iBook Accident

November 4th, 2008, 6:35 pm

I spilled about 1/4-1/2 of a bottle of beer on my iBook. After immediately freaking out a little, I tried to let the beer spill off of my laptop and then dabbed the rest of it off, including taking out the keyboard and dabbing it off underneath. My computer looked like it was frozen, so I turned it off. I cleaned it off more thoroughly and let it sit off for a few minutes. Then I turned it back on. It beeped about three times and immediately went into a kind of "sleep" mode. The white sleep light went on and off, but in a different way than it usually does. After I started reading forums about spilling things on laptops, I turned off the laptop again and sat it upside down on a towel with the keyboard and the battery out of the laptop. I realize now that I shouldn't have tried to turn it on. But what do I do now? Was the beeping and going into sleep mode a bad sign? How long should I wait to try to turn it on? What are the chances that I've majorly messed up my laptop for good? HELP!

[graphixboy]

November 4th, 2008, 7:35 pm

Did you buy apple care? Anyway let it sit open overnight and see if it turns back on. If not Apple's support forms might tell you what the beeps mean.

November 4th, 2008, 7:47 pm

I looked up apple post codes at this link: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1547

According to this, 3 beeps means "no good banks". Your best bet might be to strip it down to bare parts and thoroughly dry each and every single part, even if they don't look wet. Then get some alcohol pads and clean everything real well to get any residue left over from the beer wiped off and let it dry again before you put it together. If that doesn't work, then you might be screwed.

November 5th, 2008, 6:36 pm

No, I don't have Apple Care unfortunately. The computer is almost four years old now and I've already had the hard drive replaced. Honestly, I'm just hoping that it will get through this school year, and that would make me happy enough.

I tried to turn the computer on again after letting it sit overnight, and it started up and made the whirring noise, but there was no start up chime and no beeps. It just came up to a blank gray screen. It sat like that for a minute or two before I gave up and turned it off. I'm letting it sit upside again, hoping to drain any remaining moisture from it. I'm remembering a time when my friend's cell phone didn't work for a week after she was thrown into the pool with it in her pocket, but after that time, it finally dried out enough to go back to functioning. Is it possible that this will be a similar situation or am I screwed? Anyone know what the gray screen and no startup noise would indicate?

[spork]

November 16th, 2008, 10:24 pm

Since you don't have AppleCare and the warranty is up, your best bet is to go with kc's advice above. The problem with spilling liquids such as soda or beer is that even after the thing dries, residue from sugar and whatnot still remains and can cause shorts and other problems. As kc mentioned, I'd take apart the unit and use a isopropol-dampened coffee filter or pre-soaked alcohol pads and wipe down the components.

If you can't get the thing working again after that, it's probably time to look into a shiny new MacBook. The prices have gone down now that the newer models are out, and if you look through the refurbished ones you can save even more money.