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I had my laptop (dell inspiron) and water bottle in my bag, and small quantity of water leaked into my laptop. When Iopened my laptop, the power light came and went immediately. So I removed the battery, and saw a.water drop on case. Laptop felt wet. I dried whatever I could (outside only). After an hour I put back battery, and saw hard disk activity light came on. And then I pushed power button, power light came on and went off again.

Please tell me what can I do? I have never dis-assembled laptop. As a last option, I will go to service center.

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    You should not have applied power until you were 100% certain the interior of the laptop was completely dry. Apr 10, 2013 at 3:22
  • @David : I have acted foolishly, I know. Apr 10, 2013 at 5:28

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An hour isn't enough for water droplets to dry up. I'd remove the battery and keep the laptop open in a dry place for a day or two and try again. The power supply or motherboard may already be damaged beyond repair, but I wouldn't try to turn it on again until you can be sure it's dry inside. It's fairly likely the hard drive is intact, so recovering your files might be possible, but don't try removing it until you know the laptop isn't working.

Do NOT put it near heat to dry it faster.

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    Heat facilitates evaporation. Why is putting the laptop near a heat source (provided it won't melt it) a bad idea? Apr 10, 2013 at 2:00
  • +1 - The best way to try is to get a small flat container and fill the bottom with rice. Then lightly set the laptop on it. Rice absorbs moisture incredibly well. Just be careful to not submerge it in the rice, since it could obviously get inside.
    – nerdwaller
    Apr 10, 2013 at 2:09
  • A small amount of heat isn't going to hurt anything, but direct heat , if unmonitored, can damage components, especially li-ion batteries. Doesn't seem worth it to me.
    – trpt4him
    Apr 10, 2013 at 2:10
  • You need to remove the CMOS battery too.
    – LawrenceC
    Apr 10, 2013 at 2:20
  • @trpt4him Good work with the last sentence. You just know without it someone is going to think "I know, I'll put it in the oven!"
    – Dracs
    Apr 10, 2013 at 2:25
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Put in a room, like a bathroom, lay it on a flat surface, crank the heat as to raise the temperature in the room to evaporate the water without actually heating the machine, leave it in there for 24 hours, make sure you remove the battery, after 24 hours, put in the battery and attempt to turn it on, if it does, congrats you saved it, if not, take it to your local repair shop.

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    an airing cupboard works alot better than 24 hours of electric heater in a bathroom (the most likely place to accidentally get more water on the laptop i'd have thought). Typically airing cupboards (in this country at least) have the hot water boiler in them and are therefore both warm and dry.
    – Sirex
    Apr 10, 2013 at 2:30
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When water gets into an electronic device, electricity moves in unusual ways. You may have fried your computer. If you are lucky, drying it out THOROUGHLY may save it. Ultimately, you can't rush this process. It will probably be best to let it dry for at least a day. Good luck.

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