Any Computer Experts in Da House?


 
LMichaels

LMichaels

TVWBB 2-Star Olympian
So yesterday wife and I settle in for dinner and a movie night. Fixed a delish steak dinner with trimmings. Had a glass of "white Malbec" on the little side table next to me. On the floor nearby it was one of my laptop puters. It was closed and turned off but battery was in it though not plugged in. Now the disaster.
Went for the wine and I guess since I had been handling the steak while cutting a little greasiness was still on my fingers. Glass shot out of my hand and landed on my Chromebook and my Laptop. Chromebook is a Samsung and spill proof. And nothing became an issue. But the laptop a different story
I wiped it off and turned it upside down within seconds maybe 5 seconds. Pulled the battery and left it open figuring being alcoholic it would dry pretty fast. So late in the evening I put the battery in and fired it up. Acted like battery dead (which being it was only in sleep/hibernate mode for a few days was understandable). So I plugged it in. Turned it on and it booted. I'm thinking "phew" dodged the bullet. When I tried to open a browser screen began flashing and began fading to white. So I quickly unplugged and pulled battery to force a shutdown.
I then took it apart. I noted moisture along the bottom of the LCD panel and the connector but basically nothing inside the actual laptop. So I disconnected the screen and have it sitting in rice. I took the chassis of the puter and have it sitting as an inverted V with a fan blowing through it.
Now my only fear is being a slightly sweet wine it's leaving some slight stickiness wherever it's evaporating.
Anyone ever had similar happen? What about lasting damage? Irreparable? Just sick over this thing. As it's an important computer. My grandson uses it when he's here for his remote learning, it's the only one I have with enough "oomph" to burn DVDs and so on
Thoughts before I try to reassemble it?
 
<scratches head> Can't say that I've dumped a glass over a machine. You might want to look up replacement screens online for it, you might be surprised. You're already this far into it, may be worth considering.
 
It's an ASUS puter. Was pleasantly surprised to see "Samsung" on the screen. I am hoping since I found moisture along the connector at the bottom of the screen that it's the only issue and drying it will restore it.
 
I wouldn't call myself an expert but I do dabble in computers quite a bit. I was going to recommend the rice trick as I've heard of it working on phones at times. It generally relies on the machine being off when it gets wet though so not sure it will help you out totally. Personally I think it is an old wives tale. Definitely don't turn it on again because that is when chips get shorted out and might have already been since you turned it on. If that happens then it is dead. The good news is basic computers are pretty cheap right now so a replacement is an easy fix.

One thing you might try is removing the keyboard to check underneath for moisture. They usually have little metal tabs that hold it in place, google your specific model for the how-to and check around under there. If you see some sticky spots use rubbing alcohol and a q-tip to clean it off then let it dry for a couple more days. Depending on the model you might be able to see the ram under there and remove that too to check underneath it as well. Take the drives out of the side or bottom to do the same.
 
Yeah the keyboard is off and the whole chassis is open. Luckily nothing got down into the motherboard and chassis section. It was concentrated around the screen.
 
LMichaels said:
It's an ASUS puter. Was pleasantly surprised to see "Samsung" on the screen. I am hoping since I found moisture along the connector at the bottom of the screen that it's the only issue and drying it will restore it.
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I have a 6 year old Asus gaming laptop, and I can get pretty much all of it's components still. Samsung is a big panel manufacturer, no big surprise there.
 
I have replaced a couple. Screens can be pretty cheap if ordered direct from China. A few years ago Staples wanted $600 to replace one and I got it to my door for $26 from China. I found my model and replacement instructions on the internet and proved I could remove it before I ordered it though. Another option is to try an external monitor if it is just the screen that is pooched. Good Luck!
 
Is there any evidence of wine residue near the hard drive or SSD? Is there any evidence of residue on the motherboard?
 
No evidence I can see or feel. When I opened it all the moisture was at the rear of the top (screen when folded over the keyboard) and had all settled around the main connector to the actual LCD panel on that teeniny little ribbon cable. I wiped out that area and put the display in rice overnight. Just looked at it/felt it cannot see/feel any residue. I am almost thinking I should button it all up and give it a try. Only the track pad got a tiny amount on it as well. But again did not seem to have traveled all the way to the mboard and chassis of the unit.
 
Well I had the display sitting in rice, no sign of anything on the motherboard and such. Apparently the keyboard took a "hit". I actually had it running for a bit yesterday but sadly I think it has bit the dust. So I am looking for a new one.
Something I have noticed is finding them with "optical drives" (DVD writer/reader) is like hunting snipe. IOW very unlikely to find. I do at times require the use of a DVD/CD writer. Anyone used one the standalone types that work on USB3? Any issues? Thinking I may have to give up on my wish of an internal writer
 
<chuckle> I assembled a new tower to run Win10 a month ago. While installing the operating system, I found out the hard way that I really did need to load network drivers (brand new mainboard design.) The external USB2 DVD burner that I bought almost 20 years worked just fine, didn't even need to restart the installer.
 
Not so much worried about "reading" a DVD/CD (though that is important) but burning them as that seems to be quite the resource hog. And being able to get data to the burner fast is utmost to a smooth process so I am a tiny bit concerned about the standalone ones since they're USB3 and if they're integral to the machine I believe they're SATA
 
All depends.... a USB3 or SATA connection is definitely preferable to a USB2. I have seen systems with internal optical drives connected w/ USB ports (heavy duty mid-range enterprise scale servers,) but those are very much in the minority. USB3 connections are easily good enough to multiplex through a couple of 4k monitor connections, a 1gbps network connection and a few other bits as well. A USB3 connected device should be more than sufficient. You could also use an eSATA, but those are much more difficult to deal with (having to shut down to disconnect, etc.)

I've burned images to USB thumb drives for boot, but I can't remember the last time I burned a platter. Reading drivers for the Win10 build was the first time in a long time where I read a platter that wasn't media being ripped.
 
OK cool thanks for the advice. This is going to be my first "new" puter since prior to Windows 7! Though the ones I currently have (the ASUS I wrecked and the other ASUS that is barely making it) I bought used from techs that refurbed them. The one I wrecked was a gem. Core I5, 8gb ram, 500 gig drive. Wonderful unit. Just very upset I ruined it.
 
LMichaels said:
OK cool thanks for the advice. This is going to be my first "new" puter since prior to Windows 7! Though the ones I currently have (the ASUS I wrecked and the other ASUS that is barely making it) I bought used from techs that refurbed them. The one I wrecked was a gem. Core I5, 8gb ram, 500 gig drive. Wonderful unit. Just very upset I ruined it.
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My advice Larry if your going to buy a new one Windows 10 will be the OS obviously but don't buy one that has a normal hard drive make sure you spend the money and pay up for an SSD drive no platter to blow up much faster and if you want a USB CD/DVD drive they are cheap and with a new laptop should have a 3.0 USB port which is faster. A 250 GB SSD drive unless you are doing a ton of pictures and music should be more than sufficient. I used to work for Big Blue so been in tech before I retired for many years I don't advise anyone to buy a laptop with less than 8GB of memory.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Z1VDPKT/?tag=tvwb-20

Edit: Do not buy a laptop with an Intel celeron processor.
 
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LMichaels said:
It's pokey, pokier than the much older one it's replacing,
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That's.... odd. I certainly would not have expected a machine with those specs to be slow at all. I don't have the attachment to SSDs that some do, but even if that was a 5400 RPM rotating drive, there's enough RAM to cache a bunch.

As far as the mouse vs. touchpad thing goes.... M$ is moving stuff around all the time now with the forced updates. For all intents & purposes, if you used to find it in Control Panel, it'll be somewhere else.

Drive failures, even in rotating storage, have been on the down trend, IMO. This stuff just keeps getting more and more reliable. I have 1 system here with 5 SATA drives, and 4 of them are probably 10+ years old. Then again, they've been running constantly (more or less,) in a mostly temperature controlled environment, and everything here is fed from an enterprise UPS.
 
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