What can I do if I spilled beer on my MacBook Pro?

EH

Emily_heffel

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My friend spilled beer on my laptop last night.

I immediately shut it off and laid it upside down to dry out. I tried it out this afternoon and it was working fine for about an hour. I shut it down because I felt it getting hot and now that some time has passed and it's cooled off, I'm getting no response when trying to turn it on.

I've researched and know some friends who could clean it with alcohol but I'm just wondering if that will work or if I more than likely fried it when I thought it was fine this morning.

I'm fully aware I ruined my Apple warranty and it's going to cost about $700 to get it back to that. Is it worth opening it up and further destroying any chance of using my warranty to avoid spending $700 that I don't have or should I just start saving?

I'm a graphic artist and I do animations and projections, a lot of work is ahead of me for the end of the summer and really just need some sure fire solution.

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BW

Brian Wozeniak

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Many years back this happened to a friend of mine on his laptop. He spilled beer all over it. He brought it over and I took it apart, which is not that hard to do but could void your warranty as you mentioned. Inside I basically cleaned up everything I could being very careful with sensitive parts and not to cause any shorting. Basically, you just want to dry everything out and never turn it on until you are sure you got it all.

After I did that his laptop worked fine again.

It is possible that when you turned it on again that there was still some loose moisture in there that eventually caused a short. Hopefully, that is not your case, but in the future, I would recommend making absolutely sure that you have it cleaned up before turning it back on.

If you are worried to do it yourself, a local computer store can probably do that sort of stuff as well. But yeah, they might charge you more than you want to pay for something like that.

If you want to do it yourself maybe start with opening it up, be careful what you touch, and see if you still see moisture in there. Do this in a spot that is clean and where you have no clutter around. You might also want to ground yourself, or at least touch some grounded metal to discharge yourself of any static electricity as well since that could fry components inside if you touch something and you have a charge built up on you.

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EH

Emily_heffel

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There is power to the laptop a week later, but I'm still keeping it off. I found out my warranty has expired and cannot be extended so opening it up and cleaning it will be less risky. I just don't know where to go to get this sort of service at a reasonable price.

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colterfive

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For safety measures, I would take your Macbook Pro to a local Apple store near you. If they are unable to fix it, they could at least provide you with professional advice on what you might be able to do.

Keep in mind there are no guarantees, your Macbook Pro might work for a bit after having a spill, but then again not work later due to that. It may be worthwhile to have someone look at it in more detail to help prevent it from costing you more later when it doesn't work at all.

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