Dell Studio 17 - water damaged

After a rather good Halloween party i managed to come back and somehow paint my laptop with water.

It was shut but i found water on the lid, water underneath it and the keyboard had left a big moisture imprint on the screen.

I left it to dry out and turned it on again. Now (touch wood) the laptop itself works, boots fine and as far as i can tell operates normally, however the keyboard is a bit dodgy.

Keys randomly stop working for a few hours at a time. Last night it was the xcvb keys, now its a mixture of the E key, fn key, and the F1 buttons. However a few of the xcvb keys are now working again.

It is an after market backlit keyboard and the backlight itself still works fine.

How well sealed is the keyboard, could it have caught the water & just require replacing (due to dodgy keys) or could it be a deeper problem that is causing the keys to miss fire?

Thanks guys

 

deeper problem would be my guess.

Do you have warranty?
If not then maybe you should take it apart and dry it out fully.

 

I'd suggest taking the keyboard out of the machine and looking for signs of water damage. I expect you probably just need a new keyboard though.

You would actually need the accident insurance cover, as the warranty will not cover water damage.

Yup, fully agree, this is the best idea.

 

I would suggest the rice trick, but...damn, you'd need a LOT of rice for a laptop.

Laptop keyboards usually have tray-type things underneath to help catch a little bit of water/liquid/debris, but this only works up to a certain point. Luckily, laptop keyboards are pretty cheap and easy to replace. The most expensive I've seen is a brand-new backlit replacement keyboard for $50. For a Studio 17, you can probably find them for $40 or so at parts-people.com.

Seeing as it's an aftermarket keyboard, I assume you already know how to replace it. If you still have your original keyboard, Try installing that and seeing if it works.

 

Replaced the keyboard with my standard (non-backlit one) and it works a good un so net win there!

However, upon turning it back on my media buttons areb eing a bit difficult. I plugged them in & the wifi & HDD lights work fine, but the buttons dont respond properly, they light up very very briefly when pressed but dont do anything.

Coudl this just be down to the fact i didn't plug it in properly (despite making sure i did) or could it be anything else?

cheers guys

 

You could have shorted out some of the circuitry in your media panel. Luckily, as I'm sure you've found out by now, it's easy to replace, and even cheaper to replace than the keyboard.