Water on Keyboard - Any Suggestions?

[sword]

I am that foolish person who was drinking from a bottle of water while using my macbook pro. I managed to spill some water on the laptop's keyboard and it seems that some of the water has managed to get into the rest of the keyboard and has made most of my keys either unresponsive or stuck.

As it stands right now, this is all of the alphabet that I am able to type with it:

acnopqrstwxz

When I spilled the water, my mbp was running on battery alone. I wiped up the water and there were no problems at first, so I just put it into sleep mode. I've wiped up water spills before with no problems whatsoever. This time, however, two keys stopped working when I took the laptop out of sleep mode about five minutes later. Then five. Then more.

I took out the battery, had no external power connected, turned the laptop upside down, laid the keyboard upon a cloth towel, and let it sit overnight. This afternoon I took the top of the case off and dried the keyboard and top of the case with a hair dryer for about an hour, then let it sit for two more. The keys still don't work.

So, after this long winded story, I have a few questions. Would letting this laptop dry for several days make any difference at this point? Would it make more sense to void the warranty and do a keyboard replacement myself or pay apple to do it but keep my warranty for another six months? Finally, aside from keeping drinks out of the area of the notebook, is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening again?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Macbook Pro (2006), 15" screen, Core Duo

 

[ayeying]

I guessed I lucked out. I accidently pour a small cup of water on my laptop, soaked the keyboard and the bottom of the casing plus the system was on the entire night after this happened with the water in it.

Surprisingly, all the water within the system evaporated, but there was still a puddle under the casing which didn't do any damage.

This is with the system running all night, didn't turn off/unplug battery, yadada.

At this point, I would take apart the upper casing w/ the keyboard and see if any lingering water is still there.

 

[agentphish]

I'm not sure how long it's been since the spill at this point, but by all means don't use it/turn it on again....

Get a heavy duty thick trash bag.
Get a couple of 1lb bags of white rice.
Empty bags of rice into trash bag.
Open Macbook Pro
Get 2 shoeboxes or something like that which you can have the Pro held up by while open and upside down.

Place into trash bag with rice.
Tie bag off.
Let stand for 48-72 hours.

Rice should absorb any moisture that is in there.

When finished, boil rice and eat so as not to waste.

You may want to look into a replacement though.

Rice typically works wonders with drying equipment with liquid contact provided you catch it early.

Good luck

 

[alphaod]

I'd let it dry for a week before touching it. Also get some desiccant bags.

 

[rolex54]

when i spilled iced tea all over my ibook my keys too stopped working, I was able to dry out the computer back to new, but I ended up having to replace the keyboard, even after taking the ENTIRE thing apart.