With its factory tuning and data center DNA, an Intel 730 series SSD is an
amazing choice for gamers and performance
enthusiasts. So, I've gotten some complaints that we don't do enough crazy
projects anymore. Now, the fact of the matter is that a lot of the time we I
mean, we don't plan to to do crazy things that, you know, our things are
broken and stuff. It just kind of happens. So, it kind of happened this time. Uh, this is my Dell XPS12 that
I've been using for the last quite a while. Uh, we were in the middle of
shooting something yesterday and I kind of ran off this morning. I was running
around looking for it going, "Where the heck is it?" Cuz it wasn't at home and I
found it on the porch and unfortunately it rained last night. So,
this is the state of it. This water is actually dripping out from inside the
notebook. Now, there is an extremely good chance that this notebook is
completely dead. With non batterypowered devices, it's often you can you could
basically submerge it and then if you could open it up and completely dry it
and make sure there's no residue or nothing to short it out, there's a very
good chance that would live. With something with a battery in it, it's
constantly getting power provided to it. So, the chances of uh shorting something
out and destroying it are very good. So, it was actually left open like this. So,
the water was able to force its way in through the keyboard. Uh, so this is I
mean this is in very very rough shape, but you know, $1,000 notebook. You're
still going to you're still going to take a shot at fixing it, right? So, I'm
pulling out my iFixit kit with my Torx heads here. Actually, these are a handy
new thing that we've got now. These nice little magnetic trays. All right, we're
going to do a uh sub $100 or might we might have actually done it by the time
this video is done, but sub $100 handy
things and we're going to highlight those cuz I think they're great. So, I'm
going to pull off the bottom here. We'll be back in a moment. All right, so this
is kind of the moment of truth. We're going to open up the shell. Fortunately,
I don't have an Apple computer, so it comes apart even though it's an
ultrabook type form factor. So, you can see the entire inside is
absolutely soaked
um with water being able to run out a little bit more freely now that I have
it opened up. Now, one thing that I'm going to want to do pretty much
immediately here is disconnect the
battery connector. I mean, the like I
said, it's it's probably a done deal at this point, but it still can't hurt to
have the power disconnected. Unfortunately, it looks like it looks
like Dell glues that in. Why would they do that?
Dell, what are you guys doing? There is a chance that if I dry this out
completely and replace the battery that
I'll be able to get it back up and running again, but I'm going to have to figure out how to get this connector off
first. So, panic moment there, guys. It turns out that water on a connector
that's beatated up kind of looks like glue. So, no, the battery is not glued
in. So, what I'm going to do next is pull the battery out. And actually, I'm
going to I'm going to pull it apart as much as I can without going so far that
I lose track of how it goes back together. And then, um, basically, I'm
going to put it somewhere to dry. And then we're going to do the old rice bag
technique. This is just a handy sort of do yourself a favor trick is whenever
you're taking something apart, um, take lots of pictures because even if you
forget one little detail, it can be a major hassle later on. Um, and then one
thing that I'm doing as well is because it's got several different kinds of
screws. I am making sure that um that I
take pictures of the heads as well as the threads next to the place where they
come from. This just makes your life a little bit easier when you're putting it back together. You can see I've got the
battery out now. Um, and then I've also
got the I'm I'm just I'm just loosening
PCBs so that I can get a little bit of air flow going through them. And then
what I'll do is I'll just set up a fan to blow on it for now before I do the
rice bag trick later on because you can't count on the rice to do
everything. That's more of a that's more of a finishing move, so to speak. So,
I'm pretty close to having it about as disassembled as I think I'm going to get it. Um, I was hoping that because of the
way the screen works on this notebook with this metal border around the top of
it that the screen itself wouldn't have really gotten any water in it because it
was upright when it started raining. But Luke pointed out to me, well, hold on a
second. Surface tension, it's going to come around here and then it's going to
drip onto the screen from this gap in between where the uh the I don't I think
they call it a ferris wheel style convertible screen. So, he was right.
Water did get into the screen. So, we've got the carbon fiber top off now. It's
really light. Carbon fiber is kind of cool. But the good news though is that
because it comes apart quite easily, much like the rest of this notebook, I'm
able to open it up and get at least I mean there's not much water in here. So,
I'm really not that concerned about this part. Um, and it's mostly the bottom
components here that I'm worried about. So, basically what I've done is I've
removed the motherboard kind of as much as I can. You can see it's quite loose. It's only being held in uh over here and
then I've prized it up a little bit so that it's going to it can get a little
bit more airflow. I'm going to go position this in front of a
fan and cross my fingers. I've taken the
SSD out. Um and then in order to speed
things up, you can um dry things out by
soaking them in alcohol and then letting that evaporate away. So, this I need
some data off of. So, I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to do that with this. But I'm going to give the Notebook
probably a good solid week before I take another shot at it. So, uh, here's my
epic setup with, uh, got a 3-speed fan
running here, and then I've got all of my, uh, all my parts in my handy dandy
little Please focus. Really? Wow. You're
going to be like that. Okay. Um, in my parts tray. And then I've got
the disassembled notebook taken apart and opened up as much as possible for
optimal sort of airing outness. I suspect that I actually won't need the
uh the rice bag. Going to leave this here for about a week and then we'll see
how it goes. I got things kind of lifted up
there. Yeah. So, funny story. I started
by putting the screws in around the outside of the monitor and I was like,
"No, I need to put the heat sink on. I
need to uh put the battery back in. Let's find out if this bad boy fires up
and then let's go ahead and invest in all the finishing touches there. So, I'm
actually at the point now where the fan and heat sink are back on. I put the SSD
back in for good measure. And it's time
to put the battery on. Actually, I got to put this
connector back on first. Okay, so moment of truth time. I went and got everyone
and I did all the stuff I can do by myself. So, I'm going to plug the
battery in. Not going to bother screwing it in just because who knows if this is
all just a total waste of time. Going to plug this bad boy in here.
Oh my god. No, just kidding. Jesus Christ.
You got You actually did scare me there. Okay. Should it be making noise? Here we
go. Oh. Oh,
that looks like an activity LED. Warning, battery is critically low.
Huh. Wa. Here, if you can come have a look at the screen here. Oh,
so it powers on. The keyboard LEDs are illuminated.
The activity LED on the SSD is going. So, that means it's not just completely
dumb in there. Let's uh Okay, I'm going
to turn it off for now and grab a power adapter and find out if she boots into
an OS. Wow, that's unbelievable. I'm impressed
something actually happened. I was expecting nothing at all. Yeah, I was
expecting complete dead, but like damn, that's actually pretty
amazing. Yeah, if this thing works, you're never allowed to get another
laptop. You have to continue to upgrade this laptop forever.
Okay. Oops. Other side.
Oh, yeah. Sure. Be gentle with
it. Okay, let's try her up again.
So, I actually I for forewent is that
the past tense of forego? I forewent the uh the rice treatment because I was
impatient. So, it sat here for about a week though. I mean, which evidently was
enough. The thing I don't know yet because the thing that's most like Look
at that. Right where I left it. What? Oh my god.
There's my AX500i unboxing review thing.
Unbelievable. Look at that. It did not even miss a beat. Unbelievable.
completely unplugged. Wow. For a week
and having been soaked.
That is That's unreal. That is something else. Look at that. So, it remains to be
seen how well the battery held up because that was the big thing that
could have been damaged and could have lit on fire. Like, it's a lithium based
battery. Like, it could have been a big problem. But it turns out that it was
well enough sealed and the screen was well enough sealed that we didn't get
much water in there that the notebook actually worked. So there you go guys.
All is not necessarily lost, no matter how hopeless it looks. Thank you for uh
coming along for this voyage of discovery here on Linus Tech Tips. Like
the video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it. Leave a comment and let
us know. I don't know. So I'm sure you have something to say at this point. Uh
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