#WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU SPILL LIQUIDS INSIDE YOUR ELECTRONICS
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Remove power. Yank the plug and/or battery out immediately. Do not save your document or finish your email or shut down the computer or anything else. Do not worry about the coffee or soda spilling over your table when you flip the machine upside down to get the battery, clean that up after you’ve removed power. If your machine is a laptop, obviously this is going to be disruptive, if the machine is a keyboard or other peripheral device then it’ll be less of an issue.
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if the device has removable parts that are not waterproof - such as toner cartridges, ink tanks, decorations built from alka-seltzer tablets, whatever - remove those now.
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find a bathtub, shower or laundry sink and run the cleanest water available in through the same apertures that originally received the spill. You want room temperature water, but if the only choices are cold or hot, use cold water.
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continue running water in until it is running out of every other orifice. Do this until the water runs clean and clear.
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rotate the machine through every possible orientation, pausing whenever water runs out, many times. The insides may be a maze of twisty little passages that will trap water unless you do this. Don’t only rotate it in a single direction, twist it every which way and shake it repeatedly. Don’t shake so hard that you will damage mechanical linkages inside it, or smack it against anything. Set the machine down on a towel or similar absorbent surface.
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using a disposable cloth slightly dampened (not soaking wet) with clean water, wipe off any liquid or debris from the removable parts (including batteries, if any) you took out of the machine. Do not use liquids to clean battery terminals if the battery is of very high capacity (laptop batteries are not high capacity) and do not bridge terminals while cleaning batteries.
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If you have a way to charge batteries outside the machine, do that, otherwise put batteries and other removable parts in a cool dry place once they are clean. The fridge is probably OK, but do NOT freeze batteries or other parts.
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get the machine you left sitting on a towel earlier and put it in a very dry environment (if the place you live is excessively humid or prone to mold and mildew, put it in a box with an absorbent like rice or silica gel) and wait two weeks, turning the machine over every day.
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after two weeks, carefully examine the machine to be sure it is fully dry. If you didn’t rotate it enough you may find water still runs out of it or see beads of water down inside the device. Having that water in there two weeks might corrode and ruin the device, but if the water was truly clean, probably not. Do not run the device until it is thoroughly dried or you will have wasted a lot of time for nothing.
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get the battery (if any) out of the fridge and let it warm to room temperature before inserting it. Wipe off any condensate that forms if you’re in a humid environment. Now put everything back together and try to use it. There is a very high chance that everything will be fine; if it isn’t, there’s a very high chance that your water supply is dirty, or you didn’t follow the instructions closely enough. The most common mistake is not acting quickly and decisively.
Easier, quicker, highly failure-prone version of above for keyboards only
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follow the first two steps from recipe above
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put it in a dishwasher by itself with no dishes or detergent or other additives and run a cold cycle with no drying phase. The drying phase of a dishwasher is essentially a bake oven and your device will likely melt inside, then when you plug it in it’ll damage your computer.
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if it survives the dishwasher, hang it from a line for a couple of weeks - indoors, in full sun from a window.
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see if it works now. If it doesn’t, throw it in the technology recycling bin and get a new one.
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this almost never works on complex things like laptops, but I do it for keyboards all the time. Sometimes it works; if I load the dishwasher with six or seven dumpster keyboards I always get at least one working one in the end.
#Use these methods at your own risk. It works for me!
