What should I do if I spill a liquid on my laptop?

Accidentally spilled your water or morning coffee all over your laptop?  Or your chosen evening tipple while catching up after the kids are off to bed?  We have seen an increase in liquid damage to laptops since the move to working from home for the COVID-19 pandemic.  But we understand accidents happen and if we had the answer to prevent accidents, we would be sitting on a beach somewhere sunny!  However, how you react to a liquid spill on your laptop is controllable and can greatly help the success rate of bringing the device back from the brink.

First things first is so long as it is safe to do so, as please remember electricity and water do not mix, unplug the device and turn the laptop off as soon as is safely possible.  Next, if you can remove the battery from your laptop and any other peripherals you have connected to the laptop.

Now it is time to think about limiting the reach of the liquid and drying the laptop out.  So, if you spilled the liquid onto the keyboard, turn the laptop so the liquid can drain back out the keyboard and if possible leave it somewhere warm, so near a radiator or in a warm area of your house.

At this point, we would encourage our clients to contact us as soon as they have done the above steps so that we can plan the next steps based on the type of device which has had liquid damage to assess and hopefully repair the damage. Usually, it is a case of leaving the equipment to dry for a few days and then taking it into the workshop to assess the damage done.  But we will assess things like the make and model of the laptop, as to whether it is one which can be taken apart further in our workshop and left to dry there, or if it is a worse case of damage and we need to get the hard drive out ASAP to save your data.  However, we would always recommend that you carry out regular back ups of your data to ensure that should a liquid damage accident happen, and your laptop can’t be brought back that you can still be setup on an alternative or new device.  We have a blog here on why back ups are important and how to chose a suitable backup solution.

The type of liquid makes a big difference, for instance clean water is less likely to cause long term corrosion compared with sugary drinks.  Any corrosion internally can shorten the life of the laptop, even if we are able to bring it back from the liquid damage.

Please don’t ever hesitate to get in touch with us for advice on liquid damage to your laptop, the team at MJD are here to help and get you back and working as soon as possible.