While there are a variety of highly technical and complex things that can go wrong with your computer, one of the simplest, and yet the most deadly is a liquid spill. Here at South City Computer, we have seen many laptops that have had liquid spilled on them, most commonly liquid-damaged MacBook Pro models.
If you have spilled water or other liquid on your computer, there’s a few things you can do. Most importantly, you should power off the computer. When liquid is spilled into a computer, it can cause short circuits between different live traces on the motherboard. By removing power from the computer, you can prevent this behavior. Power off the computer, remove the charger cord. If you have a computer with a removable battery, take the battery out. If this is a MacBook liquid spill or spill onto an other computer with a non-removable battery, it is even more important to get the PC or Mac to a service technician who can properly take care of it.
If you are comfortable taking apart your Windows computer or Macintosh, you may also want to consider removing the hard drive. Liquid entering the hard drive could mean permanent loss of your data, so the sooner you can get that part dry, the better. Using a different computer, look up the disassembly instructions for the liquid spilled laptop, and carefully remove and dry the hard disk.
While these tips will help you recover from liquid being knocked over onto a computer, the best thing you can do is take the computer to a professional repair shop like South City Computer. We have special tools to read data from the hard drive and recover it, and we can order replacement parts for ones that have been water damaged. If you have a laptop that has been subject to a liquid spill open a support ticket online or visit us.