Advice/opion for wet laptop that I'm attempting to fix

[kilobyte]

Hi everyone,

I'm attempting to fix a water damaged laptop (an HP Pavilion g6 2311ax that is less than 1 year old). The laptop was wet late last year (somewhere between October and November roughly), so it's well and truly dry. This is a friends' laptop btw, not mine.

The laptop was off at the time it got wet, and the owner removed the battery and hdd as soon as he discovered the laptop was wet.

When the laptop is turned on, it seems to power up (powers up, dvd drive will open and appears to read disks, Ethernet port lights up, other "sockets" light up, WLAN button on keyboard lights up, I'm pretty sure I can hear the hdd starting up.)

Now, the problem: The screen remains completely blank. I'm thinking that the graphics "chip" may be the problem (i.e. it's destroyed). I've connected the laptop to an external monitor as well, but there is no signal whatsoever.

So far I've taken the entire laptop apart, and I've cleaned the entire motherboard with Methylated Spirits (it may not be the perfect thing to use, but it can't really make it worse, and I've used it on other similar things before with no problems) as well as using compressed air to blow of anything that may be on the motherboard. This hasn't helped at all.

Do you agree that it is most likely only the graphics chip that is the cause of the problems, or could it be the entire motherboard?
It says that this laptop has Radeon graphics- does anyone know if the graphics are integrated, or does the motherboard have a separate chip that is replaceable?

I'd really appreciate any help that anyone can give me!!
Thank-you for reading my post!

 

[InvalidError]

If the laptop was turned off when the spill occurred and the battery was removed without attempting to turn it on, there is still a possibility that power was "shorted" through the spill from the battery or power supply (if attached at the time) to other circuits depending on where the spill went. This sort of damage is often very difficult to fix.

While it MIGHT "just" be the graphics chip that went bust, the GPU in laptops is often soldered directly to the motherboard. Since you said you dismantled that laptop, you should know if the GPU is on a separate card or not - a modular mobile GPU would be the biggest card in there after the motherboard.

The problem with repairing laptops is a lot like repairing old cars: new parts can quickly end up costing more than the device/vehicle is worth and there often is no guarantee that it will ever work good as new again because fixing one problem often reveals another.

 

[kilobyte]

Thanks very much for your reply!

As I want to give all of the options to the person who owns the laptop, do you think I would be better off getting a completely new motherboard for it (I know that would be a costly solution, but the owner might just want to spend money on it- I'm not sure)? As I said, I just need to be able to tell the owner exactly what his options are.

I know I should be able to tell about the GPU - I'm fairly sure it's soldered on- I've got a lot of experience fixing desktop pc's, but no where near as much fixing laptops (I've only fixed a couple before, hence me asking).

Thanks again!