Re: coffee damaged laptop
Depending on the keyboard construction, you might be able to remove the keys and clean any coffee residue from around the sensor areas. Often they use conductive rubber across two printed tracks - cleaning the tracks (distilled water, or IsoPrpylAlcohol) may help.
The LCD may be trickier. They are sealed, so there shouldn't be any ingress there. However, if there is a protective screen infront of the panel, there may be coffee residue there, and removing the panel from the housing might enable you to clean it. But it is difficult to tell without actually seeing it!
Re: coffee damaged laptop
Actually sounds like ether the coffee seeped in between the panel and backlight or under a tinted layer (tinted outer layers are very common now)
My guess the tint layer lifted off, probably the heat melted the glue (these layers are like a sheet of sticky back plastic with a slight tint, like sunglasses)
Actually this is of interest to me as I've got a laptop that's been the victim of a spill, my guess is red wine from the smell.
make sure the connecting ribbon strip sockets haven't been infiltrated by the coffee
ps same sort of unresponsive keys, not whole roes but clusters, check ; ' [ ] as well
Re: coffee damaged laptop
peterb and pob255, you guys are heroes! I was looking at replacing the screen but after your advice I stripped it down and cleaned it. There was loads of coffee in between the layers. Not all good news, I'd never done this before so I took apart smashed LCD I've got. Then took apart the coffee stained one,cleaned it all with screen cleaner, then put it back together.
My mistake was that I didnt pay enough attention to how the layers went on (but it was my first time so not the worst problem). Basically its taken me 2 hours to realise that the thick plastic layer that goes next to the backlight is thinner at one end (the end to place next to the backlight!).
Now i've put the LCD back together theres no coffee stain at all JUST A LINE OF DEAD PIXELS!
i'm semi annoyed about that as it could have been a success story.
Is there anything I can do about this line of dead pixels or is it my heavy handedness thats caused this?
I've cleaned the keyboard and its connection with isopropyl alcohol but not plugged it back in yet. I'll post back with what I find.