Hello my laptop just died today and I'm 99% it's due to water/moisture damage :)

[Rubbereon]

Has anyone else experience something similar? Did you fix it yourself?

I plan on trying to fix the laptop myself because I know exactly what the problem is thanks to both the fact it died in very specific circumstances and because it still turns on (it's just a black screen though and no, I can't access the bios either) the symptoms help narrow it down to either motherboard failure (99% sure) or ram stick failure (maybe?). I got a spare ram, so honestly that would save me so much time and money if the problem was the ram, but like there's no way it's the ram.

For context, I tried to clean the bottom side of the laptop which started to turn really gross and yellow with grime because I sweat a lot on my legs when this thing heats up like crazy. The problem also affects my hands, so any game controller, any mouse and keyboard I ever use end up looking like they were covered in black mold and it's only helps a little bit that I clean and wash my hands, but the issue is that no matter what it's gradual, so unless I go to the bathroom and shower those electronics in hot water and hand soap once every 3 months, they'll end up looking extremely gross. Been a problem for 15 years and I'm still looking for a solution to this problem. Even the chair I use has this grime covering the handles because of course I grab it with my hands. 

Anyway, after finishing cleaning it up I made sure no water got into the laptop. I was very careful, I didn't literally douse it like I do for my wired peripherals, so I dunno how it happened. It also worked perfectly fine for like 15 minutes after the fact, but after I put it into sleep mode and left it plugged, it shut off while I wasn't looking and now here we are.

Keep in mind I always clean my hands after coming out of the toilets or doing most other things, so now I feel like I have to go back there just to clean my hands and nothing else, I think I'll start wearing plastic gloves ngl (and a wooden plate expressly for use with the laptop, so the whole underside of the laptop getting gross and yucky doesn't ever happen again). 

Anyways, that was my irl update i guess.

[stellarfieldanomaly]

I can't say I have much experience specifically repairing water damage, but I did do laptop repair once upon a time. If you're getting a black screen on start-up, you might want to try connecting to an external display to see if it's actually a mb/ram issue or just a screen issue.

Also for future cleaning of any electronics I would really recommend you get some 70% isopropyl alcohol, it doesn't damage electronics and it evaporates very quickly so it's extremely unlikely to bead up and short out components. Obviously don't drench the device in it, but I use it for cleaning screens etc on non-water tight devices or with an old toothbrush for internal cleaning.

[pepper]

I was going to give pretty much the same advice as StellarFieldAnamoly. Checking with an external monitor may save you some headache if its just a display issue, but if it is a shorted mobo or something of that nature, oof.

And yes, in the future definitely use as high concentrate of isopropyl alcohol you can get! You can buy 90% IPA at drug stores, using that with cotton swabs/ q-tips would be the best way to clean most electronics. I work in a cleanroom and 100% IPA is the go-to for cleaning most residue off of things that need to be like, really clean.

[torquuato]

accidentally spilt soup on my last laptop about 2 months into 2020 lockdown (i had gotten it march 2020). screen immediately stopped working and i spent the next 2-3(?) years with a dodgy laptop that had a faulty screen. after diagnosing it we found out everything else worked thankfully so i literally just had it connected to a monitor all the time and essentially used it as a pc  . when school started again, i borrowed my mum's laptop bcs she barely used it and used that for another year or 2. eventually, i got another laptop and i have learnt to be a lot more careful.

so uh... idk how much that actually helped but that was my experience with moisture (soop) damage on laptops.

[Rubbereon]

And yes, in the future definitely use as high concentrate of isopropyl alcohol you can get! You can buy 90% IPA at drug stores, using that with cotton swabs/ q-tips would be the best way to clean most electronics. I work in a cleanroom and 100% IPA is the go-to for cleaning most residue off of things that need to be like, really clean.

I know rubbing alcohol is used to remove paint and can damage fursuits and such, that's why I prefer using soap to clean things up.

Is it safe to use on a laptop or can it damage the plastic shell and/or remove the paint?

[pepper]

Is it safe to use on a laptop or can it damage the plastic shell and/or remove the paint?

IPA is a solvent so it'll damage things like paint or finish. But it will be fine on metal components or hard plastic. In this case, for the bottom of a laptop it would have probably not damaged it (depending on the laptop, but I wouldn't use IPA on the lid).

Personally, to clean the bottom of my laptop I would either swab it with q-tips soaked on IPA to spot clean, or if it was super gross and needed a deep clean I would remove the bottom cover piece and soak it on its own in soapy water for a couple hours, then let it completely air dry before putting it back. The soapy water is how I clean my mechanical keyboard keycaps when they get gnarly.

Were you able to recover the laptop at all?

[Rubbereon]

Were you able to recover the laptop at all?

No, the damage was directly to the motherboard itself and I think the cpu too. I don't have the right tools and components laying around to replace what's damaged.

I don't repair computers for a living, so I also showed it to a specialist and they couldn't fix it either they just knew it was water damage. I'm gonna have to get a new laptop, but I still have my pc thankfully.

I hope I can recover what's on the drives like my video game projects and my gimp files because I hadn't backed that stuff in many months. The last backup was like October of last year I reckon?

[pepper]

Yea I was afraid it was the mobo, rip 

At least you still have the PC! To get your data off the drive, you can harvest the drive from the laptop and assuming its a SATA connector you can get something like this to connect the drive to your PC and access the data as if it's an external hard drive. If you go that route you'd want to find an adapter that has it's own power, the one I use has a plug for the wall for power. The drive is probably ok, at least enough to get your data off. I wouldn't use it to store anything important, but I'd probably use it as an external for less important stuff I don't mind losing if I were you. No use letting good hardware go to waste 

[Rubbereon]

Yea I was afraid it was the mobo, rip 

At least you still have the PC! To get your data off the drive, you can harvest the drive from the laptop and assuming its a SATA connector you can get something like this to connect the drive to your PC and access the data as if it's an external hard drive. If you go that route you'd want to find an adapter that has it's own power, the one I use has a plug for the wall for power. The drive is probably ok, at least enough to get your data off. I wouldn't use it to store anything important, but I'd probably use it as an external for less important stuff I don't mind losing if I were you. No use letting good hardware go to waste 

Thanks for the suggestions