Ben's Bits

If you’re brave and resourceful or just desperate enough it is often possible to bring back electronics from the dead after they have had liquid spilled on them. I’ve recently been working on a friend’s laptop which had water spilled on it. I’ve gone from it doing nothing at all to being apparently fully operational with the exception of the LCD backlight which I’m still working on. Note this can be a long process which requires drying time and lots of patience. This could easily stretch to weeks and many hours of assembly and dis-assembly work which is why it’s often a better bet to just replace the problematic component.

My own process involves dis-assembling everything and giving it a good scrubbing with a toothbrush and some very pure electronics grade alcohol followed by a scrubbing with contact cleaner. I then let everything dry out for a day or two and repeat. Re-assemble everything and test. Many times only certain things will not be working anymore which can give you some hints as to where to look for corrosion and areas of the printed circuit board which need further attention. It may take several iterations of this process before you arrive at something useful. One bit of good news about those small surface-mounted components which are difficult to replace in the field is that they are much easier to scrub down than their larger counterparts.

For more information and tips on bringing back liquid damaged electronics I suggest reading this article at GRYNX.