Help Water Damage

Question

My daughter spilled Tea on my Inspiron 8200.  The battery light went from green to yellow to red to dead.  It will not even turn on.  I am assuming it needs a new mother board.  However, is this likely a multiple step process, new mother board, if that doesn't work, new batteries, if that doesn't work, new memory?  Bottom line:   1. How likely (from Dells experience) is it that it is only my mother board? 2. Do I need a special tool to pull the CPU and Memory from my existing Mother Board if I buy a replacement?   ANy help would be appreciated. Thanks BEI_Man

osprey4 · Answer

BEI_man: You'll probably get better advice if you post in the Inspiron general hardware forum. In general, pulling RAM and a CPU off of a motherboard is something you should be able to do yourself.

NemesisDB · Answer

The service guide for your system is here:  http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins8200/en/sm_en/remove.htm#1084976 .  If you are intent on fixing it, I suggest you read the above.  Take apart your notebook and look for damage.  It's usually fairly clear where any liquid went and what appears to be broken.  At mimimum, I'd say you're likely looking at a new keyboard and motherboard (depending on where the spill was).  This replacement will be expensive and it may be time to think about buying a new computer...

Dexel · Answer

I concur, and would like to add one thing. IF you have never done a teardown on a laptop, dont try it without professional assistance. //Dexel

NemesisDB · Answer

Dexel has a point, although I think most people should be able to at least get the keyboard off and look around a bit.  Experiance is helpful for removing the actual board and CPU though...

EZshubby · Answer

I had a similar experience when my daughter spilled water into an Inspiron 5000.  I bought the 3 year waranty and after about 2 weeks of going back and forth with Dell support they finally sent a support guy to my house to fix the I5000.  I know that they had sent a replacement hard drive and memory that I stalled and that failed to fix the problem.  He took everything removable out of the I5000.  I know that the motherboard was replaced and I'm sure what else.  It was failing USB port diagnostics prior to repair.  Based on my experience you will have to replace the mother board.  I don't really think that my hard drive was bad but it did have water marks so I didn't argue with replacing it.  The hard drive passed diagnostics.  If you have a waranty, argue with Dell until they send someone to your house.  If not, I'm not sure how you would go away finding all the possible problems.  The memory is easy to take out.  There are instruction on Dell support pages.  If you try to get support from Dell, try the online chat first if you can get it to connect.  In my experience, the online people at least know their way around a computer, while the phone support people don't know their rear end from a hole in the ground plus they are difficult to understand.  The Email support is OK if you don't mind waiting a 3-4 hours for a response.   Good Luck!

Locked Topics – Laptops General

Help Water Damage

Was this post helpful?