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What to Do If You Spill Water on Your Laptop

What to Do If You Spill Water on Your Laptop

Water spilled on a laptop can severely damage the electronic or totally disable the device. But you can try to save it if you don’t panic and act quickly and correctly.

5-Minute Crafts decided to find out what you need to do to save your laptop if you spill liquids on it.

What you’ll need

  • A dry cloth
  • A paper napkin
  • A towel

The course of action

1. Turn off your laptop immediately. Unplug the power cord, then press and hold the power button for 5 to 7 seconds. The faster you do this, the more of a chance your device will be saved. Don’t waste time on shutting it down properly. Even a few extra moments can cause a short circuit.

2. Remove the battery only if you can simply disconnect it. If you need to unscrew the back panel, then it’s better not to waste time on this.

3. Remove all USB drives and anything else connected to the laptop. It’s important to make sure that the device is not receiving power or generating it for external sources.

If the laptop starts getting very hot or begins smoking or sparking, or you notice anything else that doesn’t correspond to the normal state of the computer, don’t touch it, especially with wet hands or if you’re wearing wet clothes.

4. Use a dry cloth to blot any liquid from the laptop’s surface, near the keyboard, or any openings or ports.

5. Turn the electronic device upside down and let the water drain. Put a towel or napkin under the laptop.

6. Leave the laptop in this position for 24 hours to let any liquid that has gotten inside evaporate. If for some reason you can’t wait that long, leave it for at least 4 hours.

7. Don’t dry a wet laptop in rice. An open space is a better option for this.

8. After some time, you can try to turn on the device. If there was no severe damage, the laptop should start working.

9. Take your laptop to a repair shop. After the liquid evaporates, it leaves electrically conductive particles where there shouldn’t be. In the future, this can lead to corrosion damage, especially if it was not water that was spilled, but something else. The technician will clean all contaminated elements using special methods.

10. If the battery came in contact with liquid, you’ll have to buy a new battery, as the old one can be damaged, and this makes using the laptop unsafe.

11. If anything happens to your device, don’t forget to consult a professional.

Why it’s important to act quickly if you spill liquid on the laptop

An ordinary keyboard is a separate part of a personal computer and is not directly connected to its internal elements. Additionally, replacing an external damaged keyboard is much easier than replacing the entire device.

With a laptop, things are different. Apart from the keys, its keyboard contains many other components that can be damaged by any spilled liquid. For example, speakers, a trackpad, or anything else that gets wet runs the risk of failure. Also, water can seep through the keyboard deeper into the device and damage important laptop elements.

Preview photo credit darkhriss / Depositphotos
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