You can’t believe it, your prized laptop has just been water damaged. You knew that glass of water was sitting too close to your laptop and when a clumsy move knocked the glass emptying the contents all over your laptop keyboard. Your heart sinks – what will you do now?
You desperately need your laptop and all those precious files saved on it. And to make matters worse you can’t remember the last time you backed it up.
So the unimaginable has happened, but all is not lost. There are some steps you can take to try and recover from watergate, and if you need specialist computer repair help.
When you’ve spilled liquid on your laptop be it tea, coffee or water it may reach the internal working parts via the keyboard.
- We all know electricity and water don’t mix so immediately unplug the AC adaptor from the socket and turn the laptop off by pressing and holding the power button
- Then the next thing to do is turn your laptop upside down and let it drain.
- As best you can, soak up excess liquid, by using a clean lint free cloth or paper towels – paying attention to ports and vents – this is to stop further liquid seeping into crucial parts like the motherboard
- Then pushing the screen back as far as you can, sit the laptop upside down on an absorbent clean towel or cloth. Gravity is your best friend to helping the water or liquid drain out
But before you even attempt to turn your laptop back on you must leave it upside down to dry for at least 24 hours (some people recommend even 48 hours).
That way you make sure the laptop in question is bone dry before introducing electricity to the equation.
If you’ve just spilt water on the laptop you’ve a good chance of letting it dry out completely on its own without professional help.
But if the liquid spilled was a sugary drink, tea or coffee we recommend you contact a qualified service (like our on call IT Super Hero’s) before you try and restart the device as more extensive cleaning will be needed first as they leave behind a residue that can be harmful to the electrics.
