for a new logic board or purchase a new MBA, buy a $7 keyboard cover.

[plucky duck]

Originally Posted by wolfpuppies3

Kiss it goodbye and when you either pay $750 for a new logic board or purchase a new MBA, buy a $7 keyboard cover.

Even with a keyboard cover it's not entirely fail proof if it's half a cup of tea, as liquid may still seep through the edges of the keyboard cover. I do use a keyboard cover but I am still very cautious and conscious whenever it's around liquid.

Sorry to hear of your misfortune and good luck getting it going again. I've had my Galaxy Nexus fall into running water twice, but luckily aside from the initial loss of sound for the first two days it's working fine up to now.

[bigdavecox90]

Rip mba

[KPOM]

Originally Posted by rpg51

Milk and sugar in the tea. It died immediately. Is it toast? Worth spending $100 for evaluation by well respected local authorized apple repair center? Or should I use the $100 toward the replacement cost?

Chances are it's toast. Apple charges $755 to repair a logic board. They do a nice job (it happened to me and they replaced the keyboard and the battery in addition to the logic board), although with the price drop on the 256GB+ models yesterday, a new Air or rMBP might also be something to consider.

When you get your replacement, in addition to a keyboard cover, also consider a personal articles policy from your insurance company. I have one that's $60/year, and it covers theft, loss, accidental damage, and mechanical failure. There's a $250 deductible, but that's better than $755 (and cheaper than AppleCare, which doesn't cover accidental damage).

[kohlson]

Some of this will depend on your attitude toward the MBA. If you're resigned to get a new one, then the existing one is essentially scrap. Which is to say, a candidate for experimentation.
First you will need to get out any contaminants - in this case the tea, milk, and sugar. Many manufacturers use pure water to wash system components - they used to use harsh chemicals, but now water. But, batteries, speakers, displays, and disk drives don't like water. So you could try this: take off bottom cover and remove battery and mSATA SSD drive, and set aside. Go to pharmacy and get pure (distilled) water. Rinse keyboard and motherboard, taking care to key away from components that may not like this, such as water. Separately, rinse battery and drive. Use contact cleaner on connections for these.
Air dry, or in oven @150 degrees F for a few hours. (Our oven doesn't go that low, but my wife reminded me that there is a bread-proofing setting, which is a little lower.)
In my experience, we had the same iPhone 4 go into soapy dishwater and 6 months later into the toilet. Both time we turned it off immediately, put into bowl of rice, put in oven. Then put on charger after 24-36 hours. Still works great.
A friend spilled Coke (not diet, so sugary) into a MacBook. He considered it toast, so had no problem trying the experiment: rinse, turn upside down to drain, and hair dryer for 30 minutes. It didn't work. But two weeks later he plugged it in, and it came back to life. That was 2 years ago and still works fine. YMMV.

[BeeJee]

Originally Posted by kohlson

Some of this will depend on your attitude toward the MBA. If you're resigned to get a new one, then the existing one is essentially scrap. Which is to say, a candidate for experimentation.
First you will need to get out any contaminants - in this case the tea, milk, and sugar. Many manufacturers use pure water to wash system components - they used to use harsh chemicals, but now water. But, batteries, speakers, displays, and disk drives don't like water. So you could try this: take off bottom cover and remove battery and mSATA SSD drive, and set aside. Go to pharmacy and get pure (distilled) water. Rinse keyboard and motherboard, taking care to key away from components that may not like this, such as water. Separately, rinse battery and drive. Use contact cleaner on connections for these.
Air dry, or in oven @150 degrees F for a few hours. (Our oven doesn't go that low, but my wife reminded me that there is a bread-proofing setting, which is a little lower.)
In my experience, we had the same iPhone 4 go into soapy dishwater and 6 months later into the toilet. Both time we turned it off immediately, put into bowl of rice, put in oven. Then put on charger after 24-36 hours. Still works great.
A friend spilled Coke (not diet, so sugary) into a MacBook. He considered it toast, so had no problem trying the experiment: rinse, turn upside down to drain, and hair dryer for 30 minutes. It didn't work. But two weeks later he plugged it in, and it came back to life. That was 2 years ago and still works fine. YMMV.

QFT I've heard of a few people that baked their logic boards and it brought the machine back to life. It's definitely worth a shot since the computer died immediately

[rpg51]

Might just buy a new or refurbished MBA. If I do that - is there a way to pull the SSD from the damaged computer and somehow turn it into an external drive?

[KPOM]

Originally Posted by rpg51

Might just buy a new or refurbished MBA. If I do that - is there a way to pull the SSD from the damaged computer and somehow turn it into an external drive?

Yes, assuming it wasn't shorted (which it probably wasn't). Other World Computing sells replacement SSDs for the MBA, and they also sell an external enclosure. I'm using the version made for the rMBP, but they also have one for the MBA (the connector is different).

[rpg51]

the SSD out? Are there other parts that likely survived that could be used or sold? Screen?

[KPOM]

Originally Posted by rpg51

the SSD out? Are there other parts that likely survived that could be used or sold? Screen?

I believe they also sell a special screwdriver to remove the proprietary Torx screws, but you may be able to use a slotted jeweler's screwdriver, as well. It is relatively easy to pop out. I'm not sure what else there is to salvage as I haven't done that.

[BeeJee]

Originally Posted by KPOM

I believe they also sell a special screwdriver to remove the proprietary Torx screws, but you may be able to use a slotted jeweler's screwdriver, as well. It is relatively easy to pop out. I'm not sure what else there is to salvage as I haven't done that.

Yeah they're called pentalobe