is rice method safe??

[aqarwaen]

i accidentally droped tea mug,with hot tea.into my my macbook air 13.i noticed some tea water got into my macbook ,so i instanly turned it off.is rice method safe to use,to get all tea water out my macbook?its not under warranty.i read that some people recommend or even some famous youtuber even use it.

[grifftech]

yes

[ataradov]

Yes, add rice and boil until cooked.

It is as safe as it is pointless.

BTW, if you have not unplugged the battery until now, your macbook is a toast by now if water actually got inside. Turning it off does not necessarily help a lot, standby circuits are still under voltage.

[MK14]

MAC-AIR-oni (Cheese) on toast, with some RICE and sliced APPLE. Should taste really nice, with a nice hot cup of TEA (which you have already added  ).

Hopefully remove all power sources (all batteries), thoroughly clean with safe substances, and allow plenty of time to be absolutely dry before ever powering up again. Else it may destroy itself with electrolysis.

[mariush]

Take a few minutes to watch this:



So true.

[RGB255_0_0]

Take a few minutes to watch this:



So true.

Well he should take the laptop apart (or take it to somewhere who can) and disconnect the battery first, then watch the video.

[Johnny10]

If rice works then why not cat litter.

Yikes !!

[chickenHeadKnob]

There is something in black tea that corrodes the hell  out of pcb traces and keyboard contact pads. I don't know if it is the tannins or what. Disassemble and flush with water right away. I have wrecked 2 keyboards that way. It surprised me the first time as I thought tea was fairly benign.

[Muttley Snickers]

I've heard rice works well but never had the need to use it, one thing I will say though is that last summer I boiled up some rice in preparation for a stir fry which we have often, anyway on this particular occasion for some reason I didn't give the used rice pot a wipe out and rinse which I would normally do prior to doing the dishes and left it on the bench over night, the following morning I came out into the kitchen to make the coffee and found two black house spiders, one white tail spider and some other unidentified creature all having breakfast in the rice pot. I could only assume from that particular experience that they are attracted to the smell of cooked rice so we have been pedantic ever since in not leaving invitations like that around.

Spiders suck.   

 

[BradC]

I keep a couple of kilos of silica gel around for just such occasions. Rice is a bit of an old wives tail that harks back to putting rice in the salt shaker to stop it caking. That was a mechanical process, but people believed the rice absorbed water in preference to the salt.

I also have a big pot with a silicone seal I use with calcium chloride. That will suck the moisture out of silica gel, but it's a one time affair. Cheap enough though.

Right tool for the right job.

[Fraser]

Rice is a total waste of time and just contaminates the equipment further.

To be aware, some computers have non removable main batteries now

Also many laptop designs use a separate battery to provide power to the RTC etc. If there is a battery of any sort connected to the PCB, electrolytic action will normall start eroding pins of components that are powered.

A laptop that has had a 'bath' should be disassembled and at least inspected and cleaned by a competent person knowledgeable in fluid damage repairs on computers. Speed is of the essence. Do not wait a few days to get it disassembled and cleaned.

Fraser

[tautech]

I've heard rice works well but never had the need to use it, one thing I will say though is that last summer I boiled up some rice in preparation for a stir fry which we have often, anyway on this particular occasion for some reason I didn't give the used rice pot a wipe out and rinse which I would normally do prior to doing the dishes and left it on the bench over night, the following morning I came out into the kitchen to make the coffee and found two black house spiders, one white tail spider and some other unidentified creature all having breakfast in the rice pot. I could only assume from that particular experience that they are attracted to the smell of cooked rice so we have been pedantic ever since in not leaving invitations like that around.

Spiders suck.   

 

Mutt's that I've had over the years would roll their lips back when they encountered any critters that might nip them back, try that attack Muttley. 

[Muttley Snickers]

Mutt's that I've had over the years would roll their lips back when they encountered any critters that might nip them back, try that attack Muttley. 

As you well know, generally around here it's the chainsaw that is best suited when dealing with these big black hairy monsters. Anyway, as she who regularly takes them out back always says objects may appear larger whilst idiots are wearing empty coke bottles.   

 

[tautech]

Mutt's that I've had over the years would roll their lips back when they encountered any critters that might nip them back, try that attack Muttley. 

As you well know, generally around here it's the chainsaw that is best suited when dealing with these big black hairy monsters. Anyway, as she who regularly takes them out back always says objects may appear larger whilst idiots are wearing empty coke bottles.   

 

She......that is scared of such things thankfully can't use a chainsaw (I've a few) but she can use a shotgun....one of the reasons why I keep them locked away. 

[Moshly]

I heard that it is suppose to be boiled rice that has been baked dry.
Apparently used to keep film stock viable in the jungle during the Vietnam war.

[tooki]

i accidentally droped tea mug,with hot tea.into my my macbook air 13.i noticed some tea water got into my macbook ,so i instanly turned it off.is rice method safe to use,to get all tea water out my macbook?its not under warranty.i read that some people recommend or even some famous youtuber even use it.

No. You wanna rinse away all the tea before it has a chance to cause corrosion — the rice method simply delays this crucial step. (See the first video.)

[Muttley Snickers]

Louis Rossmann in agreement with the first video also concluded that the rice drying method does more harm than good by not immediately and properly addressing the issue in addition to possibly leaving harmful residue, definitely some good advice to be had here.

 

[Inflex]

Louis Rossmann in agreement with the first video also concluded that the rice drying method does more harm than good by not immediately and properly addressing the issue in addition to possibly leaving harmful residue, definitely some good advice to be had here.

Yep, I'll be concurring with Louis's point of view.  I've received many machines and phones that have rice in them after several days of corroding away (phones especially!).  The whole rice myth is resulting in a lot more damaged equipment than there needs to be.

For me though, the greater peeve is when people choose not to honestly tell me that it's been dropped in a [dirty] toilet, good reason to suit up and have a big container of IPA on the ready - damned biohaz

[SpaceCow]

Louis Rossmann in agreement with the first video also concluded that the rice drying method does more harm than good by not immediately and properly addressing the issue in addition to possibly leaving harmful residue, definitely some good advice to be had here.

I've watched this video before, and I didn't understand it then. I'm glad have the opportunity to question it now. Louis acts like people believe that rice is somehow going to magically heal corrosion damage on the phone. I don't that anyone believes that beyond a few real dummies.

I thought that the idea of surrounding the device with rice and putting it in a dry place is that the rice helps absorb the water/humidity from the phone, as rice does function as a desiccant to some extent. Therefore, the point of the rice is an attempt to dry the device as quickly as possible if water gets inside the phone or perhaps stuck behind the display. The reasoning is that the faster the water is removed from the device, the less corrosion occurs.

I understand that Louis and others are frustrated from dealing with stupid customers all the time, but it seems insulting their intelligence to act as if they believe sticking rice on corrosion is going to heal a phone. No one thinks that or ever thought that. The rice reasoning was an attempt to remove water from the phone as fast as possible and prevent corrosion damage. I'm not saying that there aren't better ways to do that, though because there are. However, the desire to remove the liquid from the device is complete rational and is "denial" or the belief in magic. The sarcasm that always accompanies this topic seems unnecessary and a bit demeaning.

What do you guys think? Am I missing something here?

[ataradov]

I thought that the idea of surrounding the device with rice and putting it in a dry place is that the rice helps absorb the water/humidity from the phone, as rice does function as a desiccant to some extent.

That is the kernel of truth in this urban legend.

The problem is that rice is not a good desiccant. Not at all.

It is like saying: "jet propulsion works, so if I eat a can of beans, I should be able to fart my way to the moon". The principle is correct, but magnitudes of effectiveness are not even close.

Even real silicagel is not going to be super helpful in this case.

[Inflex]

I've watched this video before, and I didn't understand it then. I'm glad have the opportunity to question it now. Louis acts like people believe that rice is somehow going to magically heal corrosion damage on the phone. I don't that anyone believes that beyond a few real dummies.

   It's a bit of an inside joke as it were, with a lot of satire / sarcasm heaped on for effect.   No, Louis doesn't believe that people believe that it magically heals things; it's just over-the-top drama for comic relief of others in the industry to watch.   I'm sure if you were to ask seriously, he'd agree that most people simply believe that rice will dry out their equipment to the point where it works again.

The sarcasm that always accompanies this topic seems unnecessary and a bit demeaning.

   Essentially that it's humour/blow-off borne of frustration that runs with the industry; likewise you'll find the same sort of thing among mechanics, doctors, architects.

[SpaceCow]

I've watched this video before, and I didn't understand it then. I'm glad have the opportunity to question it now. Louis acts like people believe that rice is somehow going to magically heal corrosion damage on the phone. I don't that anyone believes that beyond a few real dummies.

   It's a bit of an inside joke as it were, with a lot of satire / sarcasm heaped on for effect.   No, Louis doesn't believe that people believe that it magically heals things; it's just over-the-top drama for comic relief of others in the industry to watch.   I'm sure if you were to ask seriously, he'd agree that most people simply believe that rice will dry out their equipment to the point where it works again.

The sarcasm that always accompanies this topic seems unnecessary and a bit demeaning.

   Essentially that it's humour/blow-off borne of frustration that runs with the industry; likewise you'll find the same sort of thing among mechanics, doctors, architects.

I guess the joke went over my head. Thanks for setting me straight.

[bsalai]

I keep a couple of kilos of silica gel around for just such occasions. Rice is a bit of an old wives tail that harks back to putting rice in the salt shaker to stop it caking. That was a mechanical process, but people believed the rice absorbed water in preference to the salt.

I also have a big pot with a silicone seal I use with calcium chloride. That will suck the moisture out of silica gel, but it's a one time affair. Cheap enough though.

Right tool for the right job.

Listen to Brad. He has got it right.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Inflex]

I keep a couple of these rechargable silica gel drying blocks handy, just for pulling out the last bits of moisture from items by sealing the phone/board in with the silica gel  in a small container for 24hrs or so. 

No good if it's sopping wet, but good for after you've already washed/dried it off as much as you can and just want to get those last bits.

[Seekonk]

Nutting says lovin like something from the oven.  Just take the battery out and stick it in the oven, should you have something other than a microwave, on a low temperature setting like proof (120F).  My wife has hearing aids and they supplied her with something like a coffee cup warmer to put them on.

[SeanB]

I have both the 10kg bucket of silica gel, and this works well to dry small things by putting into the bucket for 24 hours.

The calcium chloride is available off the shelf, look at your local big box store for a cupboard demoisturiser/deodoriser, which is basically 300g of calcium chloride granules in a nice water tight housing, with a convenient reservoir for the liquid it turns into. Costs under $2 each for a single use, but worth keeping a few around for emergency use and a convenient large bucket with a lid that seals well.

[JPortici]

Yes, add rice and boil until cooked.

It is as safe as it is pointless.

Not pointless, accepting the hard truth is easier with a full stomach, after a nice risotto

[BradC]

Silica gel removes moisture from the air unless it is in actual contact with the liquid. It can't possibly dry a wet phone faster than natural evaporation and a draught.

Twaddle. Evaporation serves to balance the humidity in the air with the surrounding conditions. If you pull water from the air evaporation happens faster to try and replace it. Silica gel lowers the humidity and thus speeds evaporation. Calcium Chloride does the same, but stronger and faster.

[RGB255_0_0]

Silica gel removes moisture from the air unless it is in actual contact with the liquid. It can't possibly dry a wet phone faster than natural evaporation and a draught.

Twaddle. Evaporation serves to balance the humidity in the air with the surrounding conditions. If you pull water from the air evaporation happens faster to try and replace it. Silica gel lowers the humidity and thus speeds evaporation. Calcium Chloride does the same, but stronger and faster.

I'm failing to understand the thermodynamics of this concept. Can you explain?

[timothyaag]

When I worked as a technician and someone called in with a still-wet device we told them to put it in rice. Whether it worked or not wasn't the point, it just seemed like they let the damn thing sit and dry rather than repeatedly try and power it on, plug it in the wall or try "cleaning it" with more liquid.

[Fraser]

Ok, a real world story for you all.

A few years ago my colleague knocked over a full pint of water into her Dell laptop whilst it was running. I was on the phone at the time but quickly reached across to her desk, pulled the power lead, inverted the laptop, pulled the main battery and shook the unit to allow most water to egress. I then set about dismantling the whole laptop. I had it down to its component parts in around 15 minutes and disconnected the bios battery.

Each part of the laptop was gently shaken and patted dry with paper towels The laptop was then left to dry over a warm radiator for two days. I rebuilt the laptop on the third day and it worked fine. The indelicate shutdown via pulling the power and battery caused no hard disk corruption. That laptop is still working to this day and this happened in 2012.

Where did I find the water contamination inside ? All over the place, in the keyboard, in the hard disk connector, memory slots, under all BGA chips including the processor. It got everywhere.

Would rice have helped? No
Would Dessicant have helped ? No
Would shaking the water out and leaving complete  in a warm cupboard have helped ? No.

To save a laptop from damage the only truly effective path was that which I detailed above when saving my colleagues laptop. Never underestimate how much fluid a drowned laptop can hold in the nooks and crannies plus under chips. Basic evaporation does work if all power is removed and evaporation encouraged with warm air flow over the parts. If the laptop remains intact evaporation is much slower and less effective. The BIOS battery will also be causing harm on the motherboard.

If a laptop is drowned with anything but clean water you also need to wash its parts under a tap, but preferably de-ionised clean water to wash away the pollutants and leave just water for evaporation. Never submerge a hard disk in water. Wipe clean with a damp cloth. If necessary remove the PCB and wash it, but not the disk platter case ! Do not submerge speakers and microphones ! CD and DVR drives need to be disassembled for careful cleaning with water and IPA avoiding removal of lubrication in the process.

Keyboards can be a problem if sticky fluids are involved. The switch membrane gets contaminated and ruined.

The key to success in saving a drowned laptop is a fast response. Remove all power sources fast to reduce damage. Remove all contamination fast to avoid residue after drying. Open all parts of the laptop to air for good evaporation. Apply warm air flow over extended period of time. Correct Methodology and patience saves the day.

Fraser

[CJay]

Ok, a real world story for you all.

Fraser

Exactly that, excellent advice and the same as mine to anyone who contacts me fast enough to have a 'just drowned' device, I've rescued a few.

Good quality, new isopropyl alcohol is a saviour too, washing a board down with clean water and then iso.

I've had several flash drives drowned in the washing and never lost one either.

[Brumby]

Ok, a real world story for you all.

A few years ago my colleague knocked over a full pint of water into her Dell laptop whilst it was running. I was on the phone at the time but quickly reached across to her desk, pulled the power lead, inverted the laptop, pulled the main battery and shook the unit to allow most water to egress. I then set about dismantling the whole laptop. I had it down to its component parts in around 15 minutes and disconnected the bios battery.

Each part of the laptop was gently shaken and patted dry with paper towels The laptop was then left to dry over a warm radiator for two days. I rebuilt the laptop on the third day and it worked fine. The indelicate shutdown via pulling the power and battery caused no hard disk corruption. That laptop is still working to this day and this happened in 2012.

Where did I find the water contamination inside ? All over the place, in the keyboard, in the hard disk connector, memory slots, under all BGA chips including the processor. It got everywhere.

Would rice have helped? No
Would Dessicant have helped ? No
Would shaking the water out and leaving complete  in a warm cupboard have helped ? No.

To save a laptop from damage the only truly effective path was that which I detailed above when saving my colleagues laptop. Never underestimate how much fluid a drowned laptop can hold in the nooks and crannies plus under chips. Basic evaporation does work if all power is removed and evaporation encouraged with warm air flow over the parts. If the laptop remains intact evaporation is much slower and less effective. The BIOS battery will also be causing harm on the motherboard.

If a laptop is drowned with anything but clean water you also need to wash its parts under a tap, but preferably de-ionised clean water to wash away the pollutants and leave just water for evaporation. Never submerge a hard disk in water. Wipe clean with a damp cloth. If necessary remove the PCB and wash it, but not the disk platter case ! Do not submerge speakers and microphones ! CD and DVR drives need to be disassembled for careful cleaning with water and IPA avoiding removal of lubrication in the process.

Keyboards can be a problem if sticky fluids are involved. The switch membrane gets contaminated and ruined.

The key to success in saving a drowned laptop is a fast response. Remove all power sources fast to reduce damage. Remove all contamination fast to avoid residue after drying. Open all parts of the laptop to air for good evaporation. Apply warm air flow over extended period of time. Correct Methodology and patience saves the day.

Fraser

Best post on this thread.

Step 1.  Remove power.  This not only minimises any chance of excessive voltage damage to any sensitive components from water conductivity - it also stops electrolysis and using multiple points across the laptop as sacrificial anodes!  The BIOS battery would not have a big effect - but removing it as soon as possible will limit what damage it might do.

Step 2.  Clean off any crap.  Drying off the water isn't exactly adequate if it's going to leave deposits behind.  This was made very clear in both videos.  Clean off the deposits - and then clean off the cleaners with IPA ... or at the very least distilled or demineralised water (if you must).

Step 3.  Dry out everything.  This is the point that everyone jumps to - but without doing Step 1 and Step 2, you are just kidding yourself - and the odds of further failure down the road is far greater.

[Inflex]

Step 1.  Remove power.  This not only minimises any chance of excessive voltage damage to any sensitive components from water conductivity - it also stops electrolysis and using multiple points across the laptop as sacrificial anodes!  The BIOS battery would not have a big effect - but removing it as soon as possible will limit what damage it might do.

Which is why it's just so diddly-dee fun that phones more and more are embedding batteries in to them   iPhones are bad enough but there's a lot of high-end Androids that need quite a tear down before you can get to the battery.   

I repeatedly am having to post notices on the local town forum about what to do if their phone gets wet (if they want to salvage the data, I almost never "repair to use", 6 months later they blame you for what ever goes wrong).

[Brumby]

Yeah.... My phone is a Galaxy S5.  Removable battery 
My tablet is a cheapie ... and I will need a couple of minutes and a soldering iron to isolate that one.


Fortunuately, I've never had to deal with water problems with these...... so far.

[JPortici]

S5 is IP67, even with removable battery you shouldn't even care about water

[mos6502]

Maybe drying is ok with clear water. But just drying won't help if the liquid contains acids, sugar or other crap. The residue after drying might be conductive, or could attack component pins and traces. You need to take it apart and clean it. Maybe, just maybe, dunking the laptop in a bucket full of isopropyl or denatured alcohol right after the spill would've worked.

[slurry]

I have a container of silica gel but i would not drop my wet phone into this...

When i worked as cellphone repairman for like fifteen years ago (i'm getting old...) i used to rinse the mainboard of the phone in tap water then i drenched the phone in isopropyl alcohol, left it leaning against the warm soldering station and dry for an hour or two.

[SingedFingers]

Fraser is on the mark. I occasionally kill laptops doing stupid things and repair lots of laptops that have had stupid things done to them. When you sit in front of one for 10-12 hours a day that is inevitable. There are three signs of something I have identified that are end game for the design which is where the real problem lies:

1. Non removable battery. Step one is remove that always. If you can't remove it quickly, forget it. I incinerated a MacBook Pro after a spill. Nothing I could do other than watch it burn. No power isolation possibility.
2. Non removable display panel. If any liquid gets in that, you're up shit creek. Most things these days require an entire lid replacement which is expensive.
3. No provision for spills in the design. A lot of laptops and consumer electronics aren't designed with liquid ingress in mind. That means there is no effort to do anything other than blow up in your face if you spill anything in them.

I've killed a MacBook Pro just by spilling water on the table and it went underneath it. I have no confidence in Apple's design ability.

I didn't kill a Lenovo X201 by pouring a whole cup of coffee in it.  I'm actually typing on it now. Yanked the battery (safety first!), waited for it to drain from the built in spillage ducts, wiped the keyboard out with a wet wipe. The panel had a dark spot on the bottom right corner as I'd actually managed to pour it in the screen bezel. This was irritating but didn't need replacement so I bought a new panel for £19 when one turned up on eBay. Smelled of coffee for about a week but that has gone now.

Really though if your thing stops working if you pour some liquid in it, you bought the wrong thing. This is a very common failure mode for anything and to sell something without provision for it in the design is lazy and cheap.

No rice or silica is required if it's not a turd!

[Inflex]

I've killed a MacBook Pro just by spilling water on the table and it went underneath it. I have no confidence in Apple's design ability.

It's an Apple feature, the design of the intake/cooling fans are such that they'll scoop up the delicious liquid and spray it all through the insides like a hippo poop splatter fest.

[SingedFingers]

I've killed a MacBook Pro just by spilling water on the table and it went underneath it. I have no confidence in Apple's design ability.

It's an Apple feature, the design of the intake/cooling fans are such that they'll scoop up the delicious liquid and spray it all through the insides like a hippo poop splatter fest.

That's probably about the best analogy there is actually. I turned it upside down to pull the battery and it rained on the logic board. There were flames coming out of it. Straight out the door onto the lawn.

[Brumby]

S5 is IP67, even with removable battery you shouldn't even care about water

After all the years I've been playing around with electricity, it's hard to not care about water.

[SeanB]

I've killed a MacBook Pro just by spilling water on the table and it went underneath it. I have no confidence in Apple's design ability.

It's an Apple feature, the design of the intake/cooling fans are such that they'll scoop up the delicious liquid and spray it all through the insides like a hippo poop splatter fest.

Scary thing was coming around a corner and there was mamma Hippo in the road. She might not have felt like doing the brown spread, but we certainly were close to needing it after we stopped, reversed rapidly back and got the heck out of there till another vehicle came past from the other direction. If she decides your car is in the way she will destroy it, then walk over the pieces and carry on again.

[SingedFingers]

Every time I hear about South Africa it makes me more glad I don't live there

[CatalinaWOW]

For many of us on this forum there is another alternative that may make sense.  Given the time and effort required to get some of these devices open and unpowered getting it dry first may be faster.  Then clean.  It will be harder to clean after drying, but life is never perfect.

How to get it dry?  Pull a vacuum while keeping it warm. 

[Inflex]

Scary thing was coming around a corner and there was mamma Hippo in the road. She might not have felt like doing the brown spread, but we certainly were close to needing it after we stopped, reversed rapidly back and got the heck out of there till another vehicle came past from the other direction. If she decides your car is in the way she will destroy it, then walk over the pieces and carry on again.

Reminds me of my years out at Pilanesberg.  I do miss the "good" times of ZA.

[timothyaag]

Maybe drying is ok with clear water. But just drying won't help if the liquid contains acids, sugar or other crap. The residue after drying might be conductive, or could attack component pins and traces. You need to take it apart and clean it. Maybe, just maybe, dunking the laptop in a bucket full of isopropyl or denatured alcohol right after the spill would've worked.

For us, telling people to let it dry was to keep them from messing with it, with the implication they would bring it in for us to actually clean and properly dry. "Put it in rice until you get here." Looking back, we did then have a few stray grains of rice to clean, but it was the most effective way to keep them away from their phones. The amount of people who told me they tried power cycling and charging after dropping their phone in the lake, a mug of coffee or a pan of hot fried-chicken oil is crazy.

[Inflex]

The amount of people who told me they tried power cycling and charging after dropping their phone in the lake, a mug of coffee or a pan of hot fried-chicken oil is crazy.

Or... "It was working for a few minutes after...and then it died...[ so you should be able to fix it, right? ]  "

[elecman14]

You also could probably do a low temperature bake to help remove the moisture. The components and battery should be rated to at least 40 or 50 C. It may help speed up the drying process. It is a fairly common practice to bake components and PCBs before re-flow depending on storage and MSL level. Dealing with the ionic contamination from the tea is the other problem  .  This is the reason I have a water resistance "rugged" smart phone.

[KhronX]

I'm... (still) almost shocked to see people recommend disconnecting the battery, not to mention rinsing / baking the keyboard... In a MACBOOK 

In many other cases (ie. "real" laptops, not glorified tablets), yes, but... Well, how's that gonna help the OP, i wonder? 

i accidentally droped tea mug,with hot tea.into my my macbook air 13.

[RGB255_0_0]

I'm... (still) almost shocked to see people recommend disconnecting the battery, not to mention rinsing / baking the keyboard... In a MACBOOK 

In many other cases (ie. "real" laptops, not glorified tablets), yes, but... Well, how's that gonna help the OP, i wonder? 

i accidentally droped tea mug,with hot tea.into my my macbook air 13.

That is what you should do. Yes, the screwdriver is not common so taking it to somewhere who can and ideally then displace the water has the best chance of saving the laptop from a serious repair. What do you mean by "glorified tablets" because the MacBook Airs were some of the best laptops around before being superseded by the useless USB-C MacBook.

[CJay]

That is what you should do. Yes, the screwdriver is not common so taking it to somewhere who can and ideally then displace the water has the best chance of saving the laptop from a serious repair. What do you mean by "glorified tablets" because the MacBook Airs were some of the best laptops around before being superseded by the useless USB-C MacBook.
[/quote]

Nice machines (I've used one for a project) but hardly user upgradeable unless you're handy enough with a screwdriver to strip it down (which most/all of us are, end users, not so much) and even then I think you can only upgrade the SSD?

Not quite a tablet but pretty damn close in terms of expansion options so glorified tablet is a snarky but fair description IMO.

[KhronX]

Ehrm... What exactly do you mean by "best"?

Coolest running? Not even close, quite the contrary, in some cases.
Highest-performing? Hell naw.
Best bang-per-buck? Hardy-har-har 
Spill resistance? Ehrm... 
Build quality?


Battery life? Ok, i might give'em that.
Displays? Fine, maybe that too (although the utility / practicality of over-fullHD in a 13-15" screen is arguable)

What do you mean by "glorified tablets" because the MacBook Airs were some of the best laptops around before being superseded by the useless USB-C MacBook.

[RGB255_0_0]

Ehrm... What exactly do you mean by "best"?

Coolest running? Not even close, quite the contrary, in some cases.
Highest-performing? Hell naw.
Best bang-per-buck? Hardy-har-har 
Spill resistance? Ehrm... 
Build quality?


Battery life? Ok, i might give'em that.
Displays? Fine, maybe that too (although the utility / practicality of over-fullHD in a 13-15" screen is arguable)

What do you mean by "glorified tablets" because the MacBook Airs were some of the best laptops around before being superseded by the useless USB-C MacBook.

The MacBook Air is was the best in its category. No, the screen of the MacBook Airs are not the best (terrible TN panels), but their performance for their size and weight and build quality and battery life was not matched by other Ultrabooks at the time.

I have the original Spectre and its battery is quite poor; its SSD (SATA, AHCI) is no where near the my 2013 Air's.
The WIfi is not as good, either.
No Thunderbolt on the HP, either.

Now, if you're comparing their MacBook (2015) and Pro models to others then there are trade-offs too, but I do not have as much personal experience with them so will not comment aside from I think they are overpriced but have features that other laptops do not so you have to objectively look at it from a user's specific needs.

[Inflex]

I'll say this much about Macbooks... at least you can just take the bottom panel off and all your stuff is right there.  HDD/SDD, cooling, RAM, main board, battery.  Getting sick of the trend in PC laptops lately where everything takes a near full disassembly to get even to the HDD or RAM.

[SingedFingers]

Yes it's right there, behind that bathtub shaped swimming pool (when it gets wet) that empties all over the logic board, behind the wall of funny screws and then when you get there, it's soldered to the motherboard because you couldn't afford the more RAM option.

That's because they're shitty PC laptops.

Every ThinkPad T/X series I've serviced requires a single Philips driver to strip it to the bone and it takes 5 minutes flat. Every damn Macbook right back to the G4's is a cross between Jenga, defusing a bomb and doing a Rubik's Cube with one hand behind your back and an eyepatch on.

[Inflex]

Every ThinkPad T/X series I've serviced requires a single Philips driver to strip it to the bone and it takes 5 minutes flat. Every damn Macbook right back to the G4's is a cross between Jenga, defusing a bomb and doing a Rubik's Cube with one hand behind your back and an eyepatch on.

That's great if you're in a corporate/controlled-issue environment and the ThinkPads are standard issue - sadly out in the consumer world they're few and far between relative to what arrives daily.

Guess we have different perspectives on the Macbooks; I don't find them any worse than the majority of PC laptops, and as mentioned before. The single lid access is a boon, as you say, 5 minutes and you've got them stripped down (sure, I have to have a torx and/or pentalobe on hand, but that's standard for any workshop anyhow).  Would be nice if they had some drain holes though...and fans that didn't scoop up the liquid offerings.

This oldie is a goodie ( to be fair, there aren't too many worse than the DV5 series ) 

[SingedFingers]

I sell used ThinkPads to consumers so problem solved

Hadn't seen that. Quite funny!

This is the thing I last did. Someone brought me one of these bastards (this is not me btw): - chassis deformed, caused left IO board to crack, which shorted out the magsafe connector which promptly went up in flames.

[Inflex]

This is the thing I last did. Someone brought me one of these bastards (this is not me btw):  - chassis deformed, caused left IO board to crack, which shorted out the magsafe connector which promptly went up in flames.

Oh damn, those nasty old things;  I don't ever work on anything older than Core2Duo Macbooks... and even that's a push since most of them aren't worth the cost of repair.

[CJay]

I sell used ThinkPads to consumers so problem solved

We may need to have a chat at some point in the future then

[Psi]

Rice doesn't pull enough water out, you need to use cinnamon 

[KhronX]

I can't complain much about the "accessibility" of my Dell Precision M4800 either  Remove the battery, and the whole bottom panel comes off with two Philips screws 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-Precision-M4800-Notebook.104416.0.html

(see the column of photos underneith the specs)

Yes it's right there, behind that bathtub shaped swimming pool (when it gets wet) that empties all over the logic board, behind the wall of funny screws and then when you get there, it's soldered to the motherboard because you couldn't afford the more RAM option.

That's because they're shitty PC laptops.

Every ThinkPad T/X series I've serviced requires a single Philips driver to strip it to the bone and it takes 5 minutes flat. Every damn Macbook right back to the G4's is a cross between Jenga, defusing a bomb and doing a Rubik's Cube with one hand behind your back and an eyepatch on.

[vze1lryy]

My preliminary list of questions, measure voltage on:

PP3V42_G3H
PPBUS_G3H
PP5V_S5
PPVRTC_G3H
PP3V3_S5

and tell me if you get a light on the charger, and we'll go from there.

I understand that Louis and others are frustrated from dealing with stupid customers all the time, but it seems insulting their intelligence to act as if they believe sticking rice on corrosion is going to heal a phone. No one thinks that or ever thought that. The rice reasoning was an attempt to remove water from the phone as fast as possible and prevent corrosion damage. I'm not saying that there aren't better ways to do that, though because there are. However, the desire to remove the liquid from the device is complete rational and is "denial" or the belief in magic. The sarcasm that always accompanies this topic seems unnecessary and a bit demeaning.

What do you guys think? Am I missing something here?

Facts can't insult or demean, only tell the truth! And they are indeed true. I stopped attempting to debate or educate people who walk in years ago on the rice thing. They will argue until blue in the face that rice fixes their phone. I smile knowing I'll be seeing them in a week for a $400 data recovery rather than a $100 cleaning or something, and wish them the best of luck. It doesn't pay to discuss until I am blue in the face when the person arguing with me is telling me "I'd rather do something that makes no  sense now so I spend 4x as much money later"

There is no point in removing the liquid. It's actually better that the device stay in liquid. If you got your phone wet, rather than put it in rice you should encase the entire thing in water until you can get it ultrasonic'd somewhere with the shields off. The liquid itself doesn't do the damage so much as the minerals and garbage in the water when it finally settles, after it begins to dry.

So, to repeat: YOU DO NOT WANT IT TO DRY!!!!

So, even if rice hastened the drying process, it is only helping kill the device further by quickening the pace at which a clump of green junk will land on top of an important IC/solder ball and begin corroding it.

Either way, once opened and cleaned, we can get to troubleshooting and actually fixing it. So finish eating your rice and get to work. :p

[helius]

The exact same principle applies to heavy equipment affected by flooding. It is best that it remains immersed in water until you are ready to disassemble it, give it a full cleaning, and displace the water. It's very surprising how slowly corrosion happens when fully immersed!