uh-oh: liquid in screen

[asif786]

hey,

im have an old laptop that i've had stored in a laptop bag for a while. i'm not sure, but i may have stepped on this bag at one point (i dont remember)

anyway, when i point/touch the screen, the whole screen looks like it's covered in raindrops. the machine's been stored in a cool room.

is it possible that there's some sort of liquid damage? or is it because i (may have) stepped on it? the screen seems to be functioning ok, but it's incredibly noticable that something is wrong when i point at it.

any service techs or anyone got any ideas as to the issue?

thanks!

 

[ajwitte]

It may actually be condensation (water droplets inside the screen) since this can often happen when you store sealed objects (like LCDs) in cool places.

If it is condensation, letting the 'book dry out in a warm (room temperature) place for a couple of days should bring it back to normal.

 

[pdpfilms]

Is it possible you could take any pictures of it?

 

[asif786]

thanks for the replies. i'll leave it in a warm place for a few hours and see what happens.

pdpfilms, sure i'll take some pics. just gimme an hour or two

 

[PrincipeAzzuro]

thanks for the replies. i'll leave it in a warm place for a few hours and see what happens.

It doesn't help keeping it in a warm place. Depending on what machine you're precisely talking about, the only solution to get rid of the condensation WITHOUT RESIDUAL TRACES ON THE SCREEN is to open the PB (=open the screen) while switched off (battery detached) and to lay it backwards on a heater. 2 important things to remember:
1. do not lay any plastic or otherwise deformable parts of the PB directly on the metal surface of the heater - put something between like a thin cloth
2. do not turn on the heat too much. On a scale between 0 (off) and 10 (max) I suggest 7 or 8.

You might want to know how come I am so sure about all this: well it happened to me at least half a dozen times. I am used to taking my PB (a Pismo upgraded to G4 by Daytech) in all parts of the world while shooting (films) so accidents and incidents are pretty much routine. The PB is now 6 years old, still with it's first upper casing, I changed the lower casing (the one around the trackpad) about a year ago because the thin plastic joint below the mouse button broke and because of too many scratches on the surface.

Liquid in the machine: it happened to me with Water, sparkling and not sparkling, coffee (that was a hard one, had to detach the entire machine, "wash it" with window cleaner spray and only then "dry" it), CocaCola (same routine as with the coffee though it was trickier because I drink my coffee without sugar, whereas Coke is practically liquid sugar with color) and Milk. I guess the most dangerous of all was the Coke incident (my assistant tosses a can of coke and it spilled all over his Dell and my Mac, BTW the Dell died whereas my Mac is still alive as I am writing on it right now), I had read a lot about it's corrosive abilities and was worried about not beeing in time before it destroyed other things.

To finish: I think Apple never ever built a PB as good a the Pismo again; some rumours say the next PB generation is supposed to be pretty similar to it. It better is: the best decision I made a year ago was to upgrade it to a G4. It was worth everyone of the 350$: today I am running Tiger and the machine is even faster as it was with Panther 10.3.9.

Good luck!