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Water damage??

N

npolly0212

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 21, 2015
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Hey all, a good friend of mine here at school that I study with all the time recently had a cup of juice next to his mac and spilled it onto his MacBook pro. Being a computer science major we use our MacBooks all day everyday for school.

I was wondering if anyone has any tips for trying to fix it? Had him turn it off immediately, and he is bringing it to my house (gonna take the bottom off and try to take out the battery and whatnot to make sure all is dry and if not try drying it the best I can).

Pretty urgent to get this fixed as we have our exams coming up and don't want to turn it back on and it still be wet and damage it more.
 
Have Apple fix it if it's that important. Pretty sure they can quote you a flat rate repair which will leave any applicable warranty coverage intact afterwards. Why waste time trying to DIY? You said it yourself ... you have exams coming up and it's "pretty urgent" to get a system that you use all day, everyday, back up and running.

The most valuable piece of advice I can give is that next time, at a minimum, put your drinks inside a travel mug.
 
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Unfortunately, the "flat-rate" repair is for failures that would be covered under warranty, but the system is out of warranty.
Accidental/liquid damage would not qualify for that.
Repairs will be expensive.
Most juice, because it would have loads of sugars and other not-electronics-friendly ingredients, would be especially damaging.
Best thing you can do is disassemble as far as possible, let it dry out. Scrub down boards with isopropyl alcohol, if possible.
Let it dry out, opened up, for at least 48 hours, without powering on.
(don't get pulled in by the rice myth :D )
 
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duervo said:
Have Apple fix it if it's that important. Pretty sure they can quote you a flat rate repair which will leave any applicable warranty coverage intact afterwards. Why waste time trying to DIY? You said it yourself ... you have exams coming up and it's "pretty urgent" to get a system that you use all day, everyday, back up and running.

The most valuable piece of advice I can give is that next time, at a minimum, put your drinks inside a travel mug.
Click to expand...
I appreciate it...The exam happens to be friday though sadly and there is no apple store within like 2 hours of us and don't have money to fix it. so gonna try to fix dry it and see if it works.
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DeltaMac said:
Unfortunately, the "flat-rate" repair is for failures that would be covered under warranty, but the system is out of warranty.
Accidental/liquid damage would not qualify for that.
Repairs will be expensive.
Most juice, because it would have loads of sugars and other not-electronics-friendly ingredients, would be especially damaging.
Best thing you can do is disassemble as far as possible, let it dry out. Scrub down boards with isopropyl alcohol, if possible.
Let it dry out, opened up, for at least 48 hours, without powering on.
(don't get pulled in by the rice myth :D )
Click to expand...
He is scared to get into taking it apart just in case something happens that he has to take it to Apple if it can't work. I told him it'd be best to take apart honestly
 
Sometimes the liquid does not penetrate to the worst areas.
I do wish you luck, then.

I absolutely agree that opening up the case, then removing anything that is reasonable to remove is worth the risk.
Keep in mind that the quicker you can dry things out, the less likelihood of damage. Take care, take your time.
I think it is all worth the risk when you are trying to save the logic board.
And, you can probably see the extent of liquid when you open it up. And, that, in turn, will help you determine where best to concentrate your cleaning efforts (that's where the IsoAlcohol comes in!)
 
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DeltaMac said:
Sometimes the liquid does not penetrate to the worst areas.
I do wish you luck, then.

I absolutely agree that opening up the case, then removing anything that is reasonable to remove is worth the risk.
Keep in mind that the quicker you can dry things out, the less likelihood of damage. Take care, take your time.
I think it is all worth the risk when you are trying to save the logic board.
And, you can probably see the extent of liquid when you open it up. And, that, in turn, will help you determine where best to concentrate your cleaning efforts (that's where the IsoAlcohol comes in!)
Click to expand...
I appreciate it. everything was mainly right on the bottom so once opened up and flipped upside down it was mainly the whole top area there, so we dried it all off.
He is gonna try just setting a fan on it (he is aware he most likely might have to buy a new MacBook and is set to do so if happens)
 
I have done this now with two liquid damaged Mac’s and I have been able to revive both of them.

That being said, if the motherboard itself got shorted out during the initial spill, then nothing you do will fix this short of (no pun intended) replacing the board itself.

Anyway, what I did:

I stripped down the whole Mac(s) following guides on ifixit.com. Every piece that I removed I scrubbed down with a soft toothbrush soaked in 99 % isopropyl alcohol (100 % is harder to find). I took it right down to nothing and then put everything back together. With one system I had to do this twice, but fortunately both systems were revived. I think a little luck was also involved.

This might seem a little daunting, but as DeltaMac has stated, take your time and be very careful and you just might be able to revive the system.

If you are in any doubt during the tear down, take pictures of everything (do it anyway). Keep all of your parts segregated during the whole tear down, I put each set of parts on a separate piece of paper and labelled what step it was from and what the part was. If you do decide to do this make sure that you purchase the correct tools for the job (also available from ifixit).

I hope this helps and of course all the best of luck to you.
 
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prisstratton said:
I have done this now with two liquid damaged Mac’s and I have been able to revive both of them.

That being said, if the motherboard itself got shorted out during the initial spill, then nothing you do will fix this short of (no pun intended) replacing the board itself.

Anyway, what I did:

I stripped down the whole Mac(s) following guides on ifixit.com. Every piece that I removed I scrubbed down with a soft toothbrush soaked in 99 % isopropyl alcohol (100 % is harder to find). I took it right down to nothing and then put everything back together. With one system I had to do this twice, but fortunately both systems were revived. I think a little luck was also involved.

This might seem a little daunting, but as DeltaMac has stated, take your time and be very careful and you just might be able to revive the system.

If you are in any doubt during the tear down, take pictures of everything (do it anyway). Keep all of your parts segregated during the whole tear down, I put each set of parts on a separate piece of paper and labelled what step it was from and what the part was. If you do decide to do this make sure that you purchase the correct tools for the job (also available from ifixit).

I hope this helps and of course all the best of luck to you.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for the response. Myself has never torn down a computer before in my life and I honestly don't know the different components. All I can tell you is its the 2015 MacBook Pro - and everything on the bottom side was wet (which I assume he is screwed).

For some reason the idiot turned it off immediately and some odd reason attempted to turn it back on and said he smelt like something was smoking, and the screen went all black then he shut it back off. At this point I think its a goner
 
npolly0212 said:
For some reason the idiot turned it off immediately and some odd reason attempted to turn it back on and said he smelt like something was smoking, and the screen went all black then he shut it back off. At this point I think its a goner
Click to expand...

If it wasn't toast before he turned it on, it's toast now. Forget taking it apart if it shorted out and he smelled a burning odor. Tell him to save up for a new machine. He may be able to sell that one on eBay for parts.
 
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chscag said:
If it wasn't toast before he turned it on, it's toast now. Forget taking it apart if it shorted out and he smelled a burning odor. Tell him to save up for a new machine. He may be able to sell that one on eBay for parts.
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Yeah he didnt inform me of this until right before he left lol. I could have told him that.
I told him to sell on eBay for parts then buy a new one

Think he could still get stuff off of the hard drive?
 
prisstratton said:
It is very easy to pull data off the old hard drive. You need to find an external "caddy" that can hold the drive and then plug it in via USB and you should then be able to browse the drive.
Click to expand...
I am an idiot and forgot I purchased one of these last school year when my hard drive crashed. Your post actually reminded me of it! lol.
Thank you
 
After a couple days he tried to turn it back on earlier
Can hear the sound that normally is made when started up, but nothing will happen for the screen

Anyone know a good price to sell it for parts?
 
Depends how old it is and what spec it is, but if recent and base spec, then I would say around the $400-$500 range. The case parts themselves can go for over $100 each. Screw set is over $50 on iFixit.

In fact, I would just go on iFixit and add up the cost of all the parts, and then knock 50-60% (maybe more) off the total, to factor in their markup, and sell it for that. I would also not include the cost of thing that were damaged in that total. So, if LB is damaged (likely), then don't add in the cost of the LB from iFixit. Battery as well, as that's a consumable (but consumables are more a personal preference thing. I wouldn't try to make money off of a used consumable in a liquid damaged system, but that's me.)
 
duervo said:
Depends how old it is and what spec it is, but if recent and base spec, then I would say around the $400-$500 range. The case parts themselves can go for over $100 each. Screw set is over $50 on iFixit.

In fact, I would just go on iFixit and add up the cost of all the parts, and then knock 50-60% (maybe more) off the total, to factor in their markup, and sell it for that.
Click to expand...

It is the 2015 MacBook Pro - base model with an upgraded Hard drive

But that's what I figured to do. Want to sell it as one piece just to make life easier lol
 
If you are getting that type of response from the system (boot up sound, then please STOP trying to turn it on), there is something still "alive" and you can fix this (maybe, hopefully, all fingers crossed). Do not give up on this and give it up for parts.
 
tubeexperience said:
So you are not considering component repairs?
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It is not my laptop. He doesn't have the money to afford having it repaired is the problem
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prisstratton said:
If you are getting that type of response from the system (boot up sound, then please STOP trying to turn it on), there is something still "alive" and you can fix this (maybe, hopefully, all fingers crossed). Do not give up on this and give it up for parts.
Click to expand...
I will let him know that. The way he was saying the juice spilled in was through the back where it looked like the wires ran right up to the screen, and nothing will show up when started and plugged in through hdmi port to anything else external
 
Tell him to claim on home insurance, they will fix or replace, if they replace then the sale for parts is a bonus.....
 
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Hey all, He decided to just go purchase a new MacBook, and asked me to sell his damaged one.
Now the thing is, he took out the 256 gb flash storage to keep as a backup storage drive.
Any idea how much this should sell for/around without a HD?
 
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