two sick laptops!

homealone_2

i have a 18 month old advent laptop that randomly goes black initially i thought it was turning itself off completely but you can actually still see the last screen you were on when you look very closely. this may only happen once every couple of days or happen five or six times in a ten minute session. because of this and being disabled and housebound and so heavily reliant on having one my mum bought be a new dell inspiron two weeks ago and last week i accidentally poured half a bottle of luzozade straight into the keyboard, i turned it upside down immediately and got most of it out but what remained has dried up and now half of the keyboard is really sticky and the not really getting any better in fact is getting worse and it is now taking several seconds for the key to come back up. it had to have been the worst possible drink to spill as it is like thick tar, obviously no pc performance agreement in force but even if i had it specifies repairs not carried out if due to misuse, neglect bla bla bla only took out new house insurance monday with a £50 excess so a little soon to be submitting a claim and obviously my one year guarantee on hardware of no use either. i have seen plenty of adverts saying they can even carry out repairs in your own home which would be ideal for me but wanted to know if anyone had had a similar experience and could prepare me with a ball park figure for their repairs. would ideally like to fix both so could have spare, any quotes availanble?

DatabaseError

any good with a screwdriver? remove the keyboard...wash it...leave it to air dry for a couple of days...reassemble - fixed (unless the acidic drink has done real damege, rather than just leave a sticky sugary residue)

homealone_2

is this something that really can be done. i can see where screws are. would it not affect warranty? and is it really that simple?

DatabaseError

what warranty...you spilled pop in it

ThomasK31ly

How can you claim on your insurance anyway ? You only took the insurance out on Monday and spilt the drink last week.

I would follow DatabaseErrors advice.

wakandem

Sounds like the backlight is failing on the old laptop. Can be repaired but quite costly- £50-100 . If the laptopis static , it could be plugged in to a monitor.

As for the spillage, the laptop should be fine but the sticky residue must be removed as this will cause more damage over time. remove the keyboard as suggested. It is risky rincing the keyboard in situ, but remove the battery, hard drive before, dry everything as best you can with kitchen towels and leave to dry for a coulpe of days in a warm dry place . I have got away with it before

homealone_2

well we took the bull by the horns so to seak and after removing all screws it wouldnot come aart , it felt welded in the area where the lucozade had silled. as i am having more and more trouble each day getting the keys to go up and down we felt sure it had become stuck together literally as all other 3 sides would move. so anxious not to break the casing we had to give up and put all the screws back. as we removed the battery the drink had even managed to get in there SO we are now back to square one. option 1 being let a little man who offers free quotes to look at it, but, if he broke the casing pulling it apart how much responsability would he take? and how much would he charge? option 2 take it to the tech guys at pc world who charge £39.99 to speak to you and then they will call with quote to fix it, what would be a reasonable amount to pay to fix as it cost £399? or option 3 which was my personal favourite until i saw today that the stickiness was getting worse, which was to join pc performance at £7.99 a month wait a respectable amount of time and then call them out? the only problems i see with this option is how much worse will it get while i wait and having read terms and conditions it does say misuse, neglect etc so they still may not repair it. my daughter had a similar problem and had cover with pc performance and they took it fixed it no problem so i dont know if this clause is a relative new one..... welli am stopping now as i can see my panic is making me ramble. if you stuck with me and finished reading this what do you think i should do and at what price does it not seem worth repairing it considering it is only few weeks old and cost £399. help please need advice???

HollaHolla84

Not sure if this would work for a drink spill but never the less I'll give you the link anyway.

http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/cyber-clean/index.html

joshm_2

Get something like this and go crazy. Remember to turn the power off first and remove the battery. Leave it for a few hours after spraying so that it gets a chance to evaporate.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=28993&doy=20m2&C=SO&U=strat15

homealone_2

thanks these both look like great products to have around compuyers anyway, perhaps the can being a solvent may be the best thing for my particular problem, is definitely worth a try anyway. any other tips greatly received as it definitely getting worse have to keep pressing backspace to get it to function at all then it delets whole sentence as you cant get it to stop!!

fwor

Before trying to dismantle it, refer to the service manual, which is almost certainly a free download from Dell. They often hide screws under plastic trim, so you won't see them unless you know where they are.

You don't say what model, but if you enter its Tag code at

http://support.dell.com/

you'll probably find it straight away.

While the Maplin cleaner is great for greasy stuff, it probably won't touch water-soluble stuff like fizzy drinks. If you can get the keyboard out, I'd wash it, preferably in distilled water, and then allow to dry for at least a day in an airing cupboard before re-installing it.