Mike's Tech Blog

Recently a co-worker stopped me and told me she had spilled her coffee all over her laptop, and asked me what to do. Things could be worse, it could have been pop (or soda). Here are a few suggestions that I told her to do, which are very similar to dealing with a wet cell phone.

1. Immediaetly remove the power adapter to your laptop The goal is to remove all power from your laptop before the coffee (water, soda, etc.) gets inside your laptop and does any damage.

2. Remove the battery from your Laptop quickly. Don't worry about going through a normal shutdown here. This is an emergency. Typically the damage to your laptop is due to the coffee (water, soda,etc.) causing a short circuit in the laptop. This absolutely needs to happen within seconds of the spilled coffee.

If your laptop is inside some sort of case and you can't get to the battery quickly, press and hold the power button for five seconds. This will do an emergency shutdown of your laptop.  Then take it out of the case and remove the laptop's battery.

3. Under no circumstances turn on your Laptop until you have done all of the following.

4. Remove all external devices from your laptop such as USB drives, iPod chargers and such.

5. Keep the laptop open, and turn it upside down and set it on the table. You can do this either one of two ways. "Teepe" fashion, or place the keyboard directly on the top of a table with the LCD display hanging over the edge of the table. This will make any coffee that is inside the laptop to drain down and away from the electronics.

While your laptop is sitting there, go and collect the following:

1. A plastic trash bag

2. Twist ties to tightly seal the bag

3. Cheese cloth (optional)

4. Lots of un-cooked rice

1. Place a large quantity of the un-cooked rice into the trash bag.

2. Place the cheesecloth over the rice (if you are using it)

3. With the laptop still upside down, place it on the rice, with as much of the laptop contacting the rice as possible.

4. If you are using cheese cloth, put another layer over the laptop.

5. Pour more un-cooked rice over the laptop so that it is completely covered in the rice.

6. Get as much air out of the trach bag as possible, and seal the bag up with the twist ties.

6. Leave the laptop for 48 hours inside the trash bag This is the most difficult part, and the second most important part. If you turn on your laptop and there is still wet coffee in there, it will surely short out inside your laptop.

So why un-cooked rice? It is a desiccant, and pulls whatever moisture that is in the laptop out of it. We use a plastic trash bag so the un-cooked rice pulls the moisture from the laptop, and not from the air outside the bag. The cheesecloth is used to help keep little pieces of rice from getting into the laptop.