Water Spill Late 2008 MB

[regazzoitaliano]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

Hi all,
I had a rather unfortunate acciden yesterday when I spilled about 8 oz. of water on my keyboard. I immediately unplugged it, tipped it to remove the excess water, and dried it thoroughly with a hair dryer. At first the trackpad seemed a little off but that was eventually resolved. The computer worked fine for about half an hour until it started typing randomly and I tried to restart it. It shut down but would not turn back on. I tried again about half an hour later and it turned on, but the keyboard was acting erratic, the trackpad not responsive and the computer restarting often. I shut it down, flipped it and left it for the night, charging it a tad because the battery was dead (stupid, I know) Today the side battery indicator lights turn on and when plugged in the charger light illuminates. I need guidance please! I want my computer back.

 

[talmy]

Sorry, it's probably toast. I found a place that would fix the main board and I had to replace the keyboard (I did that myself) as well. Ended up costing me about $300, which is better than the $1100 (on a $1000 computer) Apple quoted!

Turns out that if you spill water like this (and I was just cleaning my Macbook with a wet rag!) you need to immediately shut it off and pull the battery (I don't know what you can do in the new models which don't have removeable batteries) and let it dry for at least a week before attempting to power it up.

 

[regazzoitaliano]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

Thank you! Where did you find the $300 deal?

 

[iThinkergoiMac]

You've quite possibly fried your logic board. You didn't wait nearly long enough before turning it back on. You say you dried it thoroughly with a hair dryer... did you take the computer completely apart before doing this? If not, you can't possibly have actually dried it all the way with that method.

In order for the computer to air dry, you have to let it sit (with no power, A/C or battery attached!) for days, especially if you're not taking it apart. It really needs to be taken apart and let the individual pieces dry. Unfortunately, by now, it's probably a goner.

Let it dry for about a week. Take it apart if you're confident you can get it back together, otherwise let it sit open with a fan blowing across it. If it still doesn't work, you can try sending it to Macadmia. They fixed my MacBook damaged by a spill (I think it was a sugary drink, got the computer damaged from a coworker). Took them about 2 months or so to fix my computer, but they did fix it. Cost is about $250.

 

[regazzoitaliano]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

Thank you! Where did you find the $300 deal?

 

[regazzoitaliano]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

Whoops sorry for the double post

 

[regazzoitaliano]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

I think I will send it into macadamia asap, I need it for my schoolwork. Thank you so much!

 

[talmy]

I paid $200 for a guy who advertised fixing water damaged mother boards, and bought the keyboard from a parts company. It was out of service for over a month and I had to buy another MacBook to hold me over. My daughter uses it now in college. It's been reliable, but of course it lost its remaining AppleCare coverage, so that loss can be added to the figure. Lost it's serial number so I expect that any resale value is pretty close to nil.

Certainly not one of my finest moments.