[plug] Fluid damage to Laptop

[Jason Nicholls]

On Mon, Sep 11, 2006 at 02:36:01PM +0800, Daniel Foote wrote:
> >> I have a mate with a PowerBook who wanted to clean the keys on the
> >> keyboard. He removed all the key tops, washed them, and laid them out
> >> to dry. After deciding that they were taking too long to dry, he used
> >> a hair dryer on them.
> >
> >Why, what happened? Did they warp out of shape?
> 
> Sorry, I should have been more explicit: the keys were destroyed. They
> were out of shape and melted and would not go back onto the keyboard.
> He ended up buying a whole new set of keytops for the laptop.

I can second this, the keys on laptops are quite thin plastic of
non-uniform thickness. As a result when heated up then tend to warp when
cooling down. I found this out after putting my laptop in the oven vs
using a hairdryer though (because I didn't have one).

In general I'd recommend keeing your laptop out of the oven ;) Best way
to deal with spills is pull the thing apart and ensure everything is
dried out using paper towel. I found the mini-pci slot, other
connecting pins, and tight places tend to attract water and it
won't air-dry very quickly. After a bit of shaking and a good toweling then
having it open to an AC vent will ensure it's really dry nice and quick
too.

Despite spilling a full glass of water in there and the initial delays
with the oven and other methods, it only took a few hours for the laptop
to be up and running again (with slightly warpy keys :) ).

Jason.