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Repair guides, support, and troubleshooting information for MacBook Air models with 13-inch displays.

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MacBook Air: Water spill, dim screen, Fan on high

Hello Experts,

My sister had some water spilled on her Macbook Air (last 4 serial digits: G086). This is what has been attempted:

- Placed in rice to dry for several days

- Macbook taken apart, cleared of rice fragments, obviously oxidized areas attempted to be cleaned with Q-tip and Isopropyl alcohol

- SMC reset sequence (didn't seem to do anything)

Current status:

- Macbook will not power on unless batter connector is disconnected and reconnected

- When powering on, fan immediately goes on high

- Screen is extremely dim with a small (maybe 1.5" diameter) spot in the center of the screen that seem a bit more lit than the rest of the screen

- The Macbook actually boots up and can be connected to over the network via TeamViewer, though performance seems to be very slow

Questions:

- What are the best guesses for which components are damaged? The logic board? Video inverter?

- What are my options?

- Any further recommended repair suggestions?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

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Just following up to see if anyone had any suggestions. Please let me know if I can provide any additional info or pictures.

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Rice is an appetizer, not an electronics repair tool. It turns into nasty $@$* when you mix it with water, so adding rice probably made it worse.

Where were the oxidized areas you cleaned? Show pictures and we'll go through what to do in accordance with what was damaged. I'm guessing near DC in board and DC in flex cable. &&^&@@ up lid switch + fin stack sensor would cause the combination of slowness & no backlight you are experiencing, but this is a total guess with no real information. Provide information!

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Thanks for the response. It's been a couple months since the spill and attempted cleanup, but I'm added a picture to the original post. The area circled in red was where I believe most of the oxidation was. I'm no familiar with what "DC in board", "DC in flex", "lid switch" or "fin stack sensor" are or where they are on the logic board. Please let me know what other info or pictures would be helpful in assessing the damage.

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