Ask HN: Cleaning a MacBook by submerging it in distilled water? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Cleaning a MacBook by submerging it in distilled water?

21 pointspalish32 comments

Someone spilled alcohol into my fiancee's running MacBook. It's quite sticky.

I believe the logic board is fried because people stupidly tried to turn it on several times with no success. But I'm going to assume it's not, and hope for the best.

Since distilled water is non-conductive, could I use it to clean the logic board? (Assuming the logic board isn't shorted out, I need to remove all traces of the spill because it would corrode the logic board over time, eventually resulting in a failure.)

My current plan is to disassemble the MacBook; remove the logic board; submerge it in a tray of distilled water; pour out and refill with fresh distilled water, then submerge again; use a hairdryer for ~30 minutes to quickly dry the logic board; and finally, let the logic board dry over the course of a couple days, reassemble, and cross fingers.

My question is: is this a bad idea?

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I once rescued an N64 from a Coca-Cola related incident using the process you describe but isopropyl alcohol instead of distilled water. The alcohol worked much better on the sticky soda, didn't seem to harm the electronics and dried very quickly because it evaporates so fast.

YMMV.

I have used isopropyl alcohol with success also. IF you have a choice at your local store, choose the one with a higher % .

At my work we have 99% ipa that has much less water than the normal 70% rubbing alcohol that you would find at the store. The 99% stuff dries very quickly and seems to be a good homemade way to clean a circuit board.

Back when aggressive fluxes were used in manufacturing, washing the circuit board was a normal part of the process, so it's not an entirely crazy idea. I wouldn't use a hair dryer, though. Besides possible heat damage, moving air can generate a static charge.

Would you let it dry naturally? Or do you have any tips for accelerating the drying process?

A pretty standard process for drying out cell phones that get wet is to drop them in a bag of rice. Rice is a desiccant and will assist in the drying process.

One source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06...

My wife submerged a digital camera about 1/3 of the way into salt water. I partially disassembled it (the outside casing, but not the lens / sensor area) and rinsed well with distilled water, scrubbing away some salt deposits with Q-Tips. I wrapped it in paper towels and put it in a container full of rice for a week to dry. It worked fine afterwards.

To accelerate the drying process you might want to consider putting it on top of a dehumidifier.

My wife's laptop (black macbook) got drenched with water once and we just took the battery out and placed it on the dehumidifier for a few days and it booted backup. Still works fine even now.

There are things you can buy at a hardware store that contain extremely hydrophilic chemicals (ISTR calcium carbonate, someone correct me) -- you could put a container of the hydrophilic medium and the laptop inside a sealed container.

First, let's clear up your thinking. You don't need to worry about the solution being "non-conductive" because the board is powered off.

Second, distilled water isn't going to have much cleaning power. Most PCB cleaners are pretty toxic because they're trying to remove things such as solder flux and resin.

The easiest solution you could do is to run your board through your DISHWASHER. Yes, that's right. Lot's of small board houses will do this and they turn out clean as a whistle.

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/archive/index.php/t-...

Good luck!

yow. i'd suggest the shower or spray nozzle in your sink before the dishwasher. the dishwasher is going to want to use hot water and high pressures, neither of which are necessary.

My lady friend's laptop was immersed in a fine Italian port wine for a few hours during an unfortunate incident on a plane ride home from Italy. She didn't turn it on, and quickly removed the battery once she realized what happened. I immersed pretty much everything except the harddrive, LCD, and battery in isopropanol for a few hours, and, then in multiple baths of distilled water. I skipped the hair drying step, but used compressed air to get most of the water off. I then waited a few days to be sure any excess water had evaporated. In the end, everything worked except the LCD screen, which was easy to replace.

Actually even regular water is usually OK for electronics. I washed LC630 innards in the shower. Dry it well, though; you'll probably be better opening it to avoid trapping moisture inside.

I frequently wash keyboards in the shower and never had any issues either.

I wouldn't do that yet. The stickiness could be on the keyboard only. I would disassemble (get instructions for your model from http://www.ifixit.com/) and visually inspect for damage. Make sure everything is completely dry, reassemble and retest.

If it won't power on, then you have to start debugging to isolate the problem. If it is the logic board, then my sympathies ... they are expensive to replace.

Distilled water = non conductive Distilled water + dust + sticky alcohol that you're trying to wash off = definitely conductive

See Tom's hardware guide experiment where they took out the fans and instead dumped the computer into distilled water:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/strip-fans,1203.html

I believe you can get chemicals specifically designed for cleaning electronics.

Hmm, info?

Also, it's been about two days since the spill. Would it be harmful to wait for these chemicals to arrive, rather than cleaning right -now-?

Answer - possibly not. Maybe not for reasons you are thinking of. The non-conductivity of the distilled water will be eliminate as soon as the water comes into contact with any contaminates, as its contaminates in the water the provide conductivity. However, as long as the board is completely dried there is no reason for a problem to exist, aside from corrosion.

Even if you use distilled water, make sure to also remove the on-board battery. (I'm not sure if the current MB still have one).

After washing, put the logic board in a sealed container with five pounds of rice for a few days. I'd skip the hair dryer.

disassemble it. soak it in pure alcohol. (fry's sells big bottles of 99.9% rubbing alcohol for cheaper than what you'd pay at the drug store.)

You aren't going to submerge it while it's plugged in, and you aren't going to submerge the LCD (take it apart, I said, get the keyboard and circuit board submerged) make sure it is completely dry before re-assembly.

I do this periodically with my keyboard... and it's standard procedure when something is spilt on my thinkpad. It won't work 100% of the time, but it does quite often work

Alcohol is, I think, a better solvent than distilled water, but the real reason I prefer it is that it dries faster.

You can get denatured alcohol at nearly any hardware store. Besides drying faster, the advantage with alcohol is that fats, like those in coffee creamer are also soluble in it, but not in water. Sugars, though, are less soluble in alcohol.

I work in computer repair for a university, and we see students coming in all the time with liquid spills.

We usually:

1) Disassemble the computer (ifixit.com is your friend here) 2) Clean the board with a non-conductive cleaner such as Electro Klene (http://www.criticalcleaning.com/CCContact.htm) 3) Dry it off using compressed air and then let it air dry for a bit 4) Reassemble and cross fingers.

We find this works about 1/2 the time.

My first thought reading the heading was it's similarities to the Ice Bath "fix" for the Xbox 360 red ring of death:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UN7MrhQaAc

Read the description, it's quite funny that people fell for this obvious hoax.

There is a fluid they use for ultrasonic cleaning of electronics: http://www.google.com/search?q=ultrasonic+cleaning+fluid

I would use that over distilled water because it may be quite hard to get the last of it to evaporate.

Why are you worried about the conductivity of the water? Presumably, you wont be turning it on while its wet, so removing the battery, any clock batteries, and discharging capacitors (I'll admit, I don't know how to do that or if its possible) should make it fine to submerge in anything.

I don't know about your mainboard, but when my soundcard had accumulated years of dust on it, I just ran it under the tap for a few minutes and let it dry. It works perfectly, too.

You can buy cans of aerosol circuit board cleaner at Radio Shack. They cost less than $10, and don't contain corrosive or conductive liquids.

What kind of alcohol was spilled onto the computer?

Some kind of pink, sugary, sticky kind.

how about try this. Also, i remember the logic board clips on some MB's are very fragile, to the point my mac repair guy (doing this for decades) didn't want to take it apart.

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/05/12/dont-panic-liquid-damage-and-...

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