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help! half a bottle of coke all over my powerbook's keyboard!

student_trap

student_trap

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 14, 2005
1,879
0
'Ol Smokey, UK
ok, title says it all. basically my gf spilt half a bottle (about 250 ml) of cherry coke over the right side of my (out of applecare) powerbook 12in including the right side of the keyboard (the bottle fell onto the palm rest above the battery and the liquid spilt all over the place)! I immediately hard shut it down and turned it upside down on a towl, pumped up the heating and left it over night! i am typing on it now (although the keys seem very sticky on the right hand side, as does the right palm rest and trackpad...all of which got hit by the coke) and aside the stickyness, it is being VERY loud (i.e. fans on max), as if i was pushing it really hard when all i'm doing is using macrumors, another thing is that the superdrive is sounding really clunky now too...weird.

1. so any ideas what has happened internally?
2. should i keep it off for a couple of days more incase the coke hasn't dried?
3. how can i clean the keys without breaking the keyboard - i am at uni and have to write about 5000 words minimum a week on this, so the keyboard is very important to me.
4. whats the deal with the fans being on full, and the superdrive sounding really weird?

I always disliked the taste of cherry coke, now it has done me a personal injustice, i like it even less so!
 
Well, the coke may dry out but all the sugary residue is going to stay inside your PowerBook - it's pretty much the worst thing you can spill on a computer. Only the water in the coke evaporates away - everything else stays behind and it's probably clogged up/fouled the circuitry inside the laptop which is why some of the components are starting to sound and act funny.

Back up your information if you can and start saving.

Sorry mate but there's really no good news from this. :(
 
The only thing to do is dismantle the whole thing and clean off the affected parts with warm water on a cloth or a Q-tip. It's a miracle it's working at all. If you can disconnect the keyboard completely, you could actually soak it in warm water to get rid of the sugar. Make sure it's bone-dry before reassembly, obviously.

Good luck with that.
 
student_trap said:
ok, title says it all. basically my gf spilt half a bottle (about 250 ml) of cherry coke over the right side of my (out of applecare) powerbook 12in including the right side of the keyboard (the bottle fell onto the palm rest above the battery and the liquid spilt all over the place)! I immediately hard shut it down and turned it upside down on a towl, pumped up the heating and left it over night! i am typing on it now (although the keys seem very sticky on the right hand side, as does the right palm rest and trackpad...all of which got hit by the coke) and aside the stickyness, it is being VERY loud (i.e. fans on max), as if i was pushing it really hard when all i'm doing is using macrumors, another thing is that the superdrive is sounding really clunky now too...weird.

1. so any ideas what has happened internally?
2. should i keep it off for a couple of days more incase the coke hasn't dried?
3. how can i clean the keys without breaking the keyboard - i am at uni and have to write about 5000 words minimum a week on this, so the keyboard is very important to me.
4. whats the deal with the fans being on full, and the superdrive sounding really weird?

I always disliked the taste of cherry coke, now it has done me a personal injustice, i like it even less so!
Click to expand...

Firstly, bad luck. I did this about two years ago with Lime Coke.

I managed to get the coke out of mine quick enough for it to be fine after cleaning the keyboard (I took off the topcase).

Not knowing the internal structure of the 12" so well (I had a 15" PB), I'm not sure exactly what it would have hit, but the thing is if there was any coke left in it it could corrode the logic board and essentially very slowly fry the machine.

Get it looked at if it's covered by accident insurance. If not, then it could be a hefty repair bill.

Good luck mate. I know what it's like - some of my keys are falling off my development laptop - and I've got two months to finish a project then do a 15,000 word dissertation on it.
 
Chundles said:
Sorry mate but there's really no good news from this. :(
Click to expand...
Mine cleared up ok and I sold it for a rather good price, considering the guy knew what it had been through in my care. (I am more careful now!)

skunk said:
The only thing to do is dismantle the whole thing and clean off the affected parts with warm water on a cloth or a Q-tip. It's a miracle it's working at all. If you can disconnect the keyboard completely, you could actually soak it in warm water to get rid of the sugar. Make sure it's bone-dry before reassembly, obviously.

Good luck with that.
Click to expand...
The keyboard can't be soaked.. can it? I thought the wiring and switches in it would take exception to that! Maybe a better idea to just flip off the keys and soak them if that's possible?
 
thanks for all the replies guys, from what you say it seems i am in a far more serious situation than i first thought, as i considered the fact that it was on and indeed working (although in a sticky way) to mean that it would work with a couple of minor quirks, but the acids eating through the logic board, thats quite a shock.

bigandy said:
Not knowing the internal structure of the 12" so well (I had a 15" PB), I'm not sure exactly what it would have hit
Click to expand...

with no real knowledge of the insides of the 12in powerbook, i can say that the battery is under the palm rest (and nothing else), and that the superdrive is under the right hand side of the keyboard, (the slot for disks is on the right of the machine).

Any ideas on how to take the keyboard off?
 
how about bringing it in to apple for service. they could do some cleaning and take out the solidified sugar that's probably stuck into your computers internals. i'd like to see it as preventive maintenance. :)

sorry to hear about this.
 
You can get DIY instructions here http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/ but unless you're pretty confident about this, I'd take it in for service. With that amount of coke you spilled, this is a big cleanup job and you really need a special solvent for it. They used to use freon for this but it has been banned for ages now as it is a CFC. You can try Safezone Solvent Flux Remover by Miller-Stephenson or E-Series CFC Free Flux-Off 2000 by Chemtech (the latter is flammable so be careful).

Finally, if you're going to try this yourself and just use soap and water (as suggested elsewhere in the thread) then allow PLENTY of time for drying. You could use a blow dryer to speed up the drying - again, be careful not to cook anything though!
 
I'm not sure about this but I think that the sugar will always be left there. I don't think there is a way to get rid of it
 
My suggestion is disassemble your powerbook and clean every component with rubbing alcohol.

If you don't clean it you risk the residue eating through circuit boards and causing shorts!
 
yikes man. as others said, back everything up ASAP and get it in for some advice. hopefully it won't be too expensive.
 
phungy said:
Would the iSkin have prevented this?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if the iSkin actually covers the keyboard, perhaps some can answer this. IMO, an iSkin, wether it covered the keyboard or not would have helped a great deal, but not necesarilly prevented the coke getting into the laptop completely.
 
xJulianx said:
I'm not sure if the iSkin actually covers the keyboard, perhaps some can answer this. IMO, an iSkin, wether it covered the keyboard or not would have helped a great deal, but not necesarilly prevented the coke getting into the laptop completely.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I meant if the coke had spilled. The iSkin could have helped in preventing the coke from seeping into the keys. Seems like my iSkin is doing a good job at keeping dust, hair and crumbs from getting under.
 
bigandy said:
Maybe a better idea to just flip off the keys and soak them if that's possible?
Click to expand...

This is actually hard-- the tiny little plastic clips underneath laptop keyboards snap really easily- it is really hard to do this successfully.

devman said:
You could use a blow dryer to speed up the drying - again, be careful not to cook anything though!
Click to expand...

Like he says, be really careful-- blow dryers can actually melt the thin plastic. I would see about taking it in for service if you are not comfortable with opening a laptop up... there is a lot that can go wrong. Or as far as the keyboard is concerned, try to replace the entire keyboard by looking on ebay or something. The motherboard, however, would probably have to be cleaned with the solutions above.

I am sorry to hear about your accident. Been there.
 
ok well i went into the apple store today and they said that the fans are going on full all of the time because the coke has shorted something and so the computer isn't sure what to do. Their advice was to back up, and hope for the best, although it looks VERY doubtful that it will survive!

So, as i need a laptop for uni, i ordered a macbook pro about an hour ago, but the delivery estimate says it will ship on the 15th, and be delivered on the 24/25th, thats an awful long while...i just hope my powerbook holds up that long!

as for the powerbook, i am going to take off the keyboard and clean it, and am tempted to open it all up and try to rid the insides of that stupid coke! but i have no experience with the insides of computers so this idea scares me quite a bit!
 
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