I spilled water into my laptop, how do I get it working again?

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I have lost the count of number of laptops and keyboards I cleaned with success. I only failed in a few cases because of circuitry already damaged.
In some cases equipment was damaged as soon as some liquid spilled inside or before the power was turned off. But the worst cases (hopeless)I've seen were these, when people dumped their equipment in water, tried random chemicals,etc. and then turned on the power. Instant destruction!
So, what should be done ?
First thing to do is turn off the power, take out the batteries and disconnect any type of cords. In case of small amount of clean liquids (free of sugar, salt, etc.) spilt into the equipment waiting for some time to allow drying might be enough. If not successful, batteries should be immediately taken out and cords should be disconnected. Never try anything with power available in some way, most of the cleaners are combustible and/or explosive when in spray form.
Remember not to use improper solvents like benzene, acetone, xylene, methyl alcohol as these are harmful unless you have a fume hood and will also damage PVC, plexiglass and similar materials, especially your laptop display surface in many cases. Even harmless solvents will make plastics brittle under prolonged contact. Also, do not use conductive contact sprays like some WD-XX types unless you intend to clean them with some other cleaner.
In case of sugar, you have to use deionized pure water. Don't allow water to stay too long inside your equipment.
Use ethyl alcohol or better, isopropyl alcohol to wash your laptop thoroughly (preferably, keep the screen dry), especially if you used water before. Water is absorbed by these alcohols and the only health hazard is temporary dizziness if you breathe too much of the vapor. Also, protect your eyes. Usually a couple of hours' wait will be enough until your laptop is completely dry, clean of any water, grime, sugar, etc. 24 hours wait under a warm, well ventilated place would be better.
For excessive cases, a proper cleaning spray intended for delicate instruments such as 3M's Novec product is the ultimate remedy. I keep a couple of cans and do not use anything else. Unless you first carry out the steps above, you'd need to use at least half a can and wait for half a day before trying your laptop.

First of all pure water does not conduct electricity. It is the inpurities in the water that do that. Other than the moving parts "Fans, drives, Etc" a PC board is pretty much a sealed unit. Water on it should not hurt it at all. Providing the power was not on or was not turned on after the fact. You can use a toothbrush and rubbing alcohol to scrub a board using care not to dislodge wiring and other connections. Alcohol does indeed absorb water. Several dunkings and or spraying it well several times should remove the water no matter where it went. Mild dish soap and a brush will remove the sugar and other gunk left behind before the final cleaning with Alcohol to remove any last traces of water. Leaving the unit setting near a heat source will help speed the
drying up a bit. I have removed the worst of all contaminants and that is soot from a house fire and it goes every where. Soot is carbon and it does conduct quite well. Good Luck

As an electrician in a previous career and then later an Intensive Care Paramedic, I can assure you that water of any kind is a very good conductor of electricty so please be very careful.

My advice to the person concerned would be to drain dry in the sun then use a hair dryer on low heat setting which should blow and dry up any moisture insitue. If that fails take it to a service technician. Good Luck.

You may not like this suggestion as it is a little dishonest, but try returning it for warranty since it is new. Don't tell them what happened, just say it stopped working.
I'm a PC Tech and admit I have done this a couple of times for clients when they have dropped laptops or spilled water on them and got warranty replacements with no questions asked.
Can't hurt to try, right?

Put unit in Ziploc bag fill bag with pure 99% nitrogen leave it in the filled bag and repeat again after 12 hours you should be good to go.
make sure you remove battery from unit also good to dry it out with a hair dryer (on low setting) to get as much water as possible prior to using the nitrogen tent.

MY FATHER HAD WATER SPILLED IN A VCR, WHEN I LEARNED IT DID NOT WORK, I TOOK IT APART (AS IT HAD SET FOR A COUPLE OF WEEKS), PUT A NEW FUSE IN AND BLEW IT AGAIN. HERE IS WHAT SOLVED IT FOR ME. THE MOTHER BOARD ROUTING OR COPPER ETCHING OR WHATEVER HAD TURNED GREENISH, SO I WAS TOLD TO USE A DISH SPONGE WITH THE ABRASIVE SIDE AND IT QUIT SHORTING OUT AFTER THAT.

SORRY FORGOT TO SAY SAND BOARD WITH THE SPONGE ON MY POST

Since time has passed it will be likely that the LT will need to be physically dismantled to be salvaged as many have noted.

A point of clarification about WD-40 though, it IS a Water Displacer by design. It was Rocket Chemical Companies 40th attempt at creating a chemical for the space administration as they had a moisture and corrosion problem with rockets.

In "theory" it is safe to spray WD-40 onto a circuit board (live if necessary) to displace water. The dielectric value for WD-40 is extremely high...something like 12K per 0.100 in.
However, on a circuit with zero power, there would be no harm whatsoever to a circuit board.

Automotive mechanics, and I've done so myself many times, spray WD-40 into an automotive ignition system when the engine is running to displace moisture caused by faulting insulation on spark plug wires / distributor caps etc and remember those are running at high voltage not just 12v. It is the easiest and generally fastest way to find the source of the problem as a sputtering engine will purr as soon as you hit the right spot with the WD-40.

Kudos to you Leo for a great site and wish the original requester the best of luck. Gotta love our pets.

I did a friend's phone with the rice and it worked, I wuld try the rice with cheese cloth for a laptop. Good luck.

My Laptop works fine now but i think my cat is missing. Same story here, my cat tipped over not water but a full glass of "Coca-Cola" on to my opened laptop. Fortunately the laptop was not turned on or plugged in. It's been 9 months now and all is well with no problems. The fix was simple but not quick. Items needed: PC repairer tool kit - about 5 gallons of Distiled (NOT REVERSE OSMOSIS) water - about 1/2 gallon of 99% pure isopropal alcohol - assorted size and shape of small tooth brush type brushes - two clean (never used) spray bottles - desica gel (or rice--minute rice works best)and time - lots of time. Using the tool kit take apart the entire laptop (if you go on line you can find all the schematics needed to take it apart.) Using the distiled water spray one at a time every nut, bolt, screw, circuit bord, every square inch of your laptop using one of the small brushes to GENTLY scrub the soda off. NEVER REUSE THE WATER JUST LET IS DRIP AWAY. When you're satisfied it's clean use the other spray bottle with the alcohol and spray every single piece allowing it to just drip away (don't reuse the drippings). Allow all pieces to air dry for 24 hours (a fan can be used BUT NO HEAT) After air drying place all the Pisces in a sealed container with the desica gel for a minim of 72 hours. then just reassemble your laptop and your good to go. I've used this method on 5 laptops and 3 PC's since fixing my own as others have heard of my success. Only one failure of the bunch but that was because SHE turned HER laptop on before bringing it over to see if it still worked lol. Good Luck to you all.

God Bless The CPU

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