What not to do to your laptop

Oh, no! Did you kill it??

Rachel Schurig said:

Oh, no! Did you kill it??

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Killed it very dead.

Went out today and bought a new one.

Bummer. I really try hard to keep my water off of the surface I am writing on for this reason. Today I walked into the kitchen and there was my glass of water, right next to my open laptop.  I quickly removed it, thinking how awful it would be had I spilled it. Sorry that happened to you. It's so easy to do.

Do they make sippy cups for coffee drinkers?

For what it's worth, Pepsi isn't any better.

JRTomlin said:

Killed it very dead.

Went out today and bought a new one.

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So sorry.

Sounds like you had everything backed up, though? Otherwise there would've been about 50 more of these:

Well, if my keyboard were going to take up drinking something other than coffee it would be 18 year old Bowmore. But evidently it can't be trusted to survive coffee or liquor.  

ETA: Becca, I am somewhat fanatical about backups. Good thing!

I once fed mine half a glass of orange juice. They must prefer it to coffee, because after a bit of cleaning it was just fine. I did wonder overnight about whether it'd start up the next day though.

Unfortunately after mine was disassembled and dried out, it still wasn't working. I seriously had other things I wanted to spend the price of a laptop on. 

JRTomlin said:

ETA: Becca, I am somewhat fanatical about backups. Good thing!

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Yes, thank goodness!

Becca Mills said:

Yes, thank goodness!

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Losing the novel I'm working on editing would have been a much higher price than a laptop. I run Mozy and backup daily to a thumb drive and to another computer. I believe in redundancy.

Why do they call them laptops when they don't lap? 

JRTomlin said:

Killed it very dead.

Went out today and bought a new one.

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I hope you bought the insurance!

On the bright side, you get a new laptop!

smreine said:

On the bright side, you get a new laptop!

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Hmm. Yes...

*Thinks about the axe in the garage. Contemplates 'accident' with squeaky office chair...*

Have never done this to a laptop, but I do this to keyboards far more often than I care to admit. When we moved a year ago, I had a graveyard of dead keyboards to take to the e-cycler.

Glad everything was backed up!

Rue

I managed to drop a mobile phone down the toilet on two separate occasions whilst drunk. Took them apart, placed them on the radiator. They worked fine. Worth a go?

smreine said:

On the bright side, you get a new laptop!

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I still considered that one "new" to tell you the truth in spite of the fact that it had given me constant problems. The keyboard had been replaced twice in the last nine months covered by the warranty.

We'll see what the factory can do with it, but I couldn't put my work on hold while it went back. How much of the repairs will be covered by warranty? I suspect none, since I really can't blame this one on HP. But since I'm already mad at HP since that laptop had given me constant problems, it will become my backup computer I suspect even if it ends up repaired. But my new laptop has a slightly smaller keyboard which is making typing fun.

Steeplechasing said:

Why do they call them laptops when they don't lap?

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Ha ha, they don't sip very well, either.

Yesterday my son (the family tech-support) made a service call to his grandparents house. In trying to fix a different issue, he discovered that only half the keys on grandma's computer were working. Turns out she'd shared her evening milk with the keyboard the night before, and even drying it out didn't help. Luckily it wasn't a laptop, and a $15 Logitech keyboard from Staples fixed that problem.