Liquid damage to a dell Latitude D630

[jbenny2]

Hello,

I have just spilled a cup of soup into my laptop keyboard. I immediately powered off removed the power lead and battery. Opened up the case and removed most of the components down to the main circuit board, however apart from the keyboard tray there was only a couple of small drips on the main board beside where the battery connects. I have now cleaned and dried the area where the drips were and cleaned the keyboard and left it over night in a warm place.
Now it's back together when I press the power on button, the power light comes on and the hard drive light blinks for a split second and then both go out and nothing happens! Is it possible i have damaged the battery of main power supply circuit. If so is it worth getting a 2nd hand Dell D630 laptop and swapping my hard drive to recover the data and then use it for part to attempt to fix mine?

Any suggestions much appreciated

 

[house70]

Soup has a lot of solid and semisolid components to it. Some might be causing a partial short on the motherboard or some other component. It would have been better with water.
Remove the HDD before attempting any further repairs, access it from a different PC using a enclosure or a docking system and make sure the data is there. That is the main thing ATM, and there is no need to get another laptop to do that, just have access to another PC (unless you need the laptop, in that case go ahead and get another one).
Let us know once you have secured your data and we'll see what can be done with the laptop itself. If you are technically inclined, in theory you could open up the case, remove the CMOS battery from the motherboard (the cell battery), rinse the inside with DISTILLED water, let dry thoroughly in a vented space (adding a cup of rice in the container next to the laptop will make the air drier, thus ensuring a better process), re-assemble after that and try to power up again. Keep the HDD out of the laptop while doing all that.

 

[das_stig]

Strip it down and give circuits a good bath in isopropyl alcohol and let it dry for overnight in the airing cupboard, take static precautions.

 

[jbenny2]

I've fitted a new main board as there was some damage to a couple of components directly under the mouse pad where the soup dripped through. Looked like it shorted out before i could kill the power and remove the battery. Lesson to learn not to eat soup by the laptop!