Wet laptops

Laptops get all kinds of things spilt on them and they come in regularly. I recommend the following to give the laptop of fighting chance to survive a dunking or a spill. First is disconnect power and get the machine stopped as soon as possible. Don't worry about saving anything, hold down the power button until the laptop turns off. The next thing to do is to flip the laptop over, remove the battery and sit the computer upside down but open. The laptop will look like an A. This lets the fluid drain away from the motherboard.

When the laptop arrives I then take off everything I can from the bottom (RAM, Battery, HDD and DVD drive. I then remove the appropriate screws from the bottom and take off the top strip and the keyboard.

You can usually see the motherboard at this stage. I then hit the laptop with a hair dryer. I still leave the laptop for a day after this to make sure that all of the laptop is dry.

If the laptop has had coke or a sugary drink spilt on it, I usually then strip the laptop right down as coke will corrode the laptop. I then wipe the motherboard down with alcohol to remove all signs of cola and then again dry the laptop thoroughly. I usually can see at this stage if anything has blown and would need replacing.