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Comment by nhebb | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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