Water damage to MacBook and water under screen help

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Level 1

4 points

Water damage to MacBook and water under screen help

I have water damage to my screen and possibly keyboard/ logic board and I need help.

I didn’t realise I had this damage till the day after it happened as I didn’t open my laptop and had it kept flat and closed in its normal position

i have posted pics of the screen and I think there’s damage to the inside as I have to shut it down manually as the shut down button won’t work and the battery seems to have run out much quicker even though I kept my screen off mostly to look at it and definitely didn’t open for long enough to drop 20%. The keyboard half closer to the screen also seems to warm up a bit when it is open.

I kept it at 90 degrees overnight next to a heater with the screen face down and I’ve just switched it to the keyboard now being face down on the table. I don’t have an Apple store in my city and everywhere is closed because of lockdown but I need this to work ASAP as I have a lot of studying to do.

I also tried the hairdryer but didn’t know how to position it but I finally found the vents I think at the top of the keyboard tucked away behind the hinge. Also not sure what model my MacBook is other than it has a touchbar which seems to be working but doesn’t appear unless I open a window in which then doesn’t appear on the default touchbar mode where things like volume and brightness can be controlled

it also seems to restart itself without me doing

Posted on Feb 15, 2021 12:21 AM

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Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

60,164 points

Feb 15, 2021 6:38 PM in response to BeccaMoe

You may as well recycle the laptop unless your laptop is still covered by AppleCare+, otherwise the repair won't be worth the expense since it appears multiple major parts need to be replaced. You are probably looking at a $1,200 US repair (perhaps more).

Before recycling the laptop make to have a backup of your data before securely wiping your drive. Be sure to enable Filevault on the drive making sure the encryption process completes. Then boot into Internet Recovery Mode and use Disk Utility to erase the whole physical drive. Within Disk Utility click on "View" and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drive appears on the left pane of Disk Utility. Erase the drive as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled). This will securely erase your data regardless if you are using a hard drive or an SSD.

FYI, tilting the laptop with liquid damage is bad since any liquid within the keyboard will run off to the side where it may leak past the mylar covering beneath the keyboard and hit the electronics. They mylar covering beneath the keyboard can help prevent liquid from the keyboard from hitting the Logic Board for some liquid spills. I'm torn on whether it is even a good idea to quickly flip a laptop upside down on its keyboard to let it dry out (definitely not a good idea for newer 2018+ models where pressing a key turns on the laptop).

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Water damage to MacBook and water under screen help

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