Ok here’s the story: My friend, who knows almost nothing about computers, bought a “$900 laptop” for his daughter. I have no idea what any of the specs on it were or even what brand it was, and I don’t know how long ago he bought it so I can’t even make a ballpark guess. Anyway, he tried to use it one day and it wouldn’t work so he took it to a shop and it turns out his brat daughter had used it like once and spilled coke all over it and threw it in the closet. The guy at the shops wants $65 just for telling him that, so my friend said screw it and told him to keep the computer. But, I can go pay the $65 and try to fix it and I’ll have a $65 laptop. So…Can it be fixed?
I dunno but I spilled Coke on my keyboard in college and it was unfixable but maybe a laptop can be fixed.
Not likely. Coke is so “toxic”, the contacts are probably corroded.
Typically coke and other sugary sodas are awful and difficult to remove because they get into every nook and cranny of the keys and after the water evaporates leave behind a gooey mess that dries to almost ceramic hardness.
Cleaning a standard PC keyboard (to say nothing of a smaller notebook keyboard) with distilled water is difficult because some spaces are so tight that once water gets it it will stay there for a long long time. Blowing it (the water) out with forced air or trying to dry it out with a hair dryer on low is useless in the end as there is always some liquid somewhere in the keyboard membrane that is impossible to remove without dis-assembly down to the component parts which is sometimes impossible because of the way many keyboards are constructed. I’ve tried volatiles like alcohol and freon type cleaners but they do nothing to remove dried sugar goo.
Anyway the main game plan is to go on Ebay and get an identical unit with a blown motherboard (or whatever) for $10- $50 and use the keyboard. You can also usually plug a external keyboard into the unit if the main one is zapped although a fried keyboard may prevent the system from booting.
If the unit is a Pentium 166-200 MHz unit or above it would probably be worth a 65.00 gamble to play with. Less than that and it's really not worth fooling with even for
65.00. If it’s a few years old and $ 900 originally I’ll guess that it’s probably a 233-333 mhz unit. If it’s
a really weird or unpopular brand there may not be that many of it’s kind for sale to get parts from.
You can try cleaning the keyboard but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t pan out.
Well, what happens when you turn it on? How much coke got into it, a little, a lot?
A friend spilled a whole glass of wine on his laptop computer keyboard. He said it seemed to be out of commission at first. He turned it upside down for a couple of days to dry out and it was fine after that. You might try the same thing, though I would imagine that soft drinks are even worse than wine.
If you ever spill something in your laptop, TURN IT OFF!
If it’s water, let it dry throughly. This means a week, plus some. You can even put in in a trash bag with some dehumidifyer, if you live somewhere humid, and it doesn’t seem to be drying.
When it’s DRY, try turning it on. It will probably work.
If it’s not water, wash it with the cleanest water you can find. This probably means a trip to the store for distilled, but use bottled water first, and then get some distilled later if you’re worried it’ll dry before you get back. The main issue is to get all those ions, sugar, acid, whatever, out of the computer. Plain water won’t leave a residue that will short when it’s dry.
Then follow the above drying instructions. It has definatly worked in the past, and might work again!! 
For the dried-on coke, though, I just don’t know. Could be worth a try if other options are too expensive for the worth of the computer. It doesn’t hurt, after all. Just don’t get the water in the display. Try to keep in in the keyboard/processor part.
The tech-support rule of thumb for coffee is that if it’s black coffee you spill, there’s a good chance of resurrection. If it has cream or sugar, odds get much lower. I do not think time is really a factor, as long as you scrub it good. (lots of water!!)
My co-workers looked at me kinda funny the first time they saw me scrubing a calculator at the sink, and putting it in the dish-drainer to dry. Works great, though.
Apricot
Unfortunately, I can not blame a child for my accident. I spilled a can of soda on my laptop’s keyboard. The sypmtoms was sticky keys and a 303(?) keyboard error. It acted as if I kept several keys pressed all the time. With the IBM ThinkPad, I was able to open the case and take apart the keyboard. I popped off each key’s top which were connected to small plastic thing that pressed on a rubber membrane. When I took the keyboard assembly apart, the plastic pieces all come off and there is a rubber membrane
sheet that had a bubble (key press against bubble and makes contact) under each key. I soaked all the key tops and other plastic pieces in water to remove the sticky soda and wiped the membrane piece several several time with a slightly damp cloth, cleaning the cloth after each couple of wipes. Put it all back together and it worked!
I think most laptop’s keyboard uses a membrane type keyboard since they are designed to be exposed to the outdoor environment and it makes the keyboard thin enough for a laptop. Good luck.
Jim
JG has it right, you should turn it off & upsidedown asap.
What I usually do is simply put it in the gas oven with a pilot light on. It should dry in a couple hours this way. I don’t know how long a laptop would take.
LPS brand Electro Contact Cleaner is the best stuff out there. The great thing about it is that it will reconstitute the Coke then it will dry to a powdery dust that can be blown away with canned air.
This is the brand that the military uses on their ICBM’s.
If this stuff can really do what you say I’d be very interested in getting some but the “reconstitution then dry to powder” claim is not made (that I can see on the product description) and I don’t see how it would do this without water or something similar that the sugar will re-dissolve back into solution with then change the chemistry of the sugar bonds.
Is this claim made and/or detailed in some other area of the website?
The powder is what I have noticed from my own experience with the LPS product. I don’t believe that the powder is produced unless the cleaner comes into contact with a foreign substance.
The LPS cleaner is made with solvents, some of which are safe to use on electrical contacts because they evaporate before they can cause corrosion and do not leave any residue. WAG, but the solvents will probably be able to reconstitue the Coke then dissolve it. Since the Coke will have been reconstituted with a solvent it is possible that it too will dry into a powder.