Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Milk spilt on MacBook

M

mrkamputee

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 13, 2006
26
0
Hello all,

Does anyone have advice here? My girlfriend spilt milk into the grill at the back of her macbook whilst it was on. Now, she took the battery out straight away, and tried to pour out any excess. We've dried it under a hair dryer and tried to power it on, with no success. Any advice?
 
I would've waited for at least a day if not more to turn it back on! Leave it alone for awhile, then come back to it. If it still doesn't turn on, you probably fried something inside or whatever else can happen when liquid goes into it.
 
Sounds like a trip to the Mac Store for an analysis, cleanup and repair to me.
 
Swarmlord said:
Sounds like a trip to the Mac Store for an analysis, cleanup and repair to me.
Click to expand...
take it to the apple store, if u have one near u. they wont charge u for diagnostics, so atleast u can identify the problem
 
mrkamputee said:
Hello all,

Does anyone have advice here? My girlfriend spilt milk into the grill at the back of her macbook whilst it was on. Now, she took the battery out straight away, and tried to pour out any excess. We've dried it under a hair dryer and tried to power it on, with no success. Any advice?
Click to expand...

Well, it's too late now, but advice for the future: do *not* attempt to turn on an electronic device after you have gotten it wet. And attempting to dry it with a hot hair dryer sound to me like a BAD idea. At most, I would've pointed a fan at the affected area.

The best thing to do is to let it sit for a couple of days. *Then* attempt to turn it on. What probably fried your computer (if not the hair dryer), was probably a short circuit when you attempted to turn on the computer.

P.S. About 6 years ago I spilled some soda diretly on my Dell laptop. I let it sit for a couple of days, then it actually turned on and served me well for at least another year or two 'til it finally died. (my next computer purchase was a G3 iBook and I haven't looked back since...)
 
yeah i had a friend that he had a bottle of water spilled on his loaded out powerbook 17" high resolution as soon as it was released he dropped close to 3 k on it. a week later the water incident happened then he set his laptop up with a hair dryer and had it pointed at it and he left for work and let it dry all night. by the time he got home from work, the keyboard had melted into the keyboard cavity. a little fyi dont sit the hair dryer to close to your soaked laptop
 
joshwest said:
he set his laptop up with a hair dryer and had it pointed at it and he left for work and let it dry all night. by the time he got home from work, the keyboard had melted into the keyboard cavity.
Click to expand...

That was really stupid. I know, not constructive, but I can't help myself.
 
I would rinse it thoroughly with distilled water. And then, wait a few days before you turn it on. If it were me, I'd also carefully take the case apart to expose all the elements to dry air. You've already voided your warranty, so what the heck. You might find out you just killled the hard drive (Hopefully) or damaged the ram sockets -- and that the logic board is fine.

Apple will charge you through the nose for liquid damage, so you might as well try to clean out the milk and hope that stops anything from shorting after it dries.
 
water damage

Grab some cheerios and have at it...lol... no.. I was in electronic repair for 13 years and we will call it water damage (even though its milk) but lets just say that copper (in circuit boards) don't like water... so even if you get lucky enough for it to power back up odds are it will puke again inless you are willing to break it totaly down and scrub things with a Q-tip and rubbing alcohol... unless your experienced I would shy away... then again depending on the model it may cost One Million Dollars to fix you might as well dig in..lol... (ohh yes a few years of my repair was in Marine electronics so I have seen about every kind of water damage there is)

Good luck

DD
 
psychofreak said:
Don't cry over it:D
Click to expand...

:p

I opened it up and had a quick inspection. There was no visible damage at all, and thankfully no smell. Doesn't seem like it was a lot of milk. The only thing I noticed, which suprised me, was: the top casing keyboard ribbon had come out and the display connector on the logic board wasn't attached. Bit odd.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back