Edit - September 2011: This entry is getting a lot of attention in recent times. Please note that this entry is now over 6 years old and details a mistake made when spilling water on a computer. This is written purely from a personal point of view and is not really suitable for use in essays and/or references. This is a personal site which does have any academic/scientific backing.
Now why didn't I listen when I was told that?
Let me explain. Earlier today I was thirsty so I had a bottle of water on my desk next to my laptop. For ease of use, I'd left the lid of the bottle off so that I didn't have to take it off all the time.
Now, I'm in the process of moving out of this room, so all my stuff is in random places, including my external CD-RW drive, which was currently on its side leaning against my stereo. The water bottle was next to it.
Of course, the CD-RW drive had been sat there on its side for the past few days all nice and steady... and it chooses today to topple over (to the other side it was leaning towards...), taking the bottle of water with it and therefore resulting in water all over my computer. I grab the tissues and start mopping up my keyboard and touchpad, getting the majority of the water out. I tried typing, and of course nothing was working. I tipped the computer on its side and out came a shower of water from the keyboard... I didn't even think that much water had got onto the comp in the first place since the water bottle was nearly empty, but eeeeep so much water!
Comp refused to do anything after that, except with my usb mouse (not the touchpad) so I shut it down and got my recently packed hairdryer out to try and dry the computer out a bit. This worked for a couple of minutes... until the hairdryer stopped working for absolutely no reason. O.O I thought maybe I'd maxed the fuse or something, but I don't see how I could have done that. I left both appliances alone after turning the comp upside down so that the water would hopefully fall out or something. I tried turning it on about half an hour later - all fine, except when I try and log in (the comp is password protected, see) - keyboard still acting up. I try to switch comp off - nothing doing. Bah. I turn it off with the power button, then try the hairdryer in a different socket - nope. Move it back to original socket - ah it works now. Weird. Anyway, I get on with drying computer out... then restart it. It wouldn't start properly so I made it start with "Last Known Good Configuration" and it at least seemed to want to log me in. Yay!
So here I am now. Computer's dry now, but the space bar is really sticky. Not the actual key itself, but if I press anything remotely near the space bar (including the touchpad and surrounding plasticy bits) it gets stuck and I have to hit my poor computer repeatedly to get it to unstick. All that, and I haven't checked the CD-RW drive for damage after it fell over. Oh well, it survived me dropping it on the floor once so... yeah... I'll find out when I get home, I guess... or not, I don't use it there. Hmmm. Yeah. Anyway.
Blah. That was long and useless. Just learn from that, kids - water + computer (or any electrical appliance, for that matter) = bad.
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OMG! Thats so bad!! Right now I have a bottle of water next to me and as I was reading, I clicked down the top of the water (i had it open too!) i know that you have to keep water away from your computer and stuff, but i still have it there O_o I hope you didn't do anything to your CD-RW and I hope that you space bar works its self out ~_^
oh, hope everything doesn't get too ruined and stuff
sometimes i have liquids nearby, but i dont have a laptop, so if this falls, the only thing which gets wet is the keyboard, and this is old anyway :P cool layout :)
Man, that's got to suck. I haven't had anything like that happen to me, but water did get into my surge protector. I ended up turning it upside down after unplugging everything, and i tried to dry it out faster by getting a can of air and using that. It worked wonders. Maybe if this happens again, you can try that?
oh dear!!!!
I hope it all works out good!
Oh good lord... that's awful. :/ I just read in a PC World magazine that you should shut off your laptop and leave it turned off and upside down (for drainage) for at least 24 hours. Give things time to dry out, you know?
I'm starting to think you have bad waves with computers; first, dropping and walking on your optical mouse and now this? ;)
Be careful with water; I think my computer would grill on the spot if it ever received any!