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Repair information and guides for MacBook Pro models with 13" displays.

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Spilled a little wine on keyboard, everything works fine?

On my flight today I spilled maybe about 1 teaspoon or 2 of red wine on my mac near the fn and control buttons. The mac did nothing but I turned it off and wiped off the wine. A little bit is in the headphone jack, I can see it in there. My pro works fine, asides from when I move the headphones around in the headphone part it gives me static but if I stop theres no problem. Should I be worried? Should I even be on it right now. I got this thing yesterday and have no intuition about how the machine works in its natural state so i wouldnt know if its getting hotter than usual or anything. Help?

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Yes you should worry. At least you'll get sticky/corrosion on your keyboard over time. At worst catastrophic corrosion of the logic board or damage to the optical drive.

Back up your files and either you, or a local computer shop, should clean the keyboard and examine the interior for evidence of wine which should be cleaned and dried properly (no forced air).

Look at the Guide for "how the thing works". Keyboards are more liquid resistant than earlier models (there was nothing but air between the keyboard and the rest of the machine).

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4 Comments:

Fml. I don't know anything about taking things apart and putting them back together. How long should I leave it off for? And should I pop off the keys? Thanks for your help.

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Also, what is near the aforementioned buttons? And is there any barrier between the keys and actual hardware? Once again thanks for the help.

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And how will I know there's damage asides from sticky keys? So many questions -_-

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Are you willing to learn about taking things apart and putting them together? If not hire someone ( a local shop). Taking the keys off would making cleaning easier - but - you really need to take the top case off & wash it with distilled water, rinse it with 99% denatured alcohol and let it dry 72 hrs before reassembly. Only by close examination can YOU determine if any wine ended up inside. Dan has given you good advice also.

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Wine has a collection of things in it that cause damage over time: Acid & Sugar being the worst. Over time they will corrode or gummy up mechanical & electrical circuits to the point of failure and need to be replaced.

A teaspoon is enough to be a problem. If you can clean up as much as you can at the point of spillage your chances of damage is lessened. But, some will have entered into the deep recesses of your machine to do its dirty work!

If your up to it you can address some of this but most likely you'll need someone with the tools and skills to do any deep cleaning.

If you just got it into the keyboard you can pop off the key caps and give the area under the caps a cleaning hopefully that is as far as you need to go.

The best cleaner here is distilled water (not tap water!) as it will cut though the sugar and dilute the acid in the wine. But there is a down side here as it too can cause damage! so you want to control where you go with it and you want to make sure the battery within your system is disconnected at the battery before doing anything here. Using a cotton swab bloat up as much wet wine still present then using a damp swab go over the area a few times (fresh swab each time). Then to help in drying use 85% or better Isopropyl alcohol on a fresh cotton swab going over the areas you hit with the water. As long as none of the wine went deeper that should do it.

Review the IFIXIT guide on disconnecting the battery - Good Luck!

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