What are the chances its the motherboard

[Rosco]

Got a laptop in today. Clients toddler spilled liquid on it(pretty sure he said coffee). He said it turned off right after it happened. Unfortunately they turned it on again. Said it come on for a second than nothing.

My question is what can i do? Do i break it done and clean it out still? There a keys missing so i bet a ton of liquid got in! Any good tips to bring this laptop back?

 

[CLC]

I had a laptop like that recently and all I needed to do was replace the keyboard. It's usually worth taking it apart and looking, you would be surprised how often it doesn't hit the motherboard.

 

[nlinecomputers]

My question is what can i do?

Charge a diagnostic fee. Then you aren't wasting your time to see if the laptop is fixable or not. Most spills kill laptops so unless they want to replace the motherboard and maybe the cpu and memory as well it is unlikely that you can fix it. And the longer you wait the more the sugars and acids in what ever drink was spilled on it can eat away at it.

You are better off finding out if there is data that needs to be recovered and trying to get it off the hard drive.

 

[compnet]

Most spills kill laptops so unless they want to replace the motherboard and maybe the cpu and memory as well it is unlikely that you can fix it.

Probably 70-80% of spills we get are just the keyboard and a full cleanout and they run fine.

It kind of seems like the more expensive the laptop is, the higher the chance the board will be fried.. Most macbooks we get with liquid damge are toast.. Most $300 wal mart specials are just the keyboard.

Coffee spills are the worst. After they sit for a few days the rotting cream and sweet smell is just gross.

edit: oh but I agree, full teardown and diag fee up front before we look at spills.

 

[BillMoney]

attempt to tear down pc charging diag + labor + potential parts or could look into a new pc. How old is the current PC/Would it be worth repairing?

 

[brandonkick]

Charge up front for the tear down and diagnosis, and let the customer know you can't promise anything. Let them know if you can fix it, they will be charged for additional parts and labor.

Tear it down, clean it and test it.

 

[lcoughey]

We see a lot of hard drives from laptop spills. In theory, the spill it self doesn't damage the drive...it is the bumping around after the spill that causes the drive to take some blows that it is not designed to handle.

At the very least, assume that the hard drive will have some media damage and get a full sector-by-sector clone before you try to power on the repaired system.

 

[Rosco]

Thanks for all the great advice.

Here is an update. I always take a deposit no matter what so that wasn't an issue. Did the tear down today. Coffee got all the way to the bottom. Even on the bottom of the dvd drive. The motherboard was fried at least maybe more. To bad he turned it on after that happened. So it turned into a data recovery. He wants it on DVDs fun fun.