Puckish: I'm sorry to say this, but cleaning the gunk off is the least of your problems. Your computer is dead. The wine caused a short-circuit, and this fried your computer. It may not be repairable. You may have to buy a new computer.

nametoolongtofi: I was going to say the same thing but didnt want to spoil his New Year....I dont think the laptop is very old either :(

Bernice: Thanks,thats what I thought.... I did read somewhere online where someone did the same thing and they removed the battery and unplugged it straight away, then spritzed it with water, to dilute the wine I guess, and then dried it with the blow dryer, and after a couple of days they nplugged it back in and it was fine! I also read where someone actually dried theirs in the oven, and it worked as well.

But Mine didnt get any immediate attention, and I was not told about it at all for a day or two :(


Anyway, you are correct Bernice, my laptop was only about 7 months old, thats about $1,200 down the drain, except I still have my wireless mouse and a few other accesories that I can still use.



Does anyone here buy accidental damage insurance? It seems like a waste of money until something like this happens!

Puckish: Yea, the biggest issue is if you have the power to it and liquid is added - with a laptop, the "heart" of the computer is under the keyboard so... ouch.

Normally (of course you never want to do this), but if there was no power to a PC or laptop, you could open it up and spray it with water. As long as you allowed to to dry completely before you powered it back on - it should do no damage. (or course you don't want to try this - since watch *might* warp certain parts and such.)

Best bet now is to take it to a shop and see if they can fix it - they might just be able to purchase certain parts - keeping others that are not damaged - and get it working again, but will probable cost you at least a few hundred for parts and labor I would guess... but might be better then a totally wasted laptop.

Another idea, depending on where you purchased the laptop - try to clean the laptop the best you can to try to remove any indication that something was spilled - then take it into where you purchased it and act dumb and just say it stopped working. Again, worse that will happen is it won't get fixed - but possible maybe fixed - maybe just labor and/or part cost - again, depends on where you got it at and if that place has PC help center and such. (Best Buy - Circuit City both have PC help centers.)

coan.net: Thanks.... I already blew it by contacting Dell and telling them what I did, in hopes to get it fixed :(

Since I am self employed, and use the laptop for billing and estimates etc, I am looking into if my business insurance covers this, or maybe if my homowners does, but I doubt it.


Maybe i could raise some money like this guy I saw, who put up a picture of his pet rabbit and said unless he raised 50K in donations, he was going to cook this rabbit for dinner, and he got people to donate money from all over to save this bunny!!!

Puckish: you could ask Fencer for a loan, he knows how to rip it out of people in a big way LOL