Spilling a drink on your laptop can be a very serious problem. But, depending on what you do, and how fast you react, you can potentially save a lot by minimizing the damage a spill can have on your laptop.

What to do in the event of a spill:

Turn off your laptop. If you have your laptop powered on when the spill happens, shut it down as fast as possible. Usually holding the power button down for 10 seconds will be your fastest option to turning off your laptop

Remove the battery. After your laptop has been shut down, remove the battery pack. This will keep your laptop from accidentally being powered back up and removes any way that power can still be going to the motherboard (example hibernation or standby mode)

Leave it opened and turned upside down to dry out. Let gravity be your friend and try to keep the liquid from drying on your components.

Get it repaired and cleaned quickly. Depending on what was spilled on your laptop, the liquid may be corrosive, like cola and can still be doing damage to your laptop. The best defense is sending your laptop in for repair as soon as you can. The quicker you get you laptop into the hands of a professional, the better chance you have of minimizing the damage.

What NOT to do:

Do not turn your laptop back on. A lot of people will make at least one attempt to see if their laptop still works after the spill. This is the worst thing you can do. I can not stress how important it is to keep your laptop turned off, with no power available to it, until it is fixed.

As you can see, your reaction to a spill can minimize the damage that spill can do to your laptop. I have seen laptop repairs from spills range from simple cleaning and diagnostics, to replacing motherboards, and it is easy to tell when the owner handled the spill correctly and when they didn’t.

by Justin Anderson

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