Wet Laptop Recovery - Is it Possible?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
2,026 words · ~10 min read
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With its factory tuning and data center DNA, an Intel 730 series SSD is an
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amazing choice for gamers and performance
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enthusiasts. So, I've gotten some complaints that we don't do enough crazy
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projects anymore. Now, the fact of the matter is that a lot of the time we I
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mean, we don't plan to to do crazy things that, you know, our things are
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broken and stuff. It just kind of happens. So, it kind of happened this time. Uh, this is my Dell XPS12 that
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I've been using for the last quite a while. Uh, we were in the middle of
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shooting something yesterday and I kind of ran off this morning. I was running
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around looking for it going, "Where the heck is it?" Cuz it wasn't at home and I
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found it on the porch and unfortunately it rained last night. So,
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this is the state of it. This water is actually dripping out from inside the
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notebook. Now, there is an extremely good chance that this notebook is
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completely dead. With non batterypowered devices, it's often you can you could
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basically submerge it and then if you could open it up and completely dry it
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and make sure there's no residue or nothing to short it out, there's a very
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good chance that would live. With something with a battery in it, it's
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constantly getting power provided to it. So, the chances of uh shorting something
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out and destroying it are very good. So, it was actually left open like this. So,
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the water was able to force its way in through the keyboard. Uh, so this is I
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mean this is in very very rough shape, but you know, $1,000 notebook. You're
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still going to you're still going to take a shot at fixing it, right? So, I'm
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pulling out my iFixit kit with my Torx heads here. Actually, these are a handy
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new thing that we've got now. These nice little magnetic trays. All right, we're
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going to do a uh sub $100 or might we might have actually done it by the time
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this video is done, but sub $100 handy
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things and we're going to highlight those cuz I think they're great. So, I'm
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going to pull off the bottom here. We'll be back in a moment. All right, so this
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is kind of the moment of truth. We're going to open up the shell. Fortunately,
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I don't have an Apple computer, so it comes apart even though it's an
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ultrabook type form factor. So, you can see the entire inside is
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absolutely soaked
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um with water being able to run out a little bit more freely now that I have
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it opened up. Now, one thing that I'm going to want to do pretty much
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immediately here is disconnect the
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battery connector. I mean, the like I
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said, it's it's probably a done deal at this point, but it still can't hurt to
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have the power disconnected. Unfortunately, it looks like it looks
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like Dell glues that in. Why would they do that?
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Dell, what are you guys doing? There is a chance that if I dry this out
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completely and replace the battery that
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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
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first. So, panic moment there, guys. It turns out that water on a connector
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that's beatated up kind of looks like glue. So, no, the battery is not glued
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in. So, what I'm going to do next is pull the battery out. And actually, I'm
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going to I'm going to pull it apart as much as I can without going so far that
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I lose track of how it goes back together. And then, um, basically, I'm
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going to put it somewhere to dry. And then we're going to do the old rice bag
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technique. This is just a handy sort of do yourself a favor trick is whenever
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you're taking something apart, um, take lots of pictures because even if you
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forget one little detail, it can be a major hassle later on. Um, and then one
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thing that I'm doing as well is because it's got several different kinds of
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screws. I am making sure that um that I
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take pictures of the heads as well as the threads next to the place where they
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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
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battery out now. Um, and then I've also
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got the I'm I'm just I'm just loosening
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PCBs so that I can get a little bit of air flow going through them. And then
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what I'll do is I'll just set up a fan to blow on it for now before I do the
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rice bag trick later on because you can't count on the rice to do
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everything. That's more of a that's more of a finishing move, so to speak. So,
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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
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way the screen works on this notebook with this metal border around the top of
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it that the screen itself wouldn't have really gotten any water in it because it
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was upright when it started raining. But Luke pointed out to me, well, hold on a
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second. Surface tension, it's going to come around here and then it's going to
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drip onto the screen from this gap in between where the uh the I don't I think
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they call it a ferris wheel style convertible screen. So, he was right.
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Water did get into the screen. So, we've got the carbon fiber top off now. It's
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really light. Carbon fiber is kind of cool. But the good news though is that
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because it comes apart quite easily, much like the rest of this notebook, I'm
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able to open it up and get at least I mean there's not much water in here. So,
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I'm really not that concerned about this part. Um, and it's mostly the bottom
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components here that I'm worried about. So, basically what I've done is I've
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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
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then I've prized it up a little bit so that it's going to it can get a little
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bit more airflow. I'm going to go position this in front of a
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fan and cross my fingers. I've taken the
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SSD out. Um and then in order to speed
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things up, you can um dry things out by
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soaking them in alcohol and then letting that evaporate away. So, this I need
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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
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probably a good solid week before I take another shot at it. So, uh, here's my
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epic setup with, uh, got a 3-speed fan
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running here, and then I've got all of my, uh, all my parts in my handy dandy
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little Please focus. Really? Wow. You're
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going to be like that. Okay. Um, in my parts tray. And then I've got
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the disassembled notebook taken apart and opened up as much as possible for
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optimal sort of airing outness. I suspect that I actually won't need the
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uh the rice bag. Going to leave this here for about a week and then we'll see
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how it goes. I got things kind of lifted up
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there. Yeah. So, funny story. I started
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by putting the screws in around the outside of the monitor and I was like,
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"No, I need to put the heat sink on. I
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need to uh put the battery back in. Let's find out if this bad boy fires up
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and then let's go ahead and invest in all the finishing touches there. So, I'm
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actually at the point now where the fan and heat sink are back on. I put the SSD
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back in for good measure. And it's time
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to put the battery on. Actually, I got to put this
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connector back on first. Okay, so moment of truth time. I went and got everyone
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and I did all the stuff I can do by myself. So, I'm going to plug the
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battery in. Not going to bother screwing it in just because who knows if this is
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all just a total waste of time. Going to plug this bad boy in here.
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Oh my god. No, just kidding. Jesus Christ.
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You got You actually did scare me there. Okay. Should it be making noise? Here we
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go. Oh. Oh,
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that looks like an activity LED. Warning, battery is critically low.
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Huh. Wa. Here, if you can come have a look at the screen here. Oh,
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so it powers on. The keyboard LEDs are illuminated.
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The activity LED on the SSD is going. So, that means it's not just completely
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dumb in there. Let's uh Okay, I'm going
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to turn it off for now and grab a power adapter and find out if she boots into
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an OS. Wow, that's unbelievable. I'm impressed
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something actually happened. I was expecting nothing at all. Yeah, I was
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expecting complete dead, but like damn, that's actually pretty
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amazing. Yeah, if this thing works, you're never allowed to get another
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laptop. You have to continue to upgrade this laptop forever.
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Okay. Oops. Other side.
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Oh, yeah. Sure. Be gentle with
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it. Okay, let's try her up again.
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So, I actually I for forewent is that
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the past tense of forego? I forewent the uh the rice treatment because I was
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impatient. So, it sat here for about a week though. I mean, which evidently was
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enough. The thing I don't know yet because the thing that's most like Look
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at that. Right where I left it. What? Oh my god.
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There's my AX500i unboxing review thing.
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Unbelievable. Look at that. It did not even miss a beat. Unbelievable.
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completely unplugged. Wow. For a week
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and having been soaked.
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That is That's unreal. That is something else. Look at that. So, it remains to be
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seen how well the battery held up because that was the big thing that
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could have been damaged and could have lit on fire. Like, it's a lithium based
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battery. Like, it could have been a big problem. But it turns out that it was
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well enough sealed and the screen was well enough sealed that we didn't get
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much water in there that the notebook actually worked. So there you go guys.
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All is not necessarily lost, no matter how hopeless it looks. Thank you for uh
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coming along for this voyage of discovery here on Linus Tech Tips. Like
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the video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it. Leave a comment and let
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us know. I don't know. So I'm sure you have something to say at this point. Uh
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here.