Tea removal from laptop?

June 20, 2006 9:54 AM

Is there hope for my tea-stained laptop screen [detailed pics inside]?

My bad luck with computers is ledgendary [let's not go into how my 400GB external HD just died on me, or the time I ran disk cleanup only for my PC to die dramatically], but I'm 100% at fault on this one: I accidently spilt tea onto my laptop [the keyboard part].

I immediately turned the lappy upside down onto my duvet and let it drain for around 30 minutes. Since it was still on, I turned it right ways up and noticed tea had soaked into the screen.

The lappy works just fine [thank Dog!], but as you can see from the pics there's a "tea tide mark" that swoops around the middle to left of the screen. Also when the screen is black, there's an uber noticeable pale spot in the bottom right corner.

Pics:



Is there anything I can do, or am I stuck with it? And yes, I learnt my lesson - keep liquids AWAY from laptops.

posted by Chorus to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

If the liquid is behind the screen then you are out of luck AFAIK. Something similar happened to another student when I was taking my computer courses and she had to buy a broken model of her laptop from ebay and swap the good screen for her liquid damaged. Her damage was way more sever than yours though. The good news is that you have a Dell...so there are likely thousands of your exact model out there and broken somehow but with good screens.
posted by ChazB at 10:10 AM on June 20, 2006

Back when this happened to me, some of the water from the spill infiltrated my screen. There was a splotchy cloudlike effect on the screen with light and dark patches; eventually it cleared up when the water dried out. Depending upon the strength of the brew, maybe your tea stains will disappear with time as well...
I feel your pain and I'm crossing my fingers for you.
posted by Dr. Zira at 10:43 AM on June 20, 2006

Response by poster: I'm the kind of person who leaves the teabag in the mug until it's all drunk - so what spilled iss probably the beverage equivalent of tar...

Thanks for the help though guys, looks like I just got to ride this one out.
posted by Chorus at 10:51 AM on June 20, 2006

You don't say but I'm assuming you've tried cleaning the screen? A touch of glass cleaner on a lint free cloth may be required to remove dried residue.

I'll second the others that with use the white splotch may go away, I've seen it happen several times.
posted by Mitheral at 2:25 PM on June 20, 2006

A touch of glass cleaner on a lint free cloth may be required to remove dried residue.

This is probably a bad idea (or a very last resort). Ammonia-based cleaners, AFAIK, etch the surface, and are not to be used on LCDs. Try alcohol instead.
posted by Kwantsar at 3:17 PM on June 20, 2006