Hey everyone, so I'm in a bit of a problem here. Just this morning I woke up to my roommate, in a panic, telling me that my Mid-2012 13' Macbook had water spilled on it. So me, being very sleepy at that moment, immediately checked under my macbook to see that there was water under the laptop. In my mind, I thought some water spilled on the table beside the bed where I slept and that water had just recently been spilled by my roommate, thus waking me up. So anyway as I said I took my mac checked under and lightly wiped the water that was under my macbook, and (MY BIGGEST MISTAKE) went back to sleep. I know. I am a huge idiot to have been taking this too lightly. (NOTE. My macbook was onned overnight because I was downloading a file) I woke up 12pm, onned my laptop and realised it wasnt working. Nothing was working I tried charging it to see if the charger would at least light up. Nothing. I tried the battery indicator. Nothing.So I panicked. Long story short, I removed the protective casing and discovered dabs of water, wiped it off, opened up the back of the laptop, discovered more water on top of the water. On the motherboard(?)/Logic board(?) (not sure what its called) there was some sort of blue-ish, white-ish mold on it (which I'm highly suspecting it to be corrosion). I am now depressed and in loss of what to do. There are no apple stores nearby or anywhere in my city. So I removed the battery, TRIED to dry off any wet or damp part I could see in there, with extra care of course, looked everywhere in the internet for solutions. One of them was cleaning the motherboard/logicboard(?) with a toothbrush? Cause there was so much corrossion(?). I dont know. I left my macbook with no lid in front of an electric fan for the rest of the day and at night tried on the battery. It wouldnt on, nor charge but I tried the battery indicator and my God, it lit up. Right now, my laptop is upside down above a piece of cloth with me not knowing exactly how things would turn out. Anyone please?
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Help [Macbook had water spilled on it]
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How comfortable are you with removing the Logic Board? If you are, follow iFixit's guide for your model and soak the board with 91% or higher isopropyll alcohol. The "mold" you see is corrosion.
Do not put any power through that board until you clean it and soak it in the alcohol. A very soft bristled unused tooth brush is a great repair tool to have on hand for repairs like this. Then drop the board back in and try it.
that corrosion is not from this spill, I've never seen corrosion appear so quickly, thats probably is from a previous spill.
best case scenario you need to replace the topcase and the logic board. its not a cheap or easy repair so go to apple or a AASP.
expect to pay through the teeth, or maybe make your roomie pay?
Is that practical? One of my friends told me that the logic board shouldnt be touched, let alone soaked in alcohol? How can alcohol help this?
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Thats kind of impractical isnt it. I came here for advice on my Macbook not for another macbook.
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But thats the only spill my laptop has ever been through. I'm very careful with my Mac its kind of ironic.
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This IS a very sad thread isn't it.
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I know. I feel like the worlds biggest idiot #
Is that practical? One of my friends told me that the logic board shouldnt be touched, let alone soaked in alcohol? How can alcohol help this?
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Thats kind of impractical isnt it. I came here for advice on my Macbook not for another macbook.
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But thats the only spill my laptop has ever been through. I'm very careful with my Mac its kind of ironic.
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This IS a very sad thread isn't it.
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I know. I feel like the worlds biggest idiot
High humidity environments can cause corrosion. Alcohol helps to clean the board of corrosion that can cause short circuits and other board damage. While unfortunate, there still is hope.
And what do you mean by soak? Like drench it in a bowl of alcohol? Or soak as in spray alcohol all over the logic board?
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What should be the best way of applying alcohol to my logic board? And in wht amounts?
What's impractical about claiming on your insurance and restoring from a backup? Impractical is believing you can fix a logic board immersed in liquid that's been running for hours. This MacBook is dead, irretrievable, no more, pushing up the daisies.
Absolute best you'll get is get the data off the hard drive and restore to a new MacBook. Even that might not work hence starting with your backup.
This one is dead. Even if you could get a new logic board (forget fixing this one even if it comes to life momentarily it will die sooner rather than later) there may well be liquid that found its way elsewhere that will over time destroy other parts so it would be throwing good money after bad.
Anyway, main thing is you need to realise this mac is dead, just because you don't like to hear bad news, don't shoot the messenger or stick your fingers in your ears and go "la all all la I can't hear you", that won't alter reality.