Question Spilled coffee on laptop

[Carapherneliaxv]

So a few days ago I accidentally spilled coffee on my laptop and I immediately turned my laptop off, removed the battery and flipped it over for hours. When I turned it on at first it was working just fine but then a few minutes later my keyboard suddenly stopped working and my wifi won’t turn on. Coffee got over the battery but the battery is working just fine, along with the turn on button and the touchpad are working. It is just the keyboard itself and the switches above the keyboard that does not work. I have alienware M18x r1 and idk if it is related or not but the keyboard’s lightings are working too. Does that mean my keyboard is damaged or it just needs to be cleaned?

 

[jason201]

I'd suggest you send it off to Dell for an evaluation & cost estimate on the repairs.
Spilling liquid on electronics is no joke! As we all know, water does conduct electricity (and clearly, coffee does contain it), now, when you spill water (or anything that contains it for that matter) on a circuit board, it can create electrical paths between components that should never make direct contact with each other, which in turn can cause short circuits (and even frying some of those components), now, each laptop part has a very specific part number (which can be used for finding replacements) and these part numbers are typically listed on the parts themselves (or are listed on the laptop's service manual) so there's that option, but personally, I highly doubt that replacing the keyboard, and wifi board would fully resolve the issue. You'd be best sending it off to Dell. And if the repair costs are too high, then I'm afraid you'd need to cut your loses and buy something else.

 

[mdd1963]

if it truly is just the keyboard (very possible, if you are lucky), it will at work ok with a $10 USB keyboard and mouse attached?

 

[Carapherneliaxv]

if it truly is just the keyboard (very possible, if you are lucky), it will at work ok with a $10 USB keyboard and mouse attached?

USB keyboard works fine but the wifi can’t be turned on for some unkown reason