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Comment by gh123man | Hacker News Reader

I had a T420 in college. One day in a CS class, I bumped my (uncovered) cup of coffee and it spilled into the keyboard. I knew the laptop had ducts to drain water out, but never tested it (for obvious reasons).

I blotted up as much coffee as I could with some napkins and kept taking notes on the soaked keyboard. Worked like a charm. After drying it out, a few keys stopped working so I bought a replacement keyboard for ~$20 and swapping it out was rather fast (from memory).

I use an M1 MBP now, but I still have that thing in the basement. It still works, and I loved it. I don't miss carrying it around though (or the hilariously short battery life due to forcing discrete GPU mode so I could dock it for multiple monitors at home).

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> After drying it out, a few keys stopped working so I bought a replacement keyboard for ~$20 and swapping it out was rather fast (from memory).

I had an X220 in university (same keyboard part as the T420).

I did wash my keyboard multiple times using dish soap and normal tap water and I only killed a single keyboard (when I didn't wait enough for water to dry out).

You could have most likely just washed the keyboard in warm soapy water, as long as you had enough patience to wait for it to be properly drier (2-3 days at least imho, depending on temperature in your home/area).

Had a similar experience but with water and the laptop stopped working

The spill has to remain in the keyboard area.

Friend of mine in college spilled.. I think beer?.. on this Thinkpad. He instinctively grabbed it (me, across the room, yelling to keep it stable) and turned it to the side. The fluid got into the fan intake and boom, dead it was.

I spilled an entire mug of tea on my X1E when it was just new. That would have killed any Macbook, but the Thinkpad was fine. Turned it off, unplugged the power, let it drain through the bottom. Next morning, open it up, clean it out, turn it on, and it's fine.

Even had time to make a photo: https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/h0663l/good_thing...

Don't count on this too strongly though; not every Thinkpad is spill-resistant, unfortunately.

I have a 2014 MBP that was working fine (except for some screen defects that I did not get fixed before it was too late for the warranty)...

Until I left it in my basement for a few weeks, i.e. in a slightly cold and humid environment.

Now, the keyboard is broken: I need to press multiple times on each key (it's better now that it has dried a bit, but not perfect).

The trackpad is also broken: only hard-clicking works.

Next step is to open and clean it up but I don't have much hope.

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