dirigoDIGITAL

This is really simple and it saved my wife’s Macbook screen. I’m sure it would work for other laptops screens too.  Obviously this is subjective to the amount of liquid and the type.  Not sure how it would work for soda or milk or beer, but it worked perfectly for water.

1) As quickly as you can lift up the laptop and shake the liquid off, then use a cloth to absorb the rest.  Move it away from the spill and examine the areas the took the brunt of it.

This may have been all you needed to do.  If the screen got it bad though you may see bright areas.  This is water stuck between the lcd and the plactic film in front (the “glossy” in your glossy wide screen).  The LCD itself if very resiliant and probably isn’t damaged. It’s just a little hard to get the water out… unless you think like an aspirin bottle.

2) Use a hair dryer to try and dry what you can (the amount of heat is up to you, whatever you think your laptop can handle, I blasted it).

3) You’ll want to start saving Silica packs now, the kind that come in shoe boxes, pain reliever bottles; iron cookware has great big packs of silica.  If you don’t know, silica (packets) absorb moisture… very effectively.

4) Now, take your freshly blow-dryed laptop (I figure the extra heat aids in evaporation) and seal it as air tight as you can in a large plastic bag with your collection of silica packets. I wrapped my wife’s laptop in two kitchen garbage bags, and use two large silica packs, one I placed in between the monitor and the keyboard.  Then for good measure I wrapped the bags shut with masking tape.

5) Leave it somewhere warm or sunny for a day or two, then check it, there should be much less water in your LCD, if not fully gone.  If it’s still there, let your silica packs air out for awhile (or use fresh ones), blow dry the laptop somemore in the areas that need it, then seal it up again.

Time will vary, it took four days to fix my wife’s.  On the second day I took it out and left it out for the day, it had a 70% reduction in liquid behind the screen.  I let the silica packs air out and used them again when I sealed it up that night.  When I took it out two days later there were only a few tiny bright specs left (like extra bright pixels) these evaporated in the next few days.

The LCD monitor on her laptop now shows no signs of water in the screen and works perfectly.

This method can potentially save your other digital devices, cell phones, cameras, your Zune.  Wait, that’s not right… no one has a Zune.

This also worked on my friends Fuji Film digital camera that was fully submerged.

Good Luck!

Tags: damage, fix, Laptop, like-new, monitor, screen, spill, water