Juice + laptop =t...

Nothing happening?

I spilt some juice on my m15x today, sort of in the upper right side of the keyboard. Unfortunately I DID NOT turn it off, just wiped the juice off superfast, and then turned it upside down for about 5 mins... And then did some gaming... It was apple mango juice (MMM), and I spilt less than half a glass... The keys dont feel sticky, the computer runs just like before....

Should I be worried? should I do anything? should I just make a human sacrifice to the cyber gods and carry on with my life?

 

No, nothing to worry about.

 

Thank you Trottel! I would have payed money for the peace of mind you just gave me

 

I would've just put that money towards Complete Care!

 

Argh dont even mention warranty to me, still havent gotten it transferred from the moo :<<<<<<<<<

 

i agree.. transfer the warranty as fast u can... complete care is worth it.. if only asus had it!

 

Only if you didn't learn your lesson and continue to drink while using your computer. In any event, what you should have done was to immediately unplug it and leave it to dry for a day.

I once spilled an entire 16 ounces of Gatorade on my laptop and wept like a child. The good news was that it was an old hand-me-down and didn't cost me anything. The bad news was that it was my only computer at the time. Needless to say the screen was ruined, since it immediately wicked up a portion of the drink. But after two days of drying, it did power back on and worked (somewhat) until I could purchased a new one last summer.

It was a good learning experience, and one that I will never repeat--or forget. (I start to sweat even if someone approaches my laptop holding a drink.)

Anyway, you should consider yourself lucky...this time!!

 

All my laptops are pretty much placemats. I set all of them up on the kitchen table with plates and cups interspersed, or even on them. Somehow nothing has happened after years of these practices.

I'm more concerned about dropping them really. The XPS M1730 is a heavy and smooth machine, as is the M15x. Complete Care provides enough peace of mind that I'm not going to worry about it. The only way something could become disruptive would be if I managed to drop and break all of my laptops within one day.

Listen to Krane, not me.

 

Wow. Same here. Except that once... but Dell took care of it because I had accidental damage coverage. LOL. I don't usually bat a lash when setting a full mug of beer on the palmrest.. HAHAH.

 

i've nver had a water spill... lol seriously dude u almost burnt out ur new M15x...

 

Same here. But my wife, that's a different matter

She has spilt something on two different laptops. From memory, apple juice on one and Solo on the other. In both cases, removed power as quickly as possible, pulled all the covers off and the HDD, OD and memory out. Wiped them down with a damp cloth and then dried them. Then I let them drying opened upside down for a day or so. One came up straight away. There were some issues and we replaced it (she needed more performance anyway). My kids started to use it but some keys were sticking. So, I pulled the keyboard out, washed and dried it and everything was OK afterwards. It lasted another 18 months in the kids hands.

The second one (this was the replacement for the above laptop) didn't start-up after drying, so again we replaced it. A few days later, I was moving it and wondering what to do with it and idly pressed the power button. It turned on and worked. But, it would only turn on when the AC was not connected! My kids used it like that for a while, but the keyboard was sticky, so I stripped the laptop and cleaned it. There was some residue on the motherboard that I removed. After that it worked perfectly (would boot on AC) for about 18 months. It died due to physical damage.

The lesson I've learnt from this is that if there is a spill, remove the power, both battery and AC, as quickly as possible. Place it in a position to drain the liquid so it goes away from vital components and clean it thoroughly.

 

So after some time it still works fine, cept my space button is a little bit "stuck", like it doesnt give the right response/feedback. Should i just unscrew it and clean it with alcohol? I've seen the m15x disassembly vid, doesnt look all that hard...

 

they do, many of their units have a 2 year warranty and first year has accidental protection right out of the box

 

I spilled half a can of Pepsi on my Vostro 1500 keyboard, but spill was only localized on the keyboard. Still works like a charm.

 

Accidental warranty is worthwhile if it's reasonably priced. But even SquareTrade warranty with accidental damage protection is $400 for a $1500+ laptop. After a year your machine is proabably worth half of what it was new, so that $400 is replacing $750, and about 18 months, it's probably only worth $500-$600. So you just have to weigh your chances. If I bought an accidental warranty with all the laptops I've owned, I probably would have forked over well in excess of $3000 in warranties, enough to buy two new high end laptops.

That being said, I recently had a spill on my Sager, wine in fact. I uplugged, removed battery, and turned upside down and let it dry, disassembled it and cleaned trace amounts from the motherboard with alcohol. Thankfully I only had to replace the keyboard and touchpad, but that cost me ~ $150. Now my USB ports are acting a little flaky. Not sure if it's an effect of the spill or now, but that requires a $400 replacement motherboard, I opted to just deal with it until I buy new. That's probably worse case scenario. If you're comfortable tinkering and fixing the machine yourself, then an accidental warranty isn't nearly as useful as one might think.

 

If you get the accidental warranty from best buy the laptop is still worth full price to them. That's how I got my g73. After my 6860 died over 2 years later they gave me $1350 to pick out a new laptop. I would have had a hard time selling that 6860 for $500 if it was in full working condition.

 

Right. I guess my point was that if you don't use your warranty, it's a complete waste, and in the long run will be significantly cheaper to go without one even if yoiu do need an occasional repair.

Usually with warranties they only replace components that are failed or faulty. It's difficult to get full refund as I hear it from Best Buy any more. I used to get their warranties for things like an iPod or PDA, and they were pretty good about replacing them completely with full purhcase price, but those were items that were expensive to service compared to their replacement value.

When I bought my HP Envy 14 for a short while I also was able to buy a two year accidental warranty for $100, in that case it was more than worth it. Needless to say I returned the laptop.

 

My bro in law, the regional service manager for an auto company, constantly tells me that service contracts don't have much more of a payoff than the best of what 'vegas can offer. He tells me that for every minivan service contract that pays for a rebuilt transmission (or whatever) at 100k miles, there are many many thousands of contracts that are never required to 'pay off'.

You'd be better served to take the price of a service contract, buy a savings bond or CD, and let the $$$ ride until you might need it. If you need a spendy repair, the cash is available. If you never need the cash, it's still available when/if you sell your machine.

I am of the same opinion on $2000 cutting edge laptops vs. $750 laptops. Same warranty, many/most (all) of the same internal components. In the time it takes for a $2000 laptop to wear out and be replaced, you could have for the same money (!!!) bought yourself a new laptop every 12-18 months.

Most people have no idea how to figure out even simple amortization and maintenance/service schedules and costs. This is how companies make money, by selling high-priced technology to folks who really don't know any better.

 

Yeah, insurance is a scam (no j/k).

With anything that requires you to pay money up front, ask yourself this question:

If the company was not making money on this, would they offer it?

As noted above, unless you're spending your last dime and are not going to make anymore (ever!) once you purchase the item in question, leave the 'warranty' in the salesperson's hands.

The money that I have spent on 'mandatory' insurance would still be paying for all my future toys for at least another decade, if not more.

Of course, when you hear others that got a 'new, better notebook for free after X years', it's hard to not give in to the sales pressure.

 

Many manufacturers have a USB board. Usually those are around 75 bucks and aren't too bad to replace yourself.

My workplace sells extended warranties. Basically if you don't have a major hardware failure, it's not really worth it. Any work approved and repaired is deducted from the total amount. If you then have another hardware failure, if the repair is above 80% of the value the warranty company buys it out. The problem is if you had a repair done that is deducted.

 

Yeah I haven't bought a new laptop since 2006. I have just been taking advantage of best buy's warranties. I started with a sony vaio, then had that replaced with a acer 5920g, then had that replaced with a gateway FX, and now I have a g73. So instead of paying 1K+ for a new laptop I have only been paying a few hundred for the warranty.

 

Isn't it usually just a chip soldered on the mainboard? Part of the southbridge?

One USB port works as long as the one above it isn't being used which is a combo eSATA/USB port, but it works fine for eSATA. The two side USB ports, one works there, but the other doesn't. And if you plug anything besides a mouse or keyboard in the other USB ports, it knocks out the mouse, and the one side port always fails. So I know it's something with the controller and not the physical USB connection.

Have they all failed or how does that work?

 

The acer and the gateway both had dead GPUs but the Sony was dropped and the chassis had cracks in it that I guess they couldn't fix.

 

LOL in your case I guess you got your money's worth. I'm the person that when I buy a warranty nothing goes wrong with it even when I drop it. But when I don't buy a warranty there's something guaranteed to go wrong. I'm just glad that I'm dangerous enough to do basic repairs if needed.

 

Sometimes you can just order the PCB where the USB sits. Usually a cable runs from it and connects to the motherboard. All really depends on your laptop.

 

Thanks after you mentioned it I checked, and USB is soldered onto the mainboard both rear and side.

 

Lucky you, w/e i drop juice on electronics, its game over for me.

 

Well that sucks. I'm not really surprised, Sager isn't exactly a normal notebook manufacturer. You could try shipping it off to Blue Raven but it might get costly.

 

Well, Sager would repair it, labor would be free under the warranty (1 yr parts & labor, 3 yrs labor), but I'd still have to pay for parts and round trip shipping. It works well enough for now, can use two USB ports fairly reliably, and will probably part it out to get cash towards a new laptop come February, March 2011 for a Sandy Bridge. Not worth spending much more on it at this point. Even if it died on me completely (please, no!) I would just have to survive on my netbook until I got my new laptop.

 

Labor usually isn't even that much. They might be able to do board level repair. Otherwise you'd have to get a new motherboard ($$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$)

If you don't want your laptop, I'd take it lol

 

No, of course I want it! lol. It's worth $400-$500 in parts most likely, just the CPU, GPU, and screen alone should fetch a good $400. When the time comes I may just try to sell it in whole disclosing the issues. Let someone else part it out if I can get a decent sale on it.

They did say I could send it in to see if it could be repaired. They said if it's the whole motherboard then $400 + shipping ($25 :eek), plus my shipping to them, and if it's repairable then probably about $150 plus round trip shipping. Not to mention out of commission for 2-3 weeks. Sorry, but since I'll have a new laptop in about four months, I'm not dumping another dime into it.

 

Well depends. If you invested only 150 + shipping but are able to sell it as a functional laptop, then so be it. The problem is with cheapo 300-500 dollar laptops today is if you have liquid damage or huge physical damage without a warranty usually they are not worth repairing. But if you spent 1400 on a notebook then spending 400 to repair it makes sense. I remember my mom paid 4500 for our Pentium 2 Dell, hell if the motherboard went bad spending 1000 to fix it made sense. But people faster, cheaper and the downside is quality goes down.