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Help! Olive Oil Spill
- Thread starter mburgess
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go to ifixit.com get the manual for you Mac and open it up and have a look to see how much of the oil has invaded the chassis. There are a lot worse things you can spill than olive oil, personally I think you machine will be ok as long as you can clean it up.
Damage to the logic board and or components from liquid ingression firstly in the form of creating short circuits irreparably damaging the circuitry. The secondary cause is more longterm with corrosion slowly forming on exposed areas, depending on the liquid involved. Olive oil is relatively benign, however it still may induce corrosion related issues further down the line.
It you are not technically minded I would just find a reputable third party Apple retailer and pay them to clean up the machine, sooner rather than later.
Damage to the logic board and or components from liquid ingression firstly in the form of creating short circuits irreparably damaging the circuitry. The secondary cause is more longterm with corrosion slowly forming on exposed areas, depending on the liquid involved. Olive oil is relatively benign, however it still may induce corrosion related issues further down the line.
It you are not technically minded I would just find a reputable third party Apple retailer and pay them to clean up the machine, sooner rather than later.
but coke is extremely sticky & highly corrosive and would eat away at circuitry without quick intervention.
Triglycerides are poor conductors of electricity; long aliphatic tails which may or may not have any pi-delocalisation depending on what acyl groups you are using, and incredibly low dissociation levels.
But yes, olive oil does contain amounts of water; it will conduct electricity, I'm not denying that, but it is a very poor conductor.
But this is becoming a little chemistry/physic-y now...
No the oil was not the worst. Something like coke is the worst.
The oil will evaporate to the point it gets so thick that the keyboard will stop working mechanically.
You baby will need to be seriously serviced
The keyboard itself is a single slab under the top cover of your MBP, hence it will protect the logic board from the oil if you haven't already turned it too much around.
I would turn the computer off, and leave it off. Then take a few lengths of paper towel and place on top of the keyboard. Then close the lid on top of that and place the computer upside down to let the oil drip out of the keyboard. Leave it like this for a few hours, and change the towel when needed. Try to avoid turning it around too much, as this will let the oil drip into places other than the keyboard.
After the excess oil that actually can be drained like this is gone, I'd proceed to opening the computer up. If you cannot do it yourself, ask a more tech savvy friend to help you. But be sure to choose someone that actually know what they do; you might end up with a dead computer. Depending on the state of the keyboard, I'd either clean it with rubbing alcohol or replace it. The latter is the better, because any damage it has suffered might show at a later time even though you clean it now and it seems to work.
After you remove the logic board, battery and the rest of the parts fixed to the upper case, you will be able to get to the keyboard. Here's a link to a very detailed guid for tearing a MacBook apart. Make sure you have the correct tools before you start, as they use special screws on Apple equipment.
Good luck, hope you get it sorted.
-KJ
I would turn the computer off, and leave it off. Then take a few lengths of paper towel and place on top of the keyboard. Then close the lid on top of that and place the computer upside down to let the oil drip out of the keyboard. Leave it like this for a few hours, and change the towel when needed. Try to avoid turning it around too much, as this will let the oil drip into places other than the keyboard.
After the excess oil that actually can be drained like this is gone, I'd proceed to opening the computer up. If you cannot do it yourself, ask a more tech savvy friend to help you. But be sure to choose someone that actually know what they do; you might end up with a dead computer. Depending on the state of the keyboard, I'd either clean it with rubbing alcohol or replace it. The latter is the better, because any damage it has suffered might show at a later time even though you clean it now and it seems to work.
After you remove the logic board, battery and the rest of the parts fixed to the upper case, you will be able to get to the keyboard. Here's a link to a very detailed guid for tearing a MacBook apart. Make sure you have the correct tools before you start, as they use special screws on Apple equipment.
Good luck, hope you get it sorted.
-KJ
Thank you very much for your detailed advice. I've tried not to move it too much, although my initial reaction may have caused some damage. :/ I am planning on taking it into my school's IT department today to see what they can do.
either way should have invested in a keybord cover or not eat / drink infront f computer
Yes, I have already purchased a keyboard cover for the future. And I would add "cook" to that list.
Pure water itself is not conductive though..... And it doesn't matter if it's made up of one triglyceride, or many, it's still got the properties of a triglyceride.
The question is, which olive oil contains pure water?
Only partially.
;-)
So, for clarification...
I've been letting it sit all day upside down with a cloth in between...nothing seems to have come out at all so at this point I'm pretty sure that will not be doing anything for me. But I am going to let it sit that way for awhile longer anyways.
I have also picked up and cleaned beneath all the keys on the keyboard swabbing it with rubbing alcohol doused q-tips. There only seemed to be oil beneath maybe half or a little less than half of them. I also managed to lose part of the "2" key in my living room as it popped off and fell into oblivion...just my luck. I need to be more careful. I'll be tearing the room apart shortly I'm sure.
For the record I spilled about a quarter cup of olive oil--at the very most no more than a half cup-- and most of that I managed to pick up right away with a rag. If that makes any difference.
I'm going to look into finding someone to help me open up the back (I don't have the skills nor the screwdriver) and see to cleaning it out. Probably with more rubbing alcohol and q-tips. Hopefully I can find someone to do this for me for free, but if I can't I'll be going to the store. Should I go to an apple store or is that a bad idea? I have no idea where this leaves me with my warranty.
From what I understand I may have to be worried about corrosion on the logic board and other things, since it probably won't short circuit as oil doesn't conduct electricity well (and also I used it for awhile and the computer itself was running fine...just the keys that weren't working) If I'm lucky, most of the oil will not have seeped around the keyboard slab (but probably not since I used the computer for a bit after the spill...but I'm hoping I'll be lucky anyways since the oil didn't even get underneath all the keys)
Did I get all that right?
I've been letting it sit all day upside down with a cloth in between...nothing seems to have come out at all so at this point I'm pretty sure that will not be doing anything for me. But I am going to let it sit that way for awhile longer anyways.
I have also picked up and cleaned beneath all the keys on the keyboard swabbing it with rubbing alcohol doused q-tips. There only seemed to be oil beneath maybe half or a little less than half of them. I also managed to lose part of the "2" key in my living room as it popped off and fell into oblivion...just my luck. I need to be more careful. I'll be tearing the room apart shortly I'm sure.
For the record I spilled about a quarter cup of olive oil--at the very most no more than a half cup-- and most of that I managed to pick up right away with a rag. If that makes any difference.
I'm going to look into finding someone to help me open up the back (I don't have the skills nor the screwdriver) and see to cleaning it out. Probably with more rubbing alcohol and q-tips. Hopefully I can find someone to do this for me for free, but if I can't I'll be going to the store. Should I go to an apple store or is that a bad idea? I have no idea where this leaves me with my warranty.
From what I understand I may have to be worried about corrosion on the logic board and other things, since it probably won't short circuit as oil doesn't conduct electricity well (and also I used it for awhile and the computer itself was running fine...just the keys that weren't working) If I'm lucky, most of the oil will not have seeped around the keyboard slab (but probably not since I used the computer for a bit after the spill...but I'm hoping I'll be lucky anyways since the oil didn't even get underneath all the keys)
Did I get all that right?
It won't have caused any damage to the non-moving parts of your laptop.
It may not even have set off the water sensors, so I'd even hedge your bets (as long as you remove any remaining residue) that your warranties intact.
For those of you saying that oil may conduct electricity or whatever, take a look at this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eub39NaC4rc
As others have said, just clean the keyboard up and you'll be fine.
It may not even have set off the water sensors, so I'd even hedge your bets (as long as you remove any remaining residue) that your warranties intact.
For those of you saying that oil may conduct electricity or whatever, take a look at this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eub39NaC4rc
As others have said, just clean the keyboard up and you'll be fine.
Orange County
And I was making Caprese Salad...yes I know that it is lame I needed a recipe for that, but it was for a particular assignment where I needed to know exactly what went into the food so I could calculate the nutritional info and try to locate where the ingredients came from. I mostly had my laptop out to simultaneously do the write up, actually.
If it is any consolation the salad came out very nicely.
It won't have caused any damage to the non-moving parts of your laptop.
It may not even have set off the water sensors, so I'd even hedge your bets (as long as you remove any remaining residue) that your warranties intact.
For those of you saying that oil may conduct electricity or whatever, take a look at this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eub39NaC4rc
As others have said, just clean the keyboard up and you'll be fine.
That is good to know. Maybe now I'll be able to get a good night's sleep, haha.
Thanks.
The link you posted points to some research aimed at determining water content in oil. That doesn't absolutely imply any relevant ions presence. Pure water (and not only) produces a very small quantity of H+ and OH-, so it's not a good conductor. How could oil be a good conductor?
Your main problem is, that i never said that olive oil is a good conductor. I said it is a conductor.
If it's a terrible conductor, the OP will never have a problem about it. So what is/was your point? To show how "clever" you are saying oil, being a poor conductor, conduces very poorly?