Water damage on MacBook

Long story short, my cat knocked my hard lemonade onto my MacBook Pro last night and it won't turn on. I've done some reading online that says to let it dry for 72-96 hours and if it doesn't work after that to take it to Apple (and that I'd be looking at nothing less than $900 for repairs lmfao fucking amazing). I've read to use a hair dryer on the lowest setting and also not to use one. I've read the rice thing works and that it doesn't work, but it seems more harmless than the hair dryer might be, so I'm probably going to let it sit in rice anyway, but idk how much good that will do now that it's morning and this happened last night. I mean I'm sure there's still moisture in there to soak up, but I don't exactly know how that's gonna work bc wouldn't rice get stuck in crevices and just worsen the problem? Unless I close it completely. Anyway, the liquid fell between the first two rows of keys closest to the screen and that in between from the keyboard and screen.

tl;dr will the rice thing work with this or be a waste of my time is it worth it like what's up

I have never really tried the rice thing myself on electronics, but I'm going to say it would not hurt one bit to try it and see how it goes.

Additionally, please make sure you give it a good 24-48 hours before trying to turn it on again, and also place it in a location that has good airflow.

I left it open in a room with the fan on last night. It's currently in the box it came in, covered in rice. I have an appointment made for Tuesday to get an estimate on repair costs, if it still doesn't turn on by then anyway. Also lol water damage isn't covered under warranty so RIP my wallet. As if buying the thing didn't do that already, but I mean, I did plan for that. Not this.

Anyway, I'll leave it in my room covered in rice and with the fan on. It's generally pretty cool in there anyway. I'm pretty worried though; never spilled water on a laptop before and this was hard lemonade. So it's alcohol and sugar, plus I tried to turn it back on at least 5 times last night, not even thinking I shouldn't do that. So lol I probably screwed it up that way.

Incineroar said:

Yeah, using rice is a good thing, it's saved me many DS games that went through the washing machine. If it gets in crevices, you can probably use a can of compressed air to get it out.

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Does it make a difference that I didn't get it into rice immediately? I mean I imagine that would have been better, but we didn't have any rice until I went to the store today. The liquid hit it around 11PM and I got it in rice at maybe...2:30? At least I have five pound of rice left should this happen again or to anything else, lol. Just hoping the rice is enough to save it and I won't have to worry about the appointment Tuesday.

Incineroar said:

Depending on the liquid, it may not matter, but there's always the chance of residual moisture, so as long as it's getting in is good, but yeah, keep it in overnight or so, and perhaps keep it in a warmer atmosphere to promote drying.

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It was carbonated hard lemonade. And the more I think about it, the more upset I get because I think of more negative factors going into this. Like lmao. What if it's not salvageable. And even if it is, it's freaking Apple. I'm not gonna have the money to fix it.

What I may suggest doing is see if you can find an authorized Apple retailer/repair shop (that isn't the Apple Store/Genius Bar) and get a quote from them if it doesn't turn on again. Chances are, since they are the closest thing to third-party, they might not charge as much as Apple directly for repair services.

better go to the repair service, don't use rice, it's useless

I would try rice first, and if that doesn't work, just go directly to a third party repairman. There is the possibility that your MacBook is non-salvageable, so I suggest removing the hard drive and backing up everything on it.

Sydian said:

It was carbonated hard lemonade. And the more I think about it, the more upset I get because I think of more negative factors going into this. Like lmao. What if it's not salvageable. And even if it is, it's freaking Apple. I'm not gonna have the money to fix it.

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Any updates on your Mac?

Sorry to hear about the liquid damage - similar thing happened to me at the start of the year - bought a new water bottle and it leaked and was going to cost me $1.9k to repair which I obviously didn't have the money for. A couple weeks ago I told my dad and he called up our insurance people and they've covered the cost of the repair - so used that money to just buy a new one, which cost me about $400 out of pocket all up so not too shabby.

Originally they said probably can't get any data off the hard drive which freaked me out at first but I survived 7 months without it so wasn't as bad as I expected - but going in next week to have one last crack at retrieving the data off my laptop.

Ultra Charlie Brown said:

Any updates on your Mac?

Sorry to hear about the liquid damage - similar thing happened to me at the start of the year - bought a new water bottle and it leaked and was going to cost me $1.9k to repair which I obviously didn't have the money for. A couple weeks ago I told my dad and he called up our insurance people and they've covered the cost of the repair - so used that money to just buy a new one, which cost me about $400 out of pocket all up so not too shabby.

Originally they said probably can't get any data off the hard drive which freaked me out at first but I survived 7 months without it so wasn't as bad as I expected - but going in next week to have one last crack at retrieving the data off my laptop.

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I ended up paying $820 (that's after tax, of course) to have the repairs done, but I'm 90% sure they just gave me an entirely new laptop. The hard drive was new, my sticker on the cover was gone, there was absolutely no wear on the keys like there was previously...yeah, they definitely gave me a new one, lol. It's a huge dent in my savings, but what can ya do. lol