Dell Inspiron 1764, tea spilled on it, beeping like crazy

loopymum

I had a freak accident with my laptop, I fell asleep on the couch and kicked a cup of roibush chai tea(if that makes a difference) over and it seems some of it landed on the side of my laptop, I didn't realise till I woke up and was putting the laptop back on charge (it was still playing) and I saw an error message about something plugged into the usb port (nothing was plugged in) and then I saw some liquid on the left of the keyboard so I immediately switched it off and plugged it out and turned it upside down open and left it in a very warm kitchen like that for 4-5 days.

I tried turning it on yesterday and it goes to the start up screen and then beeps like crazy, roughly 55-60 very fast beeps, it is the screen with inspiron and the blue loading bar, at the old most end of the bar it does the crazy beeping and then when the beeping stops the blue fills but nothing else happens, the fan and all that is going and I can see press f2 or f12 but nothing working and that is it.

I bought it from Ibood about 18 months ago and it is covered under a 2 year warranty but which obviously does not cover water damage. (I guess it is too late to take out accidental:()

I don't know what to do, I have put it in the hotpress now, closed and upside down.

Will I chance sending it back to Dell?
Does anyone know how much they will charge to fix it out of warranty or how much will they charge to just look at it if they deem it my fault?
Do dell wipe the hard drive? Will I be breaking the warranty be removing the hard drive and copying it first?
can anyone recommend a SATA hard drive enclosure to copy my hard drive? preferably from amazon with free delivery (I have more things to get there)
What about this

I have also been looking at the manual and removing the keyboard and wiping it but again I don't want to void the warranty in case dell will fix it.

I'm so annoyed at myself.

Any help appreciated, I'm handy enough around computers.

Thanks

Freddy Smelly

loopymum wrote: »

I had a freak accident with my laptop, I fell asleep on the couch and kicked a cup of roibush chai tea(if that makes a difference) over and it seems some of it landed on the side of my laptop, I didn't realise till I woke up and was putting the laptop back on charge (it was still playing) and I saw an error message about something plugged into the usb port (nothing was plugged in) and then I saw some liquid on the left of the keyboard so I immediately switched it off and plugged it out and turned it upside down open and left it in a very warm kitchen like that for 4-5 days.

I tried turning it on yesterday and it goes to the start up screen and then beeps like crazy, roughly 55-60 very fast beeps, it is the screen with inspiron and the blue loading bar, at the old most end of the bar it does the crazy beeping and then when the beeping stops the blue fills but nothing else happens, the fan and all that is going and I can see press f2 or f12 but nothing working and that is it.

I bought it from Ibood about 18 months ago and it is covered under a 2 year warranty but which obviously does not cover water damage. (I guess it is too late to take out accidental:()

I don't know what to do, I have put it in the hotpress now, closed and upside down.

Will I chance sending it back to Dell?
Does anyone know how much they will charge to fix it out of warranty or how much will they charge to just look at it if they deem it my fault?
Do dell wipe the hard drive? Will I be breaking the warranty be removing the hard drive and copying it first?
can anyone recommend a SATA hard drive enclosure to copy my hard drive? preferably from amazon with free delivery (I have more things to get there)
What about this

I have also been looking at the manual and removing the keyboard and wiping it but again I don't want to void the warranty in case dell will fix it.

I'm so annoyed at myself.

Any help appreciated, I'm handy enough around computers.

Thanks

it's likely u fried something on the motherboard... so back to dell for repairs with it

no you dont void the warranty by removing the hard drive to make a back up.

buy an IT Techie's cable to connect the hard drive to any other pc's usb port

dilallio

You should find out if it is just a damaged keyboard or if the motherboard has also been damaged.

These instructions may sound difficult but are not too hard to do. There are only 4 screws to remove and they are all on the top of the keyboard.

Remove the keyboard and disconnect the ribbon cable to the motherboard - instructions here

Check underneath the keyboard for signs that tea may have fallen through underneath onto the motherboard. If it's still wet, let it dry for a few days - dry rice is good for absorbing moisture.

Replace the Power Button Panel (don't replace the keypad), plug in an external USB keyboard, and see if it powers up ok.

If it doesn't power up, the motherboard is likely to be damaged. Otherwise it may be just the keyboard.

loopymum

Thanks to both of you for replying, apologies for not reporting back sooner, I have rooted out my old laptop but it is an absolute disaster of a thing! I have come to my dhs office to type.
I have been reading on touchpad but it's a pain to reply to I'm ordering myself a bluetooth keyboard for it.

Freddy Smelly I am going to order that cable from amazon. Thank you. Do you know how much dell will charge to fix if it is the motherboard?

Dillalio, I will give that a go but I'm going to order an anti static wrist band from Amazon first as I don't want to feck up the components and I need one anyway. If it is the keyboard they seem to be reasonably priced.
Laptop is still in hot press and I will it till I get the gear, will drive me crazy otherwise.

Having a really bad week, seem to have bricked my touchpad now as well, luckily dh has one too.