Well, this could sound a little funny, but in fact it isn’t…

When you’re working peacefully and suddenly someone accidentally pours nearly a fourth of gallon (near a liter) of water on the keyboard of your MacBook Pro and it turns off immediately, your blood suddenly freezes… but… if you could survive the shock and you heart is still working, ;-) you must act quickly and calm following these instructions to try to save its life:

  1. First of all, if you have it plugged in to the power grid, unplug it immediately.
  2. Flip the computer (while it’s open: DON’T CLOSE IT!), so the keyboard is facing the ground and shake it gently side by side so most of the water can go out of the computer.
  3. When the majority of water came out, dry all the wet surfaces you can find with a microfiber towel.
  4. Close the lid of your MacBook Pro, grab it firmly with both hands (one on each side) and describe a wide semi circle from above your head to your feet, so that the centrifugal force pulls more water from the DVD tray (if there are, so the DVD tray should look to the outside). Repeat this step several times without being abrupt, but generating enough centrifugal force until almost no water comes out.
  5. Afterwards, open the lid of your MacBook Pro, put a towel on a table and put the computer on top of the towel, with the keyboard on the bottom, touching the towel. The monitor should not touch anything, it should just stay out of the table.
  6. Put your hand under the towel and press the buttons of the keyboard, trying to absorb some water it may come out.
  7. When no more water is coming out from the keyboard, close the lid and put the computer upside down on a table and open it CAREFULLY by unscrewing all the screws from the bottom panel. Pay attention that the three screws on the top right part are longer than the other ones. Take out the bottom cover carefully, dry all the wet surface you can see and disconnect the battery plug as soon as you open the bottom cover, located on the bottom right part of the board (over the battery: see the green circle in the photo).
  8. Unplug all the flat cables on the left part of the board too. Those in the red circle on the photo.
    MacBook Pro inside
  9. Pay attention to all the circuitry and dry everything very carefully not to damage anything. Use the microfiber cloth.
  10. Unmount the RAM modules, the DVD drive if any and the Hard Disk. Take them out and dry the wet surfaces. The DVD drive ca be shaked carefully with long swings, so the centrifugal force pulls out the water.
  11. Dry each piece with a hairdryer (cold air flow) for a while, trying to take out the water from places with difficult access and blow over the holes.
  12. When you see everything is as dry as possible, put the computer as it’s now (with the bottom cover away and the monitor lid closed) into a thin cotton cloth, as well as the DVD drive. Put rice over it: cover it with rice and put it under a tungsten light, which emanates a little heat. Put the light at a security distance over the computer and DVD drive, which can be around 8 inches/20cm. With the hand you should notice very little heat. Leave it lit for the whole night up to near 10 or 12 hours. This will dry the remaining drops of water slowly without producing steam.
  13. After those 10 or 12 hours, take out of the cotton cloth the computer and the DVD drive and check carefully if it’s dry. Be careful with the rice: it should not fall into the electric parts.
  14. Plug in the battery cable and check if the battery tester (less) work. If they work, there is a chance that the computer will function again.
  15. Unplug the battery again, mount the DVD, the Hard Disk and the RAM memory.
  16. Connect all the flat cables and close the bottom cover, paying attention to the three different screws that go on the top right side.
  17. Press the “Power on” button and cross your fingers! If you’re lucky and you did it well, you may have saved you precious MacBook Pro!!

In order to know how to open your MacBook Pro (there are many models) and unmount the DVD drive, Hard Disk and RAM memory modules properly, you can have a look to the tutorials in the web page of “Other World Computing install videos“. They also sell very good products and upgrades for Mac.

Please don’t hesitate in telling us your experience if you had any.

Disclaimer

Please note: AuralSolutions nor any of its employees are not responsible for the result of this tutorial. This worked for us, but may not work for every case. It depends on how clean and conductive is the water and what came in contact with it. Plus your time of reaction is crucial. You must be fast, but paying all the attention you can.

This info has been made available to you for your convenience because it may save you your computer in some cases and if performed correctly and with a good intuition. Please take into account that in this case, the water that fell onto the computer was a very clear purified water. Maybe another type of liquid could not be recoverable this way. This is like a “first aid guide“. Maybe you still need to take your MacBook Pro to an authorized Apple Support Centre to change the broken parts if the computer doesn’t work after following this process, but at least you can try to save it, because not everybody has an Apple authorized Support Centre just around the corner.

The computer from this example is a MacBook Pro from 2011.