Spilled Beer over Laptop

Hey everyone,

I recently spilled some beer over my XPS 13 9350, and ever since a few keys (left, n, b...) don't work anymore. I figured it was the keyboard, looked at the service manual and decided I could replace it. Now I did that.. and the same keys don't work with the new keyboard either, so I figure it must be some other part that is broken. I'm fairly amateurish about this, but I suppose it can only be either the cable connecting the keyboard to the motherboard, or something (the connection?) on the motherboard itself. Does anybody have a clue?

Thanks in advance!

 

Okay, I checked the Keyboard Junction Cable (Part # 086HV), and it looked pretty dirty. Gonna order one of those and see if replacing it fixes things. Any comments or suggestions are welcome though!

 

Try clean the motherboard, connectors and affected soiled parts with isopropyl alcohol and see if that helps. (At least, I think it's isopropyl alcohol that you're supposed to use...)

 

Thanks, I'll try that.

 

Just give it lots of time to dry after cleaning with alcohol. I would also clean the connector to the MB.

 

Thanks! Is a couple hours going to be enough, or more like a day or two?
I soaked some q-tips in alcohol, and rubbed against the connectors, as well as taking out the cable and cleaning it. Any idea what the "best practice" version of cleaning the connectors is?

 

A couple of hours will be fine. I prefer to use the highest alcohol % that I can find, but sometimes walmart or whatever only has 70%.
I'm not sure what the best practice is, but normally I used q-tips but tried not to put too much alcohol on them. Also make sure to wipe up any excess.

 

You need 99% IPA spray and give it a good soaking where the liquid spilt, board out the chassis, it needs washing down with IPA then a good blast with a tin of compressed air to blow it out from under the ic's then leaving overnight minimum, 24 hours is better (somewhere warm and dry) before putting back together.
the reason it needs washing down is to remove any traces you missed as it will 1st turn sticky then the acids will start to attack the board and weeks/months down the line it could kill it. I have seen my fair share of months later issues and it is never good.

 

Again, thanks guys! Will try later today when I get back to work and keep you posted a day later or so!

(So glad that GoNz0 has an XPS 15, and is around so much.. Dell should pay you for your service here, seriously.)

 

Well, cleaning it didn't work. Replacing the cable didn't help either, so I guess I'll see if a new keyboard control board does the trick. If it's not that it's gotta be the connector on the mobo, I suppose, there aren't really any more parts to the chain, are there?

 

It won't be the connector on the mainboard, if another keyboard didn't fix it along with the cable being swapped I would expect it to be the mainboard.

Unless some gunk is still in the connector?

Spills don't often end well

 

Thanks, again. Yeah, if switching the keyboard control board doesn't do the trick, I suppose I'll have to get another mainboard.. well, I'll try looking at it from the bright side: I might be able to upgrade to an i7/16GB/Iris configuration that way. On that note: Do you happen to know if the 9360 motherboards would fit?

I cleaned the connectors a bunch of times by now, if there's still gunk in there, I have no idea how to get it out.

 

Not familiar with the 93** boards to know m8.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

Replaced the keyboard control board, and everything's working fine again. Thanks so much for the intellectual and emotional support everyone, especially @GoNz0!