Yeah... I see a whole new type of intervention becoming popular.That's hilarious. Perhaps their problem is a bit more involved than we know.
Very bad news for the OP though. There, but for the grace of God...
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Is this possibly the worst thing I could have done?
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Very bad news for the OP though. There, but for the grace of God...
What whiskey have you drank? Straight whiskey isn't sticky. I'm not saying it won't leave a residue, but "very sticky" is not something that I would apply at all to whiskey. I've left a glass out that had whiskey in long enough for the tiny amount of whiskey left in the bottom to dry. There's a residue, but it's not sticky.
You don't want the rice to dry out, you want the computer to. The rice starts dry and absorbs the moisture in the computer.
You have no warranty anymore, spilling liquid in the computer will most likely trigger moisture sensors (basically paper pieces) to tell Apple service techs that there have been liquid in there => voids your warranty. And since you spilled whisky they would notice it by the residue that smells like whisky in there => voids your warranty. If you had an actual accidental insurance I would use that otherwise I would take it apart to rinse it off in distilled water and let it dry out for a week after that.
Not any more than pouring whiskey into it.
I'm pretty sure Apple's limited warranty excludes all kinds of whiskey. Except single malts of course. Anything from Speyside is perfectly OK. My personal favorite for spilling in my Mac is Balvenie 30.
I've recently had the pleasure of recovering a MacBook my girlfriend spilled water in and a Blackberry that she dropped in the toilet. Twice. (Yeah, don't ask).
In all three cases I put the powered-down devices in an oven at the lowest possible setting for about four hours. In our case that meant about 140 degrees F on a thermometer in the oven. I pulled the batteries on the Blackberries but that won't be an option for you.
All devices worked when we powered them back up. The rice solution work also, but takes significantly longer. Note: While higher temperatures may accelerate the process, they also run the risk of incinerating your device. Not a huge loss if it's a Blackberry but you probably want to avoid melting your Mac.
No, I know that I'll have to pay for the whiskey damage, but won't taking apart the Mac make the warranty invalid for future cases such as computer faults which are covered by the warranty, like the computer shutting down, and refusing to turn on without prior damage to the computer?
I thought some things were covered by the warranty, and some not. If something happened thats not, you pay for it, and the warranty is still ok for future cases? That's what the person said when I bought may mac.
This is a good answer.
For something like straight whisky or milk, the bag-of-rice trick might not be the best idea. As it dries, such liquids can leave conductive residues behind. Wet or dry, those can cause shorts and further damage; in fact that might have already happened. Accordingly, you want the battery disconnected as soon as possible and throughout the recovery attempt. Pulling the plug and getting the battery out is the very first most urgent thing to do in a situation like this (after shutting it off of course).
My suggestion would be:
- Open it up.
- Disconnect the battery.
- Disassemble as well as you can. Swab everything (except the hard disk) that might likely have been contacted by the whisky carefully with damp (not dripping) lintless pads of some sort, saturated with distilled water or (better yet) high-quality isopropyl rubbing alcohol. Vodka will do in a pinch. The idea is to remove any residue that might be conductive. Do this several times.
- Let it dry for several hours. Sniff it-- smell any whisky? Do it again.
- Let it dry some more, repeating the sniff test and careful visual inspection.
- Reassemble.
Any joy? Hope so.
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And I'd rather not put it in the oven for now, the oven here isn't so good,
Don't put the hard disk or display in the oven.
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That ship has sailed.
As I said before, I'm away with family, for one, my parents heavily disapprove of taking it apart, and two, I don't really have the resources or tools, and finally, if I screw up, there's nothing I can do about it, I've never taken one apart before.
don't take it apart. You don't want to practice on this. Better take it to a tech, or better yet, i'm sure your parents know some geeks. Pull a favor, etc. ( having Apple do it is going to cost).
note: Do your parents know you have a drinking problem?
don't take it apart. You don't want to practice on this. Better take it to a tech, or better yet, i'm sure your parents know some geeks. Pull a favor, etc. ( having Apple do it is going to cost).
note: Do your parents know you have a drinking problem?
It wasn't my whisky.
Well, best practices is best practices. The procedure I've outlined is how I'd do things.
Seems to me if you're old enough to drink whisky, you're old enough to tell your parents "This thing is fried and has no chance of recovery unless someone opens it and tries to clean out the damage. Either we do it or we pay a technician to do it, with no guarantees either way."
I don't recall what model you have but in general these machines are not difficult to get apart. A $1.99 set of jeweler's screwdrivers will do-- you only need the weensy little phillips-head, probably. I suppose you might need a small set of Torx drivers. Any hardware store should have that. Just work on a clean surface, keep the screws organized (there will be a LOT of them!), and avoid static. You'll meet some ribbon connectors that are kind of cute; there'll be a little plastic gripper that needs to be slid out with a fingernail on each of those.
Probably only the exposed top of the circuit board will need swabbing, judging from how little whisky you say went into the machine.
Oh, and chances are excellent that the keyboard is ruined. If so, now you know how to get in to swap it out. A new one is on the order of a hundred bucks.
You really can't make this particular situation much worse... and I don't think the uncooked-rice trick will fix this particular spill.
Good luck.
Your best bet is to let the machine dry at present, it doesn't appear on face value that you have the tools or skill to disassemble the machine
(no offence intended) there are some specialists that will take on this type of work, however there is no guarantee, as once the boards are damaged, they are basically finished.
Right now patience is your friend, leave the computer in a well ventilated area or in a bag of rice as long as you can bear
Ah, then.
Then where's the problem? Whoever was responsible for the whisky should be the one making your computer whole again.
For all be smart, irrespective of what you are drinking as long as the computer is on a higher level than the drinks you should be safe. i have my MBP`s on Rain Design Mstand`s, equally my beer is sat on a $2 plastic box 12 inches below the desk; it`s all too easy to have a spill, kids, pets, yourself accidents happen,however if the liquid is not on the same level you will save yourself a lot of heartache
Don't drink and type.
You can always get one of these to go with your whisky-soaked MBP:
Since everyone's making all these jokes about drink aware, and going on about me having a drinking problem, here is what happened. Full story:
I put my MBP on a small table with the whiskey that someone else was drinking and left to go to the toilet. When I came back, I leaned in to type on the keyboard, knocked the whiskey over with my lower arm, cold booted, left it for about 12 hours, now I turned it on this morning, the power light faded on then off, now it won't turn on.
I have an appointment in the genuis bar now, because the methods posted were either not possible in my current situation or did not work, but thankyou for trying.
I put my MBP on a small table with the whiskey that someone else was drinking and left to go to the toilet. When I came back, I leaned in to type on the keyboard, knocked the whiskey over with my lower arm, cold booted, left it for about 12 hours, now I turned it on this morning, the power light faded on then off, now it won't turn on.
I have an appointment in the genuis bar now, because the methods posted were either not possible in my current situation or did not work, but thankyou for trying.
Hope it wasnt an Islay single malt. That would have been such a waste.
Anyway what you could try is swabbing down the main board with isopropyl alcohol to drive out the water (from the whisky) then letting it dry thoroughly before retrying it. Use the rice technique to dry it. May work, may not.
Anyway what you could try is swabbing down the main board with isopropyl alcohol to drive out the water (from the whisky) then letting it dry thoroughly before retrying it. Use the rice technique to dry it. May work, may not.