Spilled something on your laptop? What to do in the first hour

Tea, water, wine, a knocked-over glass at a desk. Liquid damage is one of the few laptop faults where what you do in the next ten minutes genuinely changes the outcome. So, quickly:

Do this, now, in this order

1. Turn it off immediately. Hold the power button down — do not shut down politely, do not save your work. Electricity plus liquid is what kills components; removing the electricity buys you time.
2. Unplug the charger.
3. Remove the battery if you can. On most modern laptops you cannot without opening the case. Do not force it.
4. Turn it upside down, open, in a tent shape, on a towel. Let gravity take the liquid back out rather than further in.
5. Leave it alone. Do not press the power button “just to check”. That check is what destroys the board.
6. Get it to a repair centre as fast as you reasonably can.

Why rice does not work

The rice trick is the most persistent myth in consumer technology. Rice absorbs a negligible amount of moisture from inside a sealed device, and it introduces starch and dust into the ports. Meanwhile the actual problem is not that the device is wet — it is that liquid is corroding the circuit board, and corrosion continues merrily whether or not the water has evaporated.

Sugary or salty liquids — tea with sugar, fizzy drinks, wine, seawater — are dramatically worse than plain water for exactly this reason. Waiting for it to “dry out” is not neutral. It is time the corrosion is using.

What a proper repair involves

In our workshop, liquid damage means opening the machine, removing the board, and cleaning it — properly, with the right solvents and an ultrasonic clean where appropriate — to remove the corrosion before it eats through the traces. Damaged components are then replaced at board level, which is where micro-soldering comes in.

This is precisely the work that most high street shops send away. We do it in-house at Radstock, which is why we can turn most jobs around in about three days.

Your data

Even where a board is beyond saving, the storage drive very often survives. If the machine holds photos or documents you have not backed up anywhere else, say so when you bring it in — we will make recovering those the priority.

And afterwards

Once you have your machine back, read our guide on how to back up your photos. The people who sail through this kind of thing are the ones who did that a year ago.