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Never never never never operate or even own a MB be it Pro or Air without first having placed a $7 clear plastic key board cover on it.

Never

Those things look like crap and ruin the typing experience. You might as well just wrap the entire computer in cellophane.
 
Never never never never operate or even own a MB be it Pro or Air without first having placed a $7 clear plastic key board cover on it.

Never

They are very ugly. I just avoid mixing liquids while surfing and never have had a problem. The Civ V suggestion will get the thing right hot and is actually a good suggestion. How's it faring after being the rice for a while now?
 
I always use a moshi screen guard and palm guard on my mac. You can hardly even tell they are there. I quite like it.
 
Hi,

My girlfriend spilled water on the keyboard of my 2012 13" MBA. It did not shut down. I immediately toweled it off, shut it down and then left it sitting in an airy spot in an upside down V. I then started googling and after about 20minutes placed the keyboard half in a baking dish and covered it with rice (attached pic).

I don't have the tools or experience to open it.

I've read conflicting information. Is this sufficient, or do I need to buy a plastic bag to seal the MBA in with the rice? Is rice better than ventilation? Any other suggestions? I'm planning on turning it on again in 24 hours.

Thanks very much. I appreciate there are a lot of threads on this and I've read most. I want to be sure I'm doing the right thing.

Nick

This has happened to me twice, both times with coffee -- iBook and Mac Mini.

Water, pure distilled water without any impurities actually will not harm electronics. It is the impurities in liquid, coffee cream or even minerals in tap or, even salt water that cause conductivity and can kill a computer.

When i spilled coffee on the ibook and mac mini (with the mini, the coffee with cream actually leaked upwards from the desktop into the mini's casing... really really bad) the first thing I did was drenched the machines in water to get the coffee out. Then bought distilled water and repeated the process. Then I did the rice trick for two days. In plastic.

The ibook was immediately better. But the Mini -- it was a 2009 mini -- I realized that coffee and cream had got under the video card/cpu itself on the logic board.

Had to wash it again with distilled water, rubbing alcohol with q tips.

Then the rice trick again.

Worked like a charm when clean and dry.
 
To the real damager. I beg to differ, you may have been looking at cheapies. Mine are practically invisible and do not in the least affect typing touch.

I bought 2 TPU covers on EBay based on reports that this type was much better than the silicone type. I find they still make it very hard to type. I'm sure you get used to it over time, but I don't want to get used to it - I'll just be more careful with liquids around my Air.
 
An update: After 48 hours I started using my MBA air again and it has been working fine.

A Warning: Because I submerged the bottom half of my MBA in rice and then tried to close the screen, because of the way the hinge works it pushed a lot of rice inside the laptop (into the fan vents?). This was quite alarming at first, and if I picked my laptop up I could hear the rice rattling around inside. But by shaking the laptop and closing and opening the lid repeatedly I eventually got it all out after 20 minutes or so. If you spilled water on your MBA and it won't turn on and you think it's ruined, you might even want to purposefully do this?
 
An update: After 48 hours I started using my MBA air again and it has been working fine.

A Warning: Because I submerged the bottom half of my MBA in rice and then tried to close the screen, because of the way the hinge works it pushed a lot of rice inside the laptop (into the fan vents?). This was quite alarming at first, and if I picked my laptop up I could hear the rice rattling around inside. But by shaking the laptop and closing and opening the lid repeatedly I eventually got it all out after 20 minutes or so. If you spilled water on your MBA and it won't turn on and you think it's ruined, you might even want to purposefully do this?

Glad to hear everything is working. :)

For the rice thing, did you try unscrewing the bottom and seeing if any rice was still in there? It might be wedged between stuff.
 
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An update: After 48 hours I started using my MBA air again and it has been working fine.

A Warning: Because I submerged the bottom half of my MBA in rice and then tried to close the screen, because of the way the hinge works it pushed a lot of rice inside the laptop (into the fan vents?). This was quite alarming at first, and if I picked my laptop up I could hear the rice rattling around inside. But by shaking the laptop and closing and opening the lid repeatedly I eventually got it all out after 20 minutes or so. If you spilled water on your MBA and it won't turn on and you think it's ruined, you might even want to purposefully do this?

LOL I was going to say that submerging your laptop into that dusty rice was not really the best decision. It would be better to set the laptop on top of the rice then seal it up. I've also had good luck drying a spilt beer out of my MBA by setting it open on it's side and then directing a low-heat blow drier at the vents and keyboard for about 2 hours. Lost my #9 key for a day or two but it came back.
 
Having lived in tropical places for a long time, I'll say that it's certainly true that rice works (and you can cook and eat it after the crisis).

When I lived in the rain forest, I used these:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0HXP1WXNFSBE88YYDNZ3

because they're reusable. Heat them up until the color indicator says they're good to go, then seal them up, and then they're ready when you need them.

The last time I was in the SW Pacific rainforest (Bougainville Island) my PD150 (Sony camcorder) fogged up and I immediately put it in a big ziploc bag with a couple of these packs and in 15-20 minutes the PD150 was ready to go again.

I will say that not long ago I completely wrecked an Apple wired KB while cleaning the filthy keys with a paper towel soaked in Windex. The towel wasn't soaked and dripping, either. I'd done it dozens of times before, but this time I did something wrong and no amount of drying could fix it.
 
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hi,

my girlfriend spilled water on the keyboard of my 2012 13" mba. It did not shut down. I immediately toweled it off, shut it down and then left it sitting in an airy spot in an upside down v. I then started googling and after about 20minutes placed the keyboard half in a baking dish and covered it with rice (attached pic).

I don't have the tools or experience to open it.

I've read conflicting information. Is this sufficient, or do i need to buy a plastic bag to seal the mba in with the rice? Is rice better than ventilation? Any other suggestions? I'm planning on turning it on again in 24 hours.

Thanks very much. I appreciate there are a lot of threads on this and i've read most. I want to be sure i'm doing the right thing.

Nick


aaaahahahahahahah

I'm going to email this pic to all my friends.

You're obviously too young. Wanna see my set up at home?

Look

14B7DF33-D3B5-4D2B-8DCB-DFEEFBA5F12E-2212-000000739E908BC3.jpg


On the left we have my wife's $700 Sony. On the right MY MacBook. Keyword here is MY.

Never let a woman touch your electronic devices unless it is under strict supervision.
 
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I'm glad you saved it. Same thing happened to me except it was Samsung S2. Well 9 hours in salty 80C' water. Do not ask me how. 24 hours in rice with some cleaning and I was able to turn it on, backup my data and use it. Everything worked except camera.
 
If it ever happens again (hope not), wrap the laptop in a tshirt or something first to keep the rice out.
 
As always, came for the schadenfreude, not disappointed. Seriously though, glad it's sorted :p

However Nick you left out the really juicy information - how was your gf in a position to predictably empty her beverage into your bosom (MBA)? And what of her fate, Nick? Nicholas, what of it?
 
Another suggestion is to keep any of those little silica packets that come with electronics/shoes/etc. and toss them in a box. Then when something like this happens, you just put your device amongst all the silica packets. It might not work as well as rice, but at least dust and little rice particles won't get inside.
 
Well it's been a while since I read this thread, but my MBA is still going strong. Never had a problem with it.

There was a lot more rice inside than I thought. I must have still had individual rice grains falling out every now and again 2 or 3 months later.

As for the original indiscretion, it's hard to get too mad as I may have inappropriately grabbed her, causing her hands to flail and one of them hitting the water...

Luckily all's well that ends well.
 
Well it's been a while since I read this thread, but my MBA is still going strong. Never had a problem with it.

There was a lot more rice inside than I thought. I must have still had individual rice grains falling out every now and again 2 or 3 months later.

As for the original indiscretion, it's hard to get too mad as I may have inappropriately grabbed her, causing her hands to flail and one of them hitting the water...

Luckily all's well that ends well.

Thanks for posting, Nick. It's always good to know of a happy ending. :)
 
Well it's been a while since I read this thread, but my MBA is still going strong. Never had a problem with it.

There was a lot more rice inside than I thought. I must have still had individual rice grains falling out every now and again 2 or 3 months later.

As for the original indiscretion, it's hard to get too mad as I may have inappropriately grabbed her, causing her hands to flail and one of them hitting the water...

Luckily all's well that ends well.

I like the story and reading this thread, made me happy to know everything turned out well in the end :)
 
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