Spilled Coffee on my Powerbook!

[ribbonthecat]

I guess that a thread titled like this is never good news. I spilled coffee onto my 12' Powerbook a couple of days ago. Immediately turned it off, and let it sit for two days. When I turned it on, there was a large bright splotch on the LCD. The LCD worked, just a whole lot brighter. I turned it off again, and let it sit for another day, and now the splotch has disappeared, but there are in its place a bunch of small bright points. I quickly turned it off again.

Is this just liquid behind the LCD? Is it drying, and is it safe to use the computer while is has these spots?

Incidentally, the only other difference is that the "I" key is a bit sticky. Could have been much worse, I guess.

 

[0007776]

It's good that your computer is still working, I think that you damaged your LCD, I don't know how easy it is to fix, but you are luck that it wasn't worse.

 

[ribbonthecat]

Damaged LCD?

Thanks for the quick reply. Do you think the LCD is damaged? The bright spots have gotten a lot smaller in the past two days, which makes me suspect that it may just be liquid which is evaporating slowly.

I'm in the process of moving to a new place, and once I'm there, I plan to use the Powerbook mostly in clamshell mode, so I guess a bit of damage isn't all that bad, though it kills any value the PB had.

 

[aquajet]

Could you post a picture of the anomalies? It's possible the coffee damaged a component on your logic board and what you're really seeing are artifacts.

In the case of spilled liquid that isn't water, I always recommend complete disassembly of the laptop and a thorough cleaning using distilled water where there's evidence of liquid, followed by a couple days of drying time underneath a fan before reassembly. This is important to ensure any hope that you won't have problems down the line.