Cleaning under the keyboard/trackpad

[sdilley14]

Blaaaah...so I got a bunch of soda/alcohol spilled on my MBA. It seems to be functioning just fine, but I'm getting a lot of "stick" under the spacebar and a few other keys, and the trackpad has no "click" to it at all.

Suggestions for the best way to get under these parts and get them cleaned?

 

[DmbShn41]

Soda/alcohol? Jack and Coke?

Pretty much have to dismantle the entire unit as these are built rather tight. I would be making regular backups in the event your unit completely craps out due to a main component failure, which will happen eventually.

Keyboards are good to go bad some time after liquid damage, generally shorting something within its circuit and not allowing you to turn the device on, because power button is part of keyboard.
Trackpads will get wonky randomly then never get better. Pretty much the entire trackpad is a circuit board as it has a large sheet under the glass detecting movement. Liquid jacks these up pretty good.
Motherboards are good to go bad too when the liquid dries and cracks, causing broken connections in a variety of ways.

There are liquid damage saving services available, this is best, short of replacing the components that go bad.

Source: repaired a few of these.

 

[sdilley14]

Soda/alcohol? Jack and Coke?

Pretty much have to dismantle the entire unit as these are built rather tight. I would be making regular backups in the event your unit completely craps out due to a main component failure, which will happen eventually.

Keyboards are good to go bad some time after liquid damage, generally shorting something within its circuit and not allowing you to turn the device on, because power button is part of keyboard.
Trackpads will get wonky randomly then never get better. Pretty much the entire trackpad is a circuit board as it has a large sheet under the glass detecting movement. Liquid jacks these up pretty good.
Motherboards are good to go bad too when the liquid dries and cracks, causing broken connections in a variety of ways.

There are liquid damage saving services available, this is best, short of replacing the components that go bad.

Source: repaired a few of these.

Close...Captain & Coke!

Fortunately it wasn't really a direct "spill"...more of a "splash". There don't appear to be any performance issues at this point, just mainly the spacebar and trackpad feeling extra sticky. I've seen a few videos online showing how to remove the keys...I may just do that and clean under a few of these keys and just live with the trackpad being "stuck" (not a huge issue as I always use "tap to click" anyways).

 

[ElectronGuru]

The problem isnt so much the liquid as the sugar. In theory (risk warning), you could rinse out the sugar with distilled water. Conventionally, youre left with part replacement or at least removing parts you expect to replace regardless and trying to rinse them separately/individually.

 

[DmbShn41]

Trackpad can be removed from bottom side of unit and cleaned up or swapped. Will take a little patience and knowledge. Try iFixit.com for a thorough tear down guide if you're willing. Trackpads can be found for $50-75 on eBay and are relatively straight forward to replace if you're good with instructions and a screw driver. As ElectronGuru mentioned, sugar is a killer, and the liquid is the transporter. Let us know how it goes.