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Trackpad liquid damage

jrsx

jrsx

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 2, 2013
1,057
18
Tacoma, Washington
So today I was drinking something, and bumped my elbow against something, and spilled some iced tea on my iBook G4's keyboard and trackpad. In a couple seconds, I tried to absorb all the liquid with tissue, then ripped the keyboard out. There isn't any damage to the motherboard at all. However, my trackpad may have sustained some damage. It was working great, and then after a couple seconds it would only detect some of my activity on it. Then it stopped working, until I left it for a couple seconds, it would work for a couple more seconds, then stop. I quickly shut the laptop off, and pulled of the palmrest. I read that using a hairdryer may help get rid of some of the liquid so I did that, and I'll let it sit for a long time. Is there any other precautions I should take? I have another palmrest so I'm not super worried, but I would like to have both functional if possible.
 
Last edited:
jrsx said:
So today I was drinking something, and bumped my elbow against something, and spilled some iced tea on my iBook G4's keyboard and trackpad. In a couple seconds, I tried to absorb all the liquid with tissue, then ripped the keyboard out. There isn't any damage to the motherboard at all. However, my trackpad may have sustained some damage. It was working great, and then after a couple seconds it would only detect some of my activity on it. Then it stopped working, until I left it for a couple seconds, it would work for a couple more seconds, then stop. I quickly shut the laptop off, and pulled of the palmrest. I read that using a hairdryer may help get rid of some of the liquid so I did that, and I'll let it sit for a long time. Is there any other precautions I should take? I have another palmrest so I'm not super worried, but I would like to have both functional if possible.
Click to expand...

jrsx said:
I suppose I'll let it sit for several hours and see if it perks up.
Click to expand...

The best idea at this point would be to remove the top case and clean it. You do not want to risk any seepage that you missed reaching your Logic Board or hard drive! Then throw the other palm rest on there and work on the cleaning the other one.
 
Alright, I have the old palmrest in now. Everything works great! I'll let the old one sit for a while, several days, and see what happens.
 
Altemose said:
Did anything hit the Logic Board that you could see when you took the machine apart?
Click to expand...

No, it's absolutely fine. There wasn't even anything on the metal shield or RAM cover, it was a pretty small amount of liquid, but enough to hurt the trackpad. The keyboard is fine, too.
 
jrsx said:
No, it's absolutely fine. There wasn't even anything on the metal shield or RAM cover, it was a pretty small amount of liquid, but enough to hurt the trackpad. The keyboard is fine, too.
Click to expand...

Good to hear the damage isn't too significant! Why did you have two trackpads to begin with?
 
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