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MBP trackpad unresponsive after water spill

After spilling about a tablespoon of water on my late 2017 MBP keyboard and trackpad, I mopped it up and was functioning OK for about a half hour before my trackpad became overly sensitive and then stopped working entirely. I've turned off the computer and propped it up against a fan where I'm leaving it to dry. In my one similar experience with my MBAir, the trackpad dried out after a few hours and worked normally thereafter. The concerning symptom this time is that the multitouch trackpad seems no longer to click with a full press which seems more serious. Any thoughts on how long to wait before turning the computer back on? It was functioning normally when I turned it off except for the trackpad not working. I've seen recommendations to wait 96 hours before turning back on, but find this rather beyond my typical level of patience. I'm thinking of giving it 6 hours or so and powering up to see if functionality has been restored. If the trackpad doesn't come back within 24 hours, I'll take it to the Apple dealer and let them give me a professional assessment. Thanks for any thoughts from those who may have been down this road before.

iPhoto '11, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jul 4, 2018 1:53 PM

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Posted on Jul 4, 2018 7:58 PM

Your response provided no practical help whatsoever and wasn't worth posting. If the problem hadn't resolved istself, of course a repair by Apple was the obvious next step.


However, for others who spill water on their keyboad or trackpad, my advice is to gently wick away as much liquid as possible with paper towels, kleenex or other absorbent material until the surface appears completely dry. Power down the computer as soon as the spilled liquid is under control. Then, invert the computer 180 degrees to drain any liquid which has seeped inside the keyboard and trackpad. You may well find you need to soak up new water droplets with a kleenex or paper towel following inversion as I did. Be careful not to angle the keyboard while inverting since you want to prevent water from draining into other parts of the computer. Don't shake the computer as this may cause the liquid to move around inside the unit. Place the powered down keyboard/trackpad facedown over a cool fan to dry for several hours. The best approach for this I found was to use a ventilated crate with a fan inside it blowing air straight up into the keyboard/trackpad from below. This allows excess water to drain down out of the computer while circulating air through the spaces surrounding the keys and trackpad. One person recommended placing a towel between the fan and the keyboard to wick water out of the machine, but this also reduces airflow to the keyboard, so blowing directly onto the keyboard seems to me equally good. I would advise against using a hairdryer or hot air blower since electronics can be damaged by heat. In my case, I propped my open MBP against the face of a cool fan for 5 hours before powering up and finding the problem had completely resolved itself by drying out. Immediately after the water spill onto the keyboard and trackpad, my MBP initially worked after toweling it off, but the trackpad unexpectedly became ultrasensitive to small touches and then went dead after about twenty minutes of use. It was completely unresponsive and would not depress or click with even a very firm touch. I could still move the cursor around with the arrow keys, but the trackpad was completely out of commission. I basically followed the procedure I outlined above and my trackpad functionality returned once the computer had completely dried out. I have had this problem on three occasions with earlier versions of MacBook computers and have thankfully seen full recovery each time after the keyboards and trackpads dried out.

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2 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Jul 4, 2018 7:58 PM in response to Kappy

Your response provided no practical help whatsoever and wasn't worth posting. If the problem hadn't resolved istself, of course a repair by Apple was the obvious next step.


However, for others who spill water on their keyboad or trackpad, my advice is to gently wick away as much liquid as possible with paper towels, kleenex or other absorbent material until the surface appears completely dry. Power down the computer as soon as the spilled liquid is under control. Then, invert the computer 180 degrees to drain any liquid which has seeped inside the keyboard and trackpad. You may well find you need to soak up new water droplets with a kleenex or paper towel following inversion as I did. Be careful not to angle the keyboard while inverting since you want to prevent water from draining into other parts of the computer. Don't shake the computer as this may cause the liquid to move around inside the unit. Place the powered down keyboard/trackpad facedown over a cool fan to dry for several hours. The best approach for this I found was to use a ventilated crate with a fan inside it blowing air straight up into the keyboard/trackpad from below. This allows excess water to drain down out of the computer while circulating air through the spaces surrounding the keys and trackpad. One person recommended placing a towel between the fan and the keyboard to wick water out of the machine, but this also reduces airflow to the keyboard, so blowing directly onto the keyboard seems to me equally good. I would advise against using a hairdryer or hot air blower since electronics can be damaged by heat. In my case, I propped my open MBP against the face of a cool fan for 5 hours before powering up and finding the problem had completely resolved itself by drying out. Immediately after the water spill onto the keyboard and trackpad, my MBP initially worked after toweling it off, but the trackpad unexpectedly became ultrasensitive to small touches and then went dead after about twenty minutes of use. It was completely unresponsive and would not depress or click with even a very firm touch. I could still move the cursor around with the arrow keys, but the trackpad was completely out of commission. I basically followed the procedure I outlined above and my trackpad functionality returned once the computer had completely dried out. I have had this problem on three occasions with earlier versions of MacBook computers and have thankfully seen full recovery each time after the keyboards and trackpads dried out.

MBP trackpad unresponsive after water spill

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