Lucky Break....

We accidentally spilled a cup of water on my laptop tonight. I thought it was gone for sure. We also have a desktop computer, but we keep on getting the blue screen of death and I haven't had time to fix it yet. So, the laptop is all we've got for now.

Here's our step-by-step of how to save your laptop:

1. Turn it off immediately! Hold the power button for 5 seconds if things are acting weird. If the computer is still operating normally...you could risk just shutting it down.

2. Unplug the AC adapter and take the battery out!

3. Turn the computer upside down and get all the sitting water out quick!

4. Take out any cards in the PCMCIA slot...dry them off.

5. Same with the CD-rom drive. Take it out, dry if off.

6. Dry off as much as you can with paper towels.

7. Take out the keyboard and dry underneath it!

8. Prop up everything upside down and sit it in front of a fan.

9. Leave there until you are SURE that everything is dry.

10. When you are sure that everything is dry, put it back together and boot it up.

I hit the power button and it started right up!! Hooray! The laptop is okay!!

Good luck!

Note: it might be good to leave the laptop is a dry warm place like a window sill for a day or so. You need to ENSURE that it is dry before you even attempt to put power back to it.

If you're lucky, you'll have a plastic backing on your keyboard like on mine....this backing is literally what saved the motherboard from getting drenched in water. Looks like the engineers at HP had a few good ideas when they put this thing together.

And, maybe you should just keep liquids far from your laptop in the first place....then you don't have to remember these steps! :)