any experience with laptop spills out there?

[llayner]

I had a diet coke incident freshman year - said it was going to cost like $300 to fix it. I found the orig manufacturer, ordered the keyboard ($30) and had one of the engineers at my job help me swap it. Worked like a charm and got to say 'suck it best buy'

[gumpzilla]

[ QUOTE ]
I had a diet coke incident freshman year - said it was going to cost like $300 to fix it. I found the orig manufacturer, ordered the keyboard ($30) and had one of the engineers at my job help me swap it. Worked like a charm and got to say 'suck it best buy'

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I'd love to be able to order the keyboard and swap the thing myself. I don't think taking the thing apart is going to involve much more than a couple of Allen keys and removing a ribbon cable. So far, Dell's web page has proved unhelpful in trying to track down something that useful since the warranty has expired. I'll probably call them in the near future.

[Big Poppa Smurf]

btw rubbing alcohol and q-tips works wonders for degunking stuff, just to reiterate what guids said. vodka works too!

[llayner]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I had a diet coke incident freshman year - said it was going to cost like $300 to fix it. I found the orig manufacturer, ordered the keyboard ($30) and had one of the engineers at my job help me swap it. Worked like a charm and got to say 'suck it best buy'

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I'd love to be able to order the keyboard and swap the thing myself. I don't think taking the thing apart is going to involve much more than a couple of Allen keys and removing a ribbon cable. So far, Dell's web page has proved unhelpful in trying to track down something that useful since the warranty has expired. I'll probably call them in the near future.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you can, pull out the keyboard and look underneath to see who the orig manufactuer is - prob not dell.

[ncboiler]

Hair dryer. But probably to late. If you spill liquid on anything you need to immediately turn it off and dry it out with a hair dryer. If you can get power off of it quickly you will have a chance of saving it.

[kmak]

I once left a husky load on my keyboard and it didn't hurt it much.

[Golden_Rhino]

[ QUOTE ]
The main issue, I think, is whether or not plugging in a USB keyboard will lead to the default keyboard disabling itself - I guess I can always hit up the control panel once I get the thing going.

[/ QUOTE ]

USB keyboard shouldn't disable default keyboard (it doesn't on mine)

[dlk9s]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I had a diet coke incident freshman year - said it was going to cost like $300 to fix it. I found the orig manufacturer, ordered the keyboard ($30) and had one of the engineers at my job help me swap it. Worked like a charm and got to say 'suck it best buy'

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I'd love to be able to order the keyboard and swap the thing myself. I don't think taking the thing apart is going to involve much more than a couple of Allen keys and removing a ribbon cable. So far, Dell's web page has proved unhelpful in trying to track down something that useful since the warranty has expired. I'll probably call them in the near future.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are correct in thinking that replacing the keyboard is easy. I spilled chicken soup on my Compaq a few years ago. Fortunately, it was under warranty (I had the accident coverage), and they shipped me out a new one right away.

It was interesting to see that there was a metal plate underneath the keyboard, which protected the guts of the computer (there were a couple holes, but also fortunately, the soup was thick, so I was able to prevent a disaster).

[wet work]

I spilled a Sprite on one of mine a couple of years ago, killed it. Pretty much tried all the things mentioned in this thread, all to no avail. It was a bummer.

[AceCR9]

I spilled Beer on my last laptop. gg Keyboard.

she can go to any computer store and buy a seperate Keyboard for like $30 though.