StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Had one of those moments this morning.

Bumped a glass of orange juice. It sloshes a bit, but doesn't fall. Sadly, one of the sloshes decides to launch a truly obscenely sized glob of juice above the rim, travel ~6" in the most inappropriate direction and lands smack on the keyboard. As it hits it splashes a little and immediately seeps in.

This is the first thing - ANY other direction but where it went and it either hits bare table, a pile of bills awaiting payment or some junk mail. But no, it goes in the 20 degree arc that contains money.

So, immediately I pull the mains cord, hold the shutdown button until it powers down. I flip it to pull the battery to try and prevent any shorting that hasn't already occurred and see lights flickering on and off all over it as connections are made and broken randomly.

So now I have a laptop at home, disconnected and drying out following this incident. And the problem is that repairing it and replacing and damaged components (possibly CPU and MB and almost certainly RAM) will cost more than merely replacing it under insurance.

So hurrah. 2 months after my desktop PC dies in a HDD failure I stuff up my wife's laptop. Brilliant.

And this comes just four days after losing my wedding ring while swimming with her. Lets just say that currently, I am feeling the suck at epic levels.

Depending on the model you may have only lost the keyboard - possible not even that.
Most laptop keyboards have the keys on a sort of tray, so it's possible that that is as far as the nasty liquid went.

I know mine has survived such spills without a problem, there's a rubber membrane beneath the keyboard section that keeps it isolated from the real innards of the laptop, just a splash shouldnt do too much damage, your keyboard may end up "University Computer Lab Gross" but with a bit of luck that should be the limit of your problems.

This actually brings up something I've been wondering for awhile; with a standard stand-alone keyboard I know it's possible to take it apart and actually clean the membrane separately if need be, or clean all the individual keys, then put it back together. Can you do that kind of thing with a laptop keyboard as well, or would taking off keys void the warranty?

Molyneux wrote:This actually brings up something I've been wondering for awhile; with a standard stand-alone keyboard I know it's possible to take it apart and actually clean the membrane separately if need be, or clean all the individual keys, then put it back together. Can you do that kind of thing with a laptop keyboard as well, or would taking off keys void the warranty?

Taking.... off keys.... Void warranty....


Do they come out when you get something under them and pry them up? Assuming a laptop keyboard isn't some magical, strange beast that's different from a standard PC keyboard, they should just pop right out.

And there's absolutely NO way that they could ever figure that you did so. Voiding warranty for taking out the keys... pfft. They have you scared out of your mind, don't they?

Laptop keyboards are usually contructed differently than desktop keyboards, in that they use a scissor style switch instead of the membrane that most desktop keyboards use. The keycaps still pop off, but it's much more of a pain to get them back on, and it still doesn't really clear out the keyboard.

You should actually be able to disassemble the laptop enough to remove the keyboard, and see if anything else has OJ on it. If not, then just order a new keyboard. Not cheap, but not really expensive either. Certainly less than a new computer.

KlavoHunter wrote:

Molyneux wrote:This actually brings up something I've been wondering for awhile; with a standard stand-alone keyboard I know it's possible to take it apart and actually clean the membrane separately if need be, or clean all the individual keys, then put it back together. Can you do that kind of thing with a laptop keyboard as well, or would taking off keys void the warranty?

Taking.... off keys.... Void warranty....


Do they come out when you get something under them and pry them up? Assuming a laptop keyboard isn't some magical, strange beast that's different from a standard PC keyboard, they should just pop right out.

And there's absolutely NO way that they could ever figure that you did so. Voiding warranty for taking out the keys... pfft. They have you scared out of your mind, don't they?

Nah, I just figure "better safe than sorry", since the keyboard is actually an integral part of the computer. And especially since I'm stuck to just a laptop since I accidentally screwed up my desktop trying to switch the boot drive for a new, bigger one...

KlavoHunter wrote: Taking.... off keys.... Void warranty....


Do they come out when you get something under them and pry them up? Assuming a laptop keyboard isn't some magical, strange beast that's different from a standard PC keyboard, they should just pop right out.

And there's absolutely NO way that they could ever figure that you did so. Voiding warranty for taking out the keys... pfft. They have you scared out of your mind, don't they?

Prying off a laptop keycap by force is almost certain to break the clip that holds it on, because they're small and fiddly. Which, yes, will void the warranty good and proper. And good luck getting them back on again even if the clip doesn't break, because as mentioned, small and fiddly...

The fact that it kept trying to power up on its own - getting to the bios screen and shutting down again, and when it wasn't doing that, the DVD drive was randomly connecting and spinning up while it as well as all manner of other oddness tells me that it was probably more than just they keyboard that got damaged.

If it makes you feel better; at work today someone knocked over their steaming hot completely full cup of hot chocolate and poured the entire thing out onto a brand new MacBook.

Then, instead of calling Desktop Support (me), they tried to see if they could dry it out first; of course, they never pulled the battery, so by the time they finally called us and we disassembled the machine there were visibly fried circuits on the motherboard and RAM.


It does exactly what you describe; makes the Mac "bonnnng" (about the equivalent of a Windows PC's BIOS screen), screen flashes on, then off, then it turns back on again in an unlimited cycle. Sigh.