Liquid spills are amongst the most damaging issues you can have with any electronic. After all, water (and therefore most other liquids) conduct electricity very well, bridging components together that very much don’t want to be bridged.
Of course, the easiest way to avoid this problem is to simply keep liquids away from our computers, especially laptops that are more easily damaged. Lets face it though, we all grow a little lazy after a while when it comes to keeping liquids at a great distance, myself included, and that glass of water, or can of soda slowly creeps its way closer and closer to our beloved laptop.
You’re in luck, though, as most spill situations are solvable. However, a few initial steps need to happen to lessen the chance of permanent damage:
- Force shut down the computer by holding the power button until it turns off.
- If the system is a laptop, remove the battery so that power no longer can go to the system at all
- Bring the system into a repair shop that is comfortable with liquid spill cleanups.
In most situations, the liquid itself does not cause any damage. However, especially with liquids that have sugars in them like juice or soda, the sugar can crystallize and create corrosion on the system, which can cause conductive bridges between the small components on the boards inside the computer, which can then cause a short, or can burn components when the power is restored.
If the system is properly cleaned before this is able to happen, then you can save your system from what would seem to be certain doom. If you cannot, most of the time the damage to the system board is unrepairable (or at least not within a reasonable budget to repair) and would result in a need to replace a very expensive component. Upon reaching this point, you can have your hard drive removed to recover data, and move into a new system.