Spilled tiny amount of water on macbook and have had no problems...am i safe?

[hillmarie]

Hi all,

So about 24 hours again I spilled a tiny amount of water onto my macbook pro keyboard (couple of tablespoons at most). It wasn't plugged in, and I immediately dried it off as best as I could. I left it closed, unplugged for 8 hours, then came home and used it as normal but still did not plug it in. All the keys, commands, applications, everything seems to work ok so far (knock on wood!). I did leave it to dry upside down last night on a towel, but there was no moisture on the towel this morning. I have restarted and completely turned the machine off and back on with no problems, strange noises, etc. I finally plugged it into my charger this morning (22 hours later), and it seems to be charging fine, no noises or apparent problems, and it calculates battery life left when I unplug the charger. The spill was right in the middle of the keyboard, around the d-h and c-b keys. After this amount of time and not having any problems yet, am I out of the woods? If not, what should I do, and how long until I can stop worrying whether my machine will die? I'm a broke grad school student, and not having a computer would be terrible

 

[dusk007]

Sure you are fine. Water doesn't finished it off all that quickly. There is a few things in place to keep it from reaching the internals. Just a little and you are fine.
Pure water isn't so great at conducting anyway.
Once it is dry and hasn't already cause a problem your are fine.

 

[Schranke]

did the same some years ago, you are out of the danger zone.
Always remember to turn off ASAP, dry as much you can, let it stand in a "hot" room, maybe help with a hairdryer, now the waiting game...

and as long it is only water it will not do a permanent damage if you are fast.

 

[micrors4racer]

Hi all,

So about 24 hours again I spilled a tiny amount of water onto my macbook pro keyboard (couple of tablespoons at most). It wasn't plugged in, and I immediately dried it off as best as I could. I left it closed, unplugged for 8 hours, then came home and used it as normal but still did not plug it in. All the keys, commands, applications, everything seems to work ok so far (knock on wood!). I did leave it to dry upside down last night on a towel, but there was no moisture on the towel this morning. I have restarted and completely turned the machine off and back on with no problems, strange noises, etc. I finally plugged it into my charger this morning (22 hours later), and it seems to be charging fine, no noises or apparent problems, and it calculates battery life left when I unplug the charger. The spill was right in the middle of the keyboard, around the d-h and c-b keys. After this amount of time and not having any problems yet, am I out of the woods? If not, what should I do, and how long until I can stop worrying whether my machine will die? I'm a broke grad school student, and not having a computer would be terrible

You'll be fine. The keyboard has a sealed plastic bottom just for this purpose and a few tablespoons of water would not have gone through.

Most of the internals are protected by that plastic cover underneath the keyboard.

 

[IGregory]

Yeah, I had a scare last week. I came in from a run with sweat dripping off of me. I stood over my keyboard not realizing the volume of sweat that dripping on the keyboard. Anyway, the sweat didn't kill it.

 

[kostisd]

edit

 

[laldim]

Dear hillmarie, you definitely saved my day!

Yesterday I spilled some of the beverage I was drinking on the right side of my macbook Air's keyboard. Having seen a colleague's macbook dying after throwing a glass of water on it, i was quite terrified.

I turned it upside down, I also turned it off, I tried to clean it as much as I could and I put a towel just below the keyboard and left it there for 9 hours. I plugged it in this morning and so far so good.

I have to say that was the first post I've seen about the topic that didn't (try to) scary the hell out of me...

So, I can't thank you enough and I hope more macbook owners will see your post before they actually need it.