(Vanity) Help with drenched Dell computer

none | 10/31/2009 | self

[Bob]

Last week, my Dell Inspiron laptop ingested a cup of coffee (with cream and sugar, of course) and I would appreciate any suggestions.

At this point, while it does shut down frequently and sporadically during the boot process, it has gotten as far as the Vista login screen. (Many of the keys aren't responding so I can't log in.)

Since so much of it is working, my thought is that a good internal cleaning to remove the coffee/cream/sugar gunk would be a good next step.

Can anyone offer any guidance on disassembling this computer and how to best clean it up? Might I be better off just finding a professional to work on it?

[puppypusher]

I would take out the battery,Make sure the system is off,then rinse the system out with demineralised water.Then use a hair dryer to dry it out.

Thats the only way I know to clean up after an accident like that.Using anything else might gum things up and make things sticky.

Make sure that system is thoughly dry before you reinstall that battery though.You don’t want a short circuit caused by excess water.

[joedel]

If you have any technical expertise at all (phillips head screwdriver), you could save quite a few bucks by replacing the keyboard yourself. Sounds like some keys are shorted.
You can probably find a replacement kb on ebay.

My son spilled fruit punch onto his dell laptop keyboard last year. Got a replacement keyboard and installed it in less than 10 minutes. Four screws and a ribbon cable is all it took.

Dell will fix it for you, but it will cost you both time and money. I think it’s worth trying to replace it yourself.

[Paladin2]

"Get the hard disk out of the computer and copied as soon as possible"

Pure wisdom.

[Viking2002]

About ten years ago, I had a company employee ship me their laptop from London. Seems they were reclined in a chaise next to the hotel pool, and said laptop ended up in the 3' end. When I got it, the damn thing still had water dripping out of it. Only one solution, and you may be able to stave off corrosion if it hasn't started already: strip it down to the last sub-component, and lay it all out on something absorbent for several days. And I mean everything, right down to the last screw: remove the processor from the mobo, lay the keyboard face-down to let the moisture leach away from the key contacts, remove the display bezel, LCD matrix, power inverter,the whole shebang. Don't allow two parts to stay attached, and that also means removing the mobo and speakers from the lower shell.

If - if - you're lucky, you may just save yourself the cost of a new laptop.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

If it’s under warranty, then please disregard the following suggestions:

However if you’re mechanically/electronically inclined at all, most inspiron dells have a 2.5 hard drive which is pretty easy to remove. The drive connector will either be IDE or SATA. The IDE drives have pins, the SATA has a solid connector with contacts rather than pins.

Figure out which your drive is, by looking at the connector. If it’s got a bunch of small pins sticking out the end - it’s IDE. If it’s got the connector with a number of metal contacts along the side, then it’s SATA.

Stop by a good electronics store - Fry’s if you have one around where you are, or something similar. One of the big shops with lots of geek parts. Pick up a USB/IDE/SATA adapter.

Something like this:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10929836

You can then access the data on your drive from another PC or notebook and save the most important data...

Once you’re got your crucial data saved, then you can just have fun with the recovery efforts. Then it will become play, rather than stress.

Good way to learn about your computer. :)

[GloriaJane]

My first laptop and my dell pc went through our fire back in 2007. Both were soppy wet from the firemen’s hoses putting out the fire. And I mean soppy. I picked up my laptop and water poured out of it everywhere.

The people at ServePro, the professionals who clean water damaged items, told me to leave them alone. Give them time to dry out. Don’t even try to fire them up for about a month.

I did what they told me to do. But also bought a new laptop and pc because I couldn’t stand being without that long.

But anyway, after a month both computers were good as they were before the fire and I gave them to my son.

[grame]

my son says put it in the dishwasher. I did this with a glass of iced tea once and whenever I hit the ‘p’ key it would jump from where I was typing back up to the beginning of the paragraph. People, myself, included were having laughing fits trying to read my emails. I would try to insert ‘the letter that comes before o’ in place of the letter p but invariably I would forget. It was hilarious, but way way too aggravating.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Haven't read down thread to see if anyone gave you the right answer...so here goes.

Go online and Google "Dell Inspiron Service manual".

You will find a page with instructions for disassembly
Remove the keyboard first per the instructions. This will expose all the bits that may have been affected. I would then suggest buying a new keyboard.
DO NOT try to remove keys from your coffeed one, in order to clean beneath them. If you do, you will likely never get them back on because the process for doing so will make you wind up hating life. Yes, it's that bad/hard.
In fact, you may find that the coffee spill was limited to the keyboard, as it is essentially a tray type of arrangement.
Really...replace the keyboard. Check on eBay. You should be able to find one cheap.

[Bob]

Update: I was able to remove the keyboard and clean out the inside of the computer. The keyboard is still screwed but the sporadic shutdowns have stopped happening. I'm looking around for a replacement keyboard and expect that, once I've replaced it, I'll be back in business.

I found one item that wasn't mentioned in any of the disassembly tutorials that I read -- Inside the battery compartment, there are two philips head screws labeled "M2x3L". These screws hold down the hinge cover across the top of the computer. Once those screws have been removed, the hinge cover comes off fairly easily. When reassembling, the screws won't "catch" unless the hinge cover is in the proper position. If it's the least bit raised, the screws won't engage.

Thanks to you all for the suggestions posted on this thread.

[Bob]

I’ve found a replacement keyboard at Dell for about $44 and several on ebay for anywhere from $12 to $20. Looks like I’m about to be back in business with my Dell. Thanks again for all the help.

[Bob]

I’ve found a replacement keyboard at Dell for about $44 and several on ebay for anywhere from $12 to $20. Looks like I’m about to be back in business with my Dell. Thanks again for all the help.

[Bob]

While it's been quite a while, I'm pleased to report that I've finally gotten my Dell working again. Replacing the keyboard followed by a thorough cleaning did the trick.

I was stuck for a while over heatsink compound (I thought that I needed a special thermal pad.) but I finally got some heatsink compound and regreased the CPU.

As if I hadn't had enough problems, when I reassembled it, I somehow didn't get one of the RAM cards seated correctly.

Thanks for all of the helpful suggestions on this thread. I was able to copy the complete assembly/disassembly documentation from the Dell site and, once I had that, the task was easier than I would have thought.

Thanks again to all of you here.