Water damaged Macbook Air turned on, how long to dry?

[Stingray454]

The most important thing is DO NOT TURN IT ON. Leave it off, and set it to dry - either with rice as people have suggested, or just on a hot ventilated place, I would say for at least 2-3 days before even trying to turn it on.

If you spilled only water there is a good chance it will work (if you didn't try to turn it on directly after the spill, then the chance is much lower). If it's soda, the sugar in the drink will form a sticky goo when it dries and can cause some troubles. I actually did this myself (with beer) on an old Macbook Pro, and the result was that about 5 keys on my keyboard stopped working, although otherwise it was fine.

 

[doktordoris]

Hmm. You may not have killed your mac, but i wouldn't be too sure. seal it in a bag with rice and leave it for a week or two, ensure that the bag is perfectly sealed or the rice will just pull moisture from the atmosphere. You said you filled your mac with pure water that is a good thing as usually it is the sticky goo sugar leaves which kills electronic devices. So make sure your MBA is off, not just asleep, leave it in a sealed bag of rice for a week or two, and pray. If that fails just take it to a store and buy a new motherboard.
Oh and in future keep your mac and drinks on separate tables. ;-)

hope it turns out okay for you.

 

[fruitycups]

Wirelessly posted

Happened to me once dry it for ar least a day. U have to be safe

 

[3dflyboy1]

You might want to try putting it in a ziplock bag with those silicon packet thingies. My 1st gen iPad got soaked with water (literally, I had water pouring out the earphone jack) so I put it in a sealed bag with a bunch of silicon packets for about 3 weeks. It worked fine, except for the speaker.

Now I keep as many of those packets around as possible, as they are much more absorbent than rice.

 

[Jonaldo]

hairdryer did it for me - twice!

In the last year, I have twice knocked a glass of water over my MBA keyboard. On both occasions, the MBA 'went dead'.

On both occasions, I wiped off excess water, and then got to work with a hairdryer over the keyboard. Not too hot, but certainly warm enough to accelerate the drying process.

In both cases, normal service was resumed within about 15 minutes.

Just thought this may be worth a shot for other people, particularly where the fluid was nothing more innocuous than some water.

 

[Ian.C]

Hi

Any liquid spill you need to take the back off and strip it and look closely at the motherboard and look for any signs of liquid residue.

You can use an alcohol based cleaner, this evaporates quickly and removes any corrosion that might be occurring that's only if you can see signs of water being there in the first place. It's really easy to take apart just follow ifixit's manual

If you are not comfortable in taking it apart ask someone to do it for you. It will be worth it in the long run.

Once you have taken the back off check the water sensors they are little white dots that turn red when water passes over them. This is how apple will know if you take it into them.

Google your MacBook Air liquid sensors on Google and an image should come up and show you where to look.

Good luck, fingers crossed if it's booting it should be ok once checked and cleaned if needed.

Thanks
Ian