Ask HN: Cleaning a MacBook by submerging it in distilled water?

I believe you can get chemicals specifically designed for cleaning electronics.

Back when aggressive fluxes were used in manufacturing, washing the circuit board was a normal part of the process, so it's not an entirely crazy idea. I wouldn't use a hair dryer, though. Besides possible heat damage, moving air can generate a static charge.

Actually even regular water is usually OK for electronics. I washed LC630 innards in the shower. Dry it well, though; you'll probably be better opening it to avoid trapping moisture inside.

I once rescued an N64 from a Coca-Cola related incident using the process you describe but isopropyl alcohol instead of distilled water. The alcohol worked much better on the sticky soda, didn't seem to harm the electronics and dried very quickly because it evaporates so fast.

YMMV.

After washing, put the logic board in a sealed container with five pounds of rice for a few days. I'd skip the hair dryer.

What kind of alcohol was spilled onto the computer?

Answer - possibly not. Maybe not for reasons you are thinking of. The non-conductivity of the distilled water will be eliminate as soon as the water comes into contact with any contaminates, as its contaminates in the water the provide conductivity. However, as long as the board is completely dried there is no reason for a problem to exist, aside from corrosion.

Even if you use distilled water, make sure to also remove the on-board battery. (I'm not sure if the current MB still have one).

I wouldn't do that yet. The stickiness could be on the keyboard only. I would disassemble (get instructions for your model from http://www.ifixit.com/) and visually inspect for damage. Make sure everything is completely dry, reassemble and retest.

If it won't power on, then you have to start debugging to isolate the problem. If it is the logic board, then my sympathies ... they are expensive to replace.

You can buy cans of aerosol circuit board cleaner at Radio Shack. They cost less than $10, and don't contain corrosive or conductive liquids.

how about try this. Also, i remember the logic board clips on some MB's are very fragile, to the point my mac repair guy (doing this for decades) didn't want to take it apart.

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/05/12/dont-panic-liquid-damage-and-...

There is a fluid they use for ultrasonic cleaning of electronics: http://www.google.com/search?q=ultrasonic+cleaning+fluid

I would use that over distilled water because it may be quite hard to get the last of it to evaporate.

First, let's clear up your thinking. You don't need to worry about the solution being "non-conductive" because the board is powered off.

Second, distilled water isn't going to have much cleaning power. Most PCB cleaners are pretty toxic because they're trying to remove things such as solder flux and resin.

The easiest solution you could do is to run your board through your DISHWASHER. Yes, that's right. Lot's of small board houses will do this and they turn out clean as a whistle.

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/archive/index.php/t-...

Good luck!

Why are you worried about the conductivity of the water? Presumably, you wont be turning it on while its wet, so removing the battery, any clock batteries, and discharging capacitors (I'll admit, I don't know how to do that or if its possible) should make it fine to submerge in anything.

I don't know about your mainboard, but when my soundcard had accumulated years of dust on it, I just ran it under the tap for a few minutes and let it dry. It works perfectly, too.

My first thought reading the heading was it's similarities to the Ice Bath "fix" for the Xbox 360 red ring of death:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UN7MrhQaAc

Read the description, it's quite funny that people fell for this obvious hoax.

My lady friend's laptop was immersed in a fine Italian port wine for a few hours during an unfortunate incident on a plane ride home from Italy. She didn't turn it on, and quickly removed the battery once she realized what happened. I immersed pretty much everything except the harddrive, LCD, and battery in isopropanol for a few hours, and, then in multiple baths of distilled water. I skipped the hair drying step, but used compressed air to get most of the water off. I then waited a few days to be sure any excess water had evaporated. In the end, everything worked except the LCD screen, which was easy to replace.

disassemble it. soak it in pure alcohol. (fry's sells big bottles of 99.9% rubbing alcohol for cheaper than what you'd pay at the drug store.)

You aren't going to submerge it while it's plugged in, and you aren't going to submerge the LCD (take it apart, I said, get the keyboard and circuit board submerged) make sure it is completely dry before re-assembly.

I do this periodically with my keyboard... and it's standard procedure when something is spilt on my thinkpad. It won't work 100% of the time, but it does quite often work

Alcohol is, I think, a better solvent than distilled water, but the real reason I prefer it is that it dries faster.

I work in computer repair for a university, and we see students coming in all the time with liquid spills.

We usually:

1) Disassemble the computer (ifixit.com is your friend here) 2) Clean the board with a non-conductive cleaner such as Electro Klene (http://www.criticalcleaning.com/CCContact.htm) 3) Dry it off using compressed air and then let it air dry for a bit 4) Reassemble and cross fingers.

We find this works about 1/2 the time.

Distilled water = non conductive Distilled water + dust + sticky alcohol that you're trying to wash off = definitely conductive

See Tom's hardware guide experiment where they took out the fans and instead dumped the computer into distilled water:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/strip-fans,1203.html