Giving iBook G4 a bath after dirty night

[radi0head]

Well. Somehow or another I got some white wine on my ibook that seeped in over the right side of the keyboard.

It worked for a few minutes, but then the screen went blue, the fan was making a lot of noise, and the power button wouldn't work so I had to take the battery out to turn it off. A few days after, I checked to see if it was working but the power button wouldn't work, and alas, despair.

It was no longer covered under warranty so I read up and talked to some people at the apple store who recommending submersing it in distilled water, which I did, after opening it up and taking out the hard drive and cd drive.

After letting it dry, I put it back together, put the battery in, and turned it on. Everything started up fine, except after a few minutes I got the message you can see in the attachment telling me to restart the computer. It sounded unusually quiet, as if the fan wasn't working, but I'm not 100% sure.

After trying to turn it on again, it went to the blue screen and the fan made a lot of noise. The next day I tried it again by taking the battery out and putting it in again and the same thing happened.

Whats going on here? Why would it work and then need to be restarted, only to not turn on again. Do I need a new fan? Something else?

Take a look at the pic and see if you can help? Thanks

 

[jimytheassassin]

sounds like overheating, hence a fan died or something similar. Try waiting atleast 30 minutes.. see if you can turn it on again and reproduce your problem.. if so.. it' heat. On a side note i'm surprised they actually advised soaking it in water, distilled even. You must have really soaked that sucker in wine.. that's alchohal abuse. I would haved stipped it bare or done several rinses. Oh well, atleast it started up..that's a good sign

 

[oceanmonster]

Try getting lots of the compressed air cans and blowing the thing 100 percent dry. Then try again. There may still be moisture in the inner components.

Hope this helps.

 

[ITASOR]

Yeah, the fact that it's booting at all is a great sign. Did you remove the fan when you soaked it in distilled water? Maybe that killed it. What model iBook G4 is it? I think I have a fan from a 12" 1.33ghz laying around if that would work for you.

 

[radi0head]

Hey thanks for the quick replies guys.

I may have to take you up on that fan, ITASOR. I'm going to see if I can turn it on with the case off, see if that fan is spinning, and see how long it'll stay on with other cooling.

Any ideas of ways I could keep it cold while trying this? Near the freezer? Regular fans? Ice Pack?

Thanks again

 

[toddster63]

Wait a minute... Let me get this straight--you submeresed the whole notebook, sans the HD and CD drive, in distilled water? We're talking motheroboard and all...?

You can do that?!

 

[Blubbert]

Wait a minute... Let me get this straight--you submeresed the whole notebook, sans the HD and CD drive, in distilled water? We're talking motheroboard and all...?

You can do that?!

If there is no electricity running trough the computer, than all the pieces are nothing more than a jumble of plastic and metal. Putting them in distilled water shouldnt do anything other than clean it. Plus distilled water is free of various minerals and salts found in tapwater, so there is no residue when it dries off.

 

[pianojoe]

Wait a minute... Let me get this straight--you submeresed the whole notebook, sans the HD and CD drive, in distilled water? We're talking motheroboard and all...?

Wait another minute... You spilled white wine on your laptop, and left it running afterwards? That's audacious!

 

[radi0head]

Wait another minute... You spilled white wine on your laptop, and left it running afterwards? That's audacious!

There was a lot more wine in me than in my ibook at that point. My faculties were unfortunately compromised.

 

[MacNut]

There was a lot more wine in me than in my ibook at that point. My faculties were unfortunately compromised.

I hope you didn't take advantage of the machine.

 

[EvryDayImShufln]

You can try popping it into your oven

No joke. I dunno if I'd put the hard drive and cd drive in there, but if youput the rest in, it usually helps dry it out. The oven is usually a very dry place, not necessarily hot (if you do this, do NOT turn it on or have it be anything more than slightly warm). If you leave it in there for abit it might dry out fully.