Spilled coffee, battery x icon but battery still working

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Spilled coffee, battery x icon but battery still working

Hi

So today I spilled about 2 sips of coffee on my MacBook and thought I totally killed it. I was so worried but I used a hair dryer and dried the keyboard after removing the battery. Now my MacBook works again but won't boot without AC. Once it's on I get the x battery icon but if I remove the AC the computer can still work no problem from the battery power. So I took my battery and put it in my girlfriend's computer ad on hers it works perfectly and no x icon. I took hers and put it in mine and still won't boot without AC. I resetted the pram and smu. Still the same!

The coffee seems to have killed some connection or wire. I assume apple care can't help me as it seems to me from the coffee spill. Any advice? Should I contact apple care?

Thanks for the help

Laurence

macbook, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Apr 15, 2009 9:52 AM

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Answer 1

a brody

Level 10

85,314 points

Apr 15, 2009 12:35 PM in response to laurence00

http://www.ifixit.com/ may have repair instructions you can use.

Coffee spills are user caused damage and only typically covered under insurance, not warranties. Warranties simply cover manufacturer design flaws and lemons. You can try to have Apple repair it, but it likely will be cost prohibitive. Shop around your Mac magazines for a local repair place and find out what their costs are relative to Apple's if you'd rather not do your own repair. Sometimes homeowner insurance will cover such claims, sometimes not. You can check with that as well. Unfortunately you run across a very common problem, which is users do not know that food and water do not mix with computers. Never eat, nor drink near them. My college would not allow anyone inside their computer labs with drink or food because of the potential damage that the computers could get.

Message was edited by: a brody

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Answer 2

Apr 15, 2009 2:47 PM in response to laurence00

You may somewhat mitigate the damage by shutting down, unplugging the adapter, removing the battery, and turning it upside down (open, so any remaining drops run away from the innards) and let it sit that way for several days (or a week) to make certain that it is thoroughly dry before starting up again.

Even one wayward drop of liquid can short out vital components. (If it sounds like I have experience, it's because I do — my teenager suffered a spill on his Dell laptop. That $600 Diet Coke took out the motherboard, the optical drive, and the hard drive.)

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