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How repairable is water damage?

Hi Guys,

I have an HP Elitebook 840 G5 (14-cm0999na) and it's had some water damage.

About a 3rd of the keys on the right hand side was water logged and the battery may be affected as it only turns on for a second.

How screwed am I and how much would it be to repair??

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how to fix a keybored

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Hi @meemzelda

You will have to open the laptop and check how much damage there is.

You’ll most probably have to replace the keyboard as well (possibly the battery as well?) as usually you can cause more damage than you had when trying to repair keyboards

As you know water and electronics and electricity are not a good mix.

The impurities in the water causes corrosion and provides circuit paths for the electricity which were not in the laptop’s operating design and could damage the components.

First do not turn on your laptop and then you need to remove the battery as soon as possible from the laptop to minimize further damage.

The laptop’s Power button is not a battery isolating button.

Then you need to dis-assemble the rest of the laptop and clean all the affected parts using Isopropyl Alcohol 90%+ (available at electronic parts stores)to remove all traces of corrosion and water. Do not use "rubbing alcohol" as in some cases this is only 70% IPA or less, can contain scents and is not as effective. If you do check the label to verify the amount of IPA

Here is a link that describes the process.

Electronics Water Damage

As always with electronics, especially surface mounted PCBs be gentle when handling and especially when brushing away the corrosion. You do not want to remove any components from the board.

Hopefully after you have done all this and replaced the keyboard (battery?) the laptop might possibly work correctly again.

Here is a link to the service manual for the laptop, taken from this webpage which should be of some help.

You find that you’ll have to completely dis-assemble the laptop to access the keyboard as it is part of the top cover assembly.

Also on p.64 you’ll find the part numbers for all the country specific, various keyboards available for your model variant. If you search online using the part number only appropriate to your model you’ll get results for suppliers.

I don’t know what the cost would be to get someone else to fix it but if this process seems too daunting, take your laptop to a reputable, professional laptop repair service, experienced in liquid damage repair and ask for a quote for a repair. If you decide to do this, do it sooner than later, as the corrosion is ongoing until it has been properly cleaned

Hopefully this is of some help.

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