A tag-along post to Linus' recent laptop revival

[WolfStrong]

As someone who has come across, and successfully fixed some waterlogged devices, this is no surprise to me. Water damaged electronics are no mythical being that magically stops working. I thought I would outline the few main causes that make electronics stop working, as well as bust a few myths. 

 

What causes failures?

First, let's go over what actually causes electronics to stop working after being exposed to liquids. Corrosion. Just because a circuit shorts, does not mean it is fried though! Electronics (outside of batteries), are often very robust to this sort of thing, and even something like a blown capacitor can be replaced fairly easily, though I've almost never seen this happen from liquid damage. For an electronic component to truly fail, something MUCH worse than liquid damage has to occur on lower voltage things like laptops and cell phones. What happens is that sediments in the liquid not only cause conduction, but also stay behind as the liquid dries (more on this in the myths). Truth be told, distilled water can be used to actually clean electronics after they have been exposed to anything that may corrode, though there are better solutions out there. As Linus pointed out, the #1 thing to watch out for is the battery. The danger isn't that the circuit got wet, the danger is when it dries. The longer it takes to dry off, and the longer a current pushed through the circuit, the greater the chances are of corrosion. The corrosion is conductive, which shorts out the circuit, causing the unit not to work. 

 

On the note of corrosion, there are a few places to look for in particular, the first is always the copper/gold connections. Sadly, this includes RAM, CPU sockets, and the PCI (GPU). Some of these are too hard to see as the pins can be hidden in a plastic housing, but those are not the problem as there is often more metal to corrode away. The problem often lies on the thin metal contact on the PCB. I actually had a laptop I cleaned up completely, went over all the connections, and could not figure out why it wouldn't boot. After going over it with a friend for a second set of eyes, I finally caught it: part of the contact on one of the RAM sticks had corroded away slightly. Replaced RAM stick, and laptop worked. This is why it is vitally important to clean the corrosion off ASAP, and the best timeframe I can give you is 'while the unit is still dripping wet'. Again, the longer you wait...

 

A few other dangers are also involved, the biggest being the LiPo batteries used in modern electronics. These batteries are HIGHLY combustible when exposed to shorts or physical damage; just Google "LiPo Fire". Whenever these are exposed to water, it is ALWAYS a good idea to replace them. Even if the battery appears to work, one of the cells could be shorted, and when you go to charge it or expose it to any kinds of stress, it may light up the entire battery...not good. Another common failure point are electronics with VERY precise electronics and engineering, examples being cameras, LCD's, and sensors. These often have VERY tight tolerances in manufacturing, which means that if water gets in, there is no way for air to get in to dry it out properly. Often, water spots on an LCD is a sure sign of it just needing to be replaced simply because there is just no good way to get the water out. Fans are another common failure point where there is little hope of recovery. While some fans can be taken apart and the electronics cleaned (more on that next), putting them back together often proves harder than the effort is worth, and end up not working right anyways. They are cheap enough that replacement is usually required if it isn't working properly.

 

How to fix it?

The good news is that if you take action quickly, regardless of how wet it got, it can often be saved with little hassle. The first thing to do is to disconnect the battery, and likely discard it. This, again, is one thing that I always tell people to replace simply because of how dangerous LiPo's are. There are several different types of Lithium batteries, and while LiNiMn (Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide) isn't nearly as dangerous, LiFePO4 (Lithium Iron Phosphate) are extraordinarily dangerous, and are often what is used in mobile devices like laptops and phones. With the battery removed, go ahead and completely take apart the device; this includes taking the motherboard out of the unit. Once it is removed, remove all removable parts from everything possible. If it screws on, or has a removable connection, take it off.

 

Now that everything is apart, you will need a few things: a large towel to work on that you don't mind getting a little trashed, a plastic/nylon or Hard Bristle brush (toothbrush size), some microfiber towels, compressed air, and the key component, Deoxit D5. I recommend this stuff over everything else because it just works, and is readily available. Not only does it clean really well, but it also protects the surface from further corrosion.

 

With everything taken apart, and your tools ready, the first step is to try and get the water off as much as possible; this is where the compressed air and microfiber towels come into play. Once this is done, go right to liberally applying Deoxit to EVERYTHING. Don't worry, this stuff is made to touch electronics and won't hurt anything (except camera's and LCD's for reasons mentioned above). As you spray it on, use the brush to brush down every crevasse of the PCB board, contacts, and anything else you can see. For things like RAM slots to improve drying times, I apply just a little Deoxit to the brush and brush the areas clean, and apply compressed air to push out any residue (which can house corrosion you just removed). Seriously, you can apply this stuff pretty heavily to the board and just clean away as much as possible. It really doesn't take much though as this stuff just eats away corrosion, and leaves behind nice and shiney electronics with little needed; it is just a nice piece of mind that you can't really overdue it. Deoxit actually displaces the water as well, helps make contacts conduct better, and doesn't cause shorts....it really is that magical.

 

After everything is nice and clean, use another microfiber to lightly clean excess Deoxit off. You will notice a film of it left over which is exactly what you want. Let this film dry on the electronics as it contains a protective layer that will help protect against corrosion and do its magic. Leave it to dry for at least 15 minutes, though I tend to leave it for an hour or more. I've even left it overnight once just because of all the small places that retain liquid really good. Once it dries, reassemble the unit, power on, and you are good to go! Just be sure to double check those contact points REALLY closely as the corrosion could have eaten away at too much of it like it did me that one time.

 

Myths

I love this one, "Just throw it in a bag of rice". Let me come out and say this first: DO NOT DO THIS. What this will do is possibly dry out the unit, but what it will not do is get the residue off. This is likely why Linus' method worked so well for him, because he had a fan pushing the water off the unit, not giving much chance for the residue to cause corrosion, though I would have done a Deoxit bath as well because water can still hide in small little places, like under chips, and eventually cause problems down the road. Deoxit displaces this water, leaving no chance of this happening. Rice also can cause other issues, like small pieces of it getting stuck in ports and connections. I've seen this happen more times than I'd like to admit with a customer who threw their device in a bag of rice, only to have a piece of rice royally jammed in a headphone jack or USB port where it is a PITA to get out. Just don't do this. You are actually better off rinsing the unit out with distilled water, which I do not recommend. At least distilled water will displace the previous liquid, getting rid of the chance of sediment drying, causing corrosion. Again, I do not recommend this as it is still water, which readily picks up other contaminants, which can still dry and increase oxidation. Just trying to get the point across that the 'rice trick' is a joke at best.

 

This really boils down all the drying methods down to one myth: Drying off the device is simply not good enough. There are hundreds of small places that can retain water for a very long time, and without something to displace that water, it will sit there and corrode away at the metal, causing more issues down the road. If you are too scared to take the unit apart, and not willing to pay someone to do it, then try what you want (distilled water rinse + drying method), but just know your chances of full recovery and slim to none in the long run.

 

That's it!

Time is key here, so move quickly.  I've been able to recover all the devices I've come across thanks to Deoxit, as well as other things like cleaning staticy volume pots on receivers and such! Hope this helps someone out!