This past weekend, I was on the web and doing some writing on my beloved Lenovo ThinkPad X40 sub-notebook, when disaster struck. I had a paper cup full of water sitting next to the computer–too close–and a careless brush from my forearm knocked it over onto my keyboard. I watched in horror as half of the cup of water went down below the keys and into the computer.
This is one of the worst things that can happen to a portable computer–especially today’s diminutive ones where liquid jumps straight down to your motherboard and wiring with nearly no obstructions. You can drop most laptops–and some can even be driven over–and still find them workable, but liquid is a no-no. Here’s what I did.
When the water went down into the computer I quickly turned it over and flattened it out, to encourage any water I could to trickle back out. As I did that, I turned the system off, which you can do fairly instantly on the ThinkPads. Even as I watched the computer turn off, though, I could see a sorrowful mess of flashing going on on the display.
I used a towel to get at all the water I could off the computer, and then I removed the keyboard and went about drying the inside of the computer as best I could, including drying with a hair dryer. Alas, though, after I waited a few hours to even try turning the ThinkPad back on, there was no response.
A friend of mine recently experienced the same thing with a MacBook, and when he took it to a repair place, they wanted $700 just to look at it. His MacBook still turned on, but some of the keys didn’t work, so he figured out how to replace the keyboard himself.
In my case, the computer wouldn’t even turn on. So I decided to go one step beyond a cold reboot and actually took the entire system apart, component by component. I removed the hard drive, unplugged everything, and ferreted out any remaining moisture I came across, which wasn’t much. After I replaced each component, and connected everything back together, the ThinkPad turned on like a champ. There have been no further problems, and the little beep the ThinkPad makes when I plug it in currently sounds like great music.
The more years I use computers, the more times I learn that in the vast majority of computing jams, going all the way back to square one–including taking a system completely apart–will eliminate problems. By the way, you can buy spill-resistant keyboard covers for most popular laptops, and Lenovo and other manufacturers have some systems that come with spill-resistant technology. These options are worth considering if you’re going to shell out for a really expensive laptop.
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