What damage did tea spillage do to my laptop?

March 20, 2009 4:25 PM

I recently spilled green tea (no milk or sugar) around my Acer Aspire 5920 laptop. The machine now makes strange noises. What damage did I do? [more inside]

The tea went into the upper left quarter of the machine (looking down from above), mainly through the ventilation holes. I drained the liquid, let it dry out, and the machine seems to work ok. However, it occasionally makes strange noises, especially on start up. It's a fizz-popping noise, in short bursts, a bit like static. It sounds as if it's coming from a loudspeaker. Does anyone know the machine well enough to diagnose the fault, and tell me please (a) if it's serious and (b) how to fix it?

I've found the service manual for this model here

Thanks!

posted by kitfreeman to computers & internet (5 comments total)

How long did you let it dry out for? Anything less than a few days probably means not long enough.
posted by zerokey at 4:50 PM on March 20

I let it dry overnight. Perhaps not long enough, though it works fine apart from the noise. Of course, the noise may be a symptom of something more serious.
posted by kitfreeman at 5:06 PM on March 20

Are you comfortable disassembling your laptop? I spilled ~16 oz of tea into a laptop I had and was able to take it apart completely to dry before reassembling it and now I only need to replace a few known bad components. If you only left it overnight and didn't at a minimum remove the hard disks, RAM, and optical drive it probably isn't dry yet. That said, it's entirely possible something is permanently damaged but best to strike out the still-wet option before spending money on a repair.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 8:17 PM on March 20

Thanks for your advice. I should have explained that this happened several weeks ago. Could there still be water in there? I guess I could dismantle it if necessary. Which bits would be the important ones to check? (It was only the top left quarter of the machine that got wet.) As I said, it's been working fine since the accident, so I'm a bit reluctant to risk making things worse, but the noise bothers me. I just wish I knew what it was!
posted by kitfreeman at 5:07 AM on March 21

You probably still have water in your laptop. Pull the battery and let the laptop dry for a few days. You might even prop it up so the vent holes are down, giving the water a place to drain out.

Water in a running computer can cause delicate circuits to short out.
posted by zippy at 6:33 PM on March 21