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Garlic butter on Macbook Pro

G

gillilandboy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 3, 2007
264
1
St. Louis MO
Hello everyone i have a Non Unibody Macbook pro. Tonight me and my girl friend ordered some pizza from Papa Johns and she loves to dip her crust in garlic butter. She went to clean up the pizza and the garlic butter slide off the pizza box and right on to my macbook. The first thing I did was wipe it off with a napkin. Now I can barely see the lights on the back lit keyboard and on some of the keys you have to press down really hard for them to type. otherwise the computer it's self is fine. You guys have any idea on I can get the keyboard to be like normal again? I tried wiping off the keyboard with a wet paper towel but I don't think it helped. Any help would be great.


Thanks.
 
Ouch!

Good luck "un-pappa johning" your Mac.

Ussually it's Fanta or milk.

Garlic butter. Huh.

I guess your Mac will run "like butta"
 
erstwhilepo said:
I guess your Mac will run "like butta"
Click to expand...

Ok I hardly support silliness to this degree but HAHAHAA seriously that was funny.

OP: You certainly give an interesting twist on "I spilled ... on my MacBook."

I think you really need to disassemble the book and clean it gently, too bad you can't clean it with scope mouthwash.
 
What's the safe maximum operating temperature for a MBPro? That information is essential. This is tricky, you do it at your own risk, but if it were me I'd:
1. tip the Mac upside down with layers of tissue paper between keyboard and screen, and
2. place the whole unit, wrapped in a towel, inside a warm oven, pre-heated to just below the safe maximum temp of the MBP. Turn the oven off.
Leave the bundle in the oven for perhaps 5 minutes. The warmth may cause the remaining butter to melt and soak into the tissue.
 
Oh i like that someone decided to break from the beverage spills template.

Take that as a lesson all of you, originality, get some:p
 
Look on the bright side - at least no vampires are going to be able to steal your MacBook Pro..
 
gillilandboy said:
Now that you all have gotten your rim shots out of the way is there anything I can really do to fix this?
Click to expand...

I was going to chime in with a "haha", because really?! Garlic Butter?! I kind of find that oven idea interesting but it's probably bad, IDK, maybe use like a blow drier to melt the butter then wipe it up.

Next week someone's going to spill bacon grease on theirs.
 
hughvane said:
What's the safe maximum operating temperature for a MBPro? That information is essential. This is tricky, you do it at your own risk, but if it were me I'd:
1. tip the Mac upside down with layers of tissue paper between keyboard and screen, and
2. place the whole unit, wrapped in a towel, inside a warm oven, pre-heated to just below the safe maximum temp of the MBP. Turn the oven off.
Leave the bundle in the oven for perhaps 5 minutes. The warmth may cause the remaining butter to melt and soak into the tissue.
Click to expand...

One big problem. I've seen an oven go over the temperature set by large margin (almost 2x).
 
Funny, lately there have been a LOT of spillage posts. Looks like a good time to consider one of those silicone keyboard covers. A small inconvenience saves a large headache.
 
Flynnstone said:
One big problem. I've seen an oven go over the temperature set by large margin (almost 2x).
Click to expand...

Yup. No one should put electronics in an oven, unless you want to cook it.

Actually that is an interesting idea. Except perhaps the opposite would work.

Storage temperature of MBP is AROUND -13F to 113F (-24C to 45C), so if you remove the battery,
put the laptop in a airtight bag (to reduce condensation) in the freezer, the butter might freeze and slightly easier to clean off?

With any cold electronics, you want to prevent condensation. So make sure the room has low humidity.
 
Appreciating the (serious) discussion about how to fix this butter problem, the reason I mentioned the warm oven idea is that when we used to get the electronics in our petrol 4WD vehicles wet, the quickest and most effective way to dry a distributor with water in it was in a warm oven. It worked a lot better than *brand name* sprays.

The caution about too-hot ovens is apt, but the thermos on most modern units are accurate to within 5 deg C. The OP could always wait a few minutes after turning the oven off before putting the bundled MBP in, and then leave the oven door open a fraction. The towel should/would protect the casing and components inside it.

One thing I realise I should have said is to remove the battery from the MBP before warming it. I still think it would work to get the butter out.

BTW - was there any mention of insurance? For example, if I'd experienced the OP's problem, I could claim the loss of the Mac via my contents insurance. I'd have to pay the first $50.
 
My suggestion is take your MacBook Pro to an authorized Apple service depot (Computer repair store that is authorized to work on Macs) and have them clean it for you.
 
Attempting to melt the butter and hold the machine upside down will only result in butter drying to the underside of the keys. Removing the keyboard is the way forward.

It never ceases to amaze me just how many people spill crap on $1000+ machines. Has money started growing on trees or have old people stopped making the "value of a dollar" speech? ;)
 
I would disassemble the unit, take the soiled keyboard and wash it in a tub of distilled water. Electronics can handle that (they do it in the factory) but you have to make sure there's no power (obviously if the keyboard is detached) and that you make sure it's all absolutely dry before you put it back together again.
 
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