Coffee + Laptop = :(

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Mavix

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Okay so today I was slaving happily away in the office when I cleverly managed to bump my coffee over and onto my laptop... Luckily the lappie still work, but not without certain side effects:
Some of the keys, such as the spacebar for one, have become sticky underneath somewhere, and the bottom set of mouse buttons don't seem to be working anymore. I don't care about the mouse buttons, but is there anything I can do about the sticky keys?
 
Remove the keyboard and clean underneath. Its a pain to do but possible. Go to your manufacturers website, there should be a very detailed manual available to help you take it all apart.
 
Archer said:
Remove the keyboard and clean underneath. Its a pain to do but possible. Go to your manufacturers website, there should be a very detailed manual available to help you take it all apart.
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The problem is that it's a work laptop, so I'm a bit scared of opening it incase I break something...
 
LOL! Maybe a new keyboard will be the easiest and cheapest solution. At the same time of removing the keyboard (don't do this if you don't know how to), you can see if any coffee managed to get under the keyboard coz you don't want it settling into your mainboard, etc. Best switch it off, strip it down and make sure everything is DRY
 
Then power it down, remove the battery, and pour some water in, let it dry and hope that solves it. Seriously, your best chance is to pull it all apart
 
Archer said:
Then power it down, remove the battery, and pour some water in, let it dry and hope that solves it. Seriously, your best chance is to pull it all apart
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I think that will just make things worse by dissolving some of the sugar, coffee etc and then going even further into the laptop.
Hard drives also don't like getting wet even with the power off
 
Mavix said:
The problem is that it's a work laptop, so I'm a bit scared of opening it incase I break something...
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work laptop, work coffee, work time.... sounds like 'injury during working hours' so tell them to fix it, if you had proper coffee break you wont need to drink it while slaving away :)
 
I spilt a BIG glass of water in a mildly hungover state over my laptop keyboard last year... Immediately started taking it apart. Luckily no water got past the keyboard membrane but the touchpad connections got fried as they run over the membrane... Cut long story short I had to peel away about four different membrane layers of the keyboard to dry out the bits in between and then creatively had to glue it back together! Most frustrating part was reconnecting all the keys as they had these tiny little hinges, lost a left shift key cos of that! Laptop still working great today.

I am sure your work is covered against accidental damage, report it now rather than let all that lovely sugar and water corrode it slowly over time...
 
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I have had reasonable success with washing PC motherboards with water and then leaving them to dry.. just don't take the wife / gf hairdryer to it - too much heat
 
Mavix said:
Out of interest, how much do those go for?
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Not cheap but the best built laptops in existence.

Let's Note is Business and semi-rugged while "Toughbook" is military grade tough for use on oil rigs, in Iraq, in Afghanistan - and the marines use them there.
See www.conics.net

Sorry - Conics only do Let's Note Toughbooks but they are spill proof too. The F8 and 14 inch models are 75cm drop height, shock mounted SSD/HDD, spill proof, 100kg+ on lid. Weight very little - Mg alloy.
 
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