Help & guides · Updated August 2026
Spilled water (or coffee) on your laptop? Do this now.
The first sixty seconds decide how a spill ends. What to do right now, and why the rice trick is a myth that costs people their laptops.
It happens in half a second: the cup tips, the keyboard is wet, and your heart drops. Take a breath. What you do in the next minute matters more than the spill itself, and laptops survive this far more often when their owners do these steps instead of the famous ones.
The first 60 seconds
- Unplug the charger. Right now, before anything else.
- Hold the power button until it shuts all the way off. A wet laptop that stays powered is the one that dies; electricity plus liquid is what does the killing, not the liquid alone.
- Unplug everything else: mouse, USB drives, monitor.
- Flip it upside down like a tent over a towel so liquid drains away from the board instead of deeper into it.
- Leave it off. Completely off. Not "just checking if it still works."
Why the rice trick fails
Rice does nothing for the part that matters. It slowly absorbs surface moisture while the real damage, corrosion and sticky residue on the circuit board, keeps spreading underneath. Days later the laptop powers on, seems fine, and dies weeks after that, which is exactly why the trick has such a loyal following: it looks like it worked right up until it didn’t. Coffee, pop, and anything sugary is worse still, because the residue conducts and corrodes even after everything feels dry.
What a proper cleanup looks like
The board comes out of the machine, and it gets cleaned the way electronics manufacturers clean boards: a professional ultrasonic bath that scrubs corrosion and residue out of places no cloth or air can reach, including under the chips themselves. That’s the difference between a laptop that limps for a month and one that genuinely comes back. We do ultrasonic cleaning in-house, and the sooner a spill gets to the bench, the better the odds. Same-week beats "after it started acting weird" every single time.
What about my files?
In most spills, the storage survives even when other parts don’t. If the laptop ends up not worth reviving, your photos and documents usually still come off the drive intact. Tell us the files matter when you bring it in and we’ll treat them as the priority from the first screw.
Just had a spill?
Power it off, unplug it, and bring it in soon. Liquid jobs run as one flat, all-in treatment with professional ultrasonic cleaning in-house, and spills jump the queue — corrosion doesn’t wait.
Common questions
Quick answers
It still works fine after the spill. Am I in the clear?
Not yet, unfortunately. Corrosion is slow; a spilled-on laptop that works today can start failing weeks later as residue eats at the board. If anything more than a splash of plain water went in, a cleaning now is far cheaper than a repair later.
How long do I have to bring it in?
Sooner is genuinely better. Plain water is the most forgiving, coffee and anything sugary the least. Within a day or two is ideal; within the week is still worth it. The one thing that shortens the clock most is powering it on to check, so resist that.
Is a spilled laptop even worth saving?
Often, yes. Liquid damage runs a little differently from our other repairs: it’s one flat, all-in treatment price we tell you at drop-off, with part collected up front, because the cleaning has to happen no matter what we find and spilled machines jump the queue. We open it up, see how far the liquid got, and give you the honest picture. And if the machine isn’t worth reviving, your files usually still come off the drive.
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