2014 Mac Book Air Coffee Flood - Problems - Help

[giocar64]

Hi all, I used to have an account and lost the password, it was linked to an old email, so here I am under a new username.
My daughter has had a 2014 MacBook Air since new and 3 days ago she poured a coffee on it. It turned off and that was it.

I opened it later that day (as soon as I could) and took it all apart. Dried everything and cleaned everything. Reassembled it and it started up again.
Everything is fine (it has been running for 2 days now), except for 2 issues and I need help with one of them.

1) Battery is shot. The problem should almost definitely be the battery as the computer does see it unplugged if I start it with the battery unplugged and asks for a new battery if the battery is plugged in.

2) There is a 2" (about) vertical stripe on the left side of the screen, which is showing the actual image and menus, however, it is garbled, pretty badly. Attaching an external monitor works perfectly fine (I'll take a picture and post it when I get home later). I tried to wiggle the graphics cable around while the computer is on and there is absolutely no change. I tried to "massage" the screen (like I read in some posts) as well as the bezel, but there is also no change. Wiggling the plug out while it is on causes the screen to go full white, no stripe but also, no image. Running Diagnostics shows that the battery is gone. No other errors. The laptop has been flawless until coffee got to it.

If anybody could chime in, I would really appreciate it.
I'd be OK buying a new screen assembly, if I knew the problem is within that. What I have a problem with, is that I am thinking the issue could be on the actual plug located on the motherboard, which would render the screen change useless.
I am leaning towards trying to change the cable myself, since the worst case scenario would be that I damage the screen assembly and need to buy a new one.

Sorry for the long post. I tried to put as much info as possible. Once again, any help is much appreciated.

 

[Audit13]

It's possible that the liquid made contact with some of the pins on the LVDS connector and caused a short?

I have an early 2015 13" that also suffered a coffee spill by someone else. I took it to my local repair guy and he had to solder a thin copper wire between pins on the LVDS connector and the logic board. He said the wire was necessary to by-pass a couple of shorted LVDS pins.

 

[giocar64]

It's possible that the liquid made contact with some of the pins on the LVDS connector and caused a short?

I have an early 2015 13" that also suffered a coffee spill by someone else. I took it to my local repair guy and he had to solder a thin copper wire between pins on the LVDS connector and the logic board. He said the wire was necessary to by-pass a couple of shorted LVDS pins.

Thank you for the reply.

Given the amount of coffee I removed from the inside, that is very possible.

I inspected everything visually using the phone camera and I also cleaned everything and there is no visual damage. Of course, that doesn't mean much, however, nothing also shows from Apple Hardware Diagnostics. Which may also be of a limited value per se...

I think I'll bring it to some repair guy and have a diagnostics done on it and see if they can come up with any answer better than what I have. If not, I think I'll try to change that cable and go from there.

 

[Audit13]

Unfortunately, changing the LVDS cable is not easy because you need to pry the screen frame and LCD away from the upper housing.

In my case, the damage/short was not to the LVDS cable but the LVDS connector on the motherboard. The screen itself worked perfectly on another Air as did the wi-fi, Bluetooth, and camera.

Good luck. Please report back with your findings. Thanks.

 

[giocar64]

UPDATE:
I checked everything I could, short of removing the bezel, then decided to go to a place that does diagnostics for free.

They emailed me back 2 days later saying I needed a new screen (of course, the whole lid assembly) and a new battery (which I knew about already). 600 CDN for the screen, 200 for the battery, plus 13% tax, should be 904. I was going to laugh in their face, since I can get a whole laptop for like 600 on kijijii and it couldn't definitely be worse than the coffee-flooded one I have in my hands, but I smiled, said I was going to think about it, but I was likely going to brick it, and went home.

I spent 2 hours between looking at videos to replace the screen and looking at prices for whole lids on eBay, ended up deciding to brick it.

This morning I woke up and turned it on to make a backup of my daughter's HD. Screen is perfectly fine.

While I can't account precisely for what happened, at this point I am quite sure that a few coffee drops must have found their way into the lid and sat somewhere shorting something and causing that screen strip to be functioning, but garbled. one week has gone by, sitting in dry and warm environment, the coffee dried up and the screen is back to its normal self.

If anyone has a different opinion, I'd like to hear it.
For the time being, once the backup is done, I'll wipe it, set it up for my wife, buy a battery, change it and give it to her to enjoy.

 

[Audit13]

Even though it may be working now, it may start to develop little problems in the future.

Be happy that you saved yourself some money and use it for as long as possible. When it no longer works, you can sell it for parts.

 

[giocar64]

Even though it may be working now, it may start to develop little problems in the future.

Be happy that you saved yourself some money and use it for as long as possible. When it no longer works, you can sell it for parts.

Yes, agreed. I went out to get my daughter another computer because of the fact that you never know what happens with this stuff down the road. I'll just change the battery, give it to my wife, back up regularly and every day we get is a day gifted, I guess...

 

[Macdctr]

Keep in mind you can also source parts from eBay, ifixit and powerbook medic...

ifixit has excellent repair guides for Apple products (MBP/MBAs) and offer replacement parts as well as tools required to do the job right. I have saved 3 MBAs from the trash heap by repairing them (all three had liquid spills on them).

 

[giocar64]

Keep in mind you can also source parts from eBay, ifixit and powerbook medic...

ifixit has excellent repair guides for Apple products (MBP/MBAs) and offer replacement parts as well as tools required to do the job right.

Thank you for the info. I ended up getting the battery from laptopparts.ca (if I didn't mention it, I live in Canada). I paid 109.99 plus shipping and, of course, HST, came to 132 and change. The fan was not working properly, so I should have bought another one. But I helped my colleague to change his MacBook Air logic board and the one he ordered came with the fan, so he gave me the fan he had. Saved me 32 and change Canadian money, plus shipping and all that.

 

[Audit13]

Thank you for the info. I ended up getting the battery from laptopparts.ca (if I didn't mention it, I live in Canada). I paid 109.99 plus shipping and, of course, HST, came to 132 and change. The fan was not working properly, so I should have bought another one. But I helped my colleague to change his MacBook Air logic board and the one he ordered came with the fan, so he gave me the fan he had. Saved me 32 and change Canadian money, plus shipping and all that.

I have used laptopparts.ca for Dell and HP/Compaq batteriesI have had good results with Ansanor and Sloda Air batteries from Amazon.ca.