>>> What probably happened is the beer got between the rear polariser and 
>>> the backlight, there is usually a 100-500 micron air-gap that could 
>>> easily fill with liquid.  Any contamination in this area will show up 
>>> very obviously on the screen.
>> Well, I'm hoping that my overkill sloshing of ethanol is the main 
>> culprit here, and that most of it will evaporate eventually.
> 
> It may be a residue of ethanol on the rear polariser, you could try and 
> put a few drops on the front of the screen and see if you can see 
> anything once it has dried off.  Polarisers are funny things and react 
> weirdly sometimes to certain chemicals.
> 
> Turn on the screen anyway, it will generate a load of heat which will 
> help dry out any left-over moisture.
> 

My laptop's screen died after I was caught under heavy rain, carrying it 
in a not-so-waterproof bag...

I never knew exactly what happened, but apparently some water got caught 
in the screen, causing the sort of effect Bill is seeing, I think. At 
first it was working OK but large drops of liquid could be seen, I 
believe they were behind the pixels and just in front of the backlight. 
I thought turning it on would help it dry, and apparently it was an 
error... One day after that the screen would not show anything. Perhaps 
some metallic connector got corroded by the water, I don't know.

The screen can still be turned on (it was a year ago), but now shows 
only squarish clusters of weakly colored pixels. Something hard to 
describe... Anyhow my laptop has became a desktop :-( And traces of the 
water can still be seen.

The interesting thing is that it had one broken pixel that permanently 
appeared red. This is now the only pixel with a definite color ;-)

I don't know exactly how you can solve the problem, but in my experience 
turning it on to make it dry did not help...

-- 
Vincent

Post a reply to this message

> I thought turning it on would help it dry, and apparently it was an 
> error...

You need to make sure all water (or anything water-based, eg beer) is gone 
before turning it on.  As soon as you get water in anything electronic rip 
the battery out immediately, otherwise the tracks on the circuit boards (and 
the glass if you have an LCD) will start to corrode very quickly.

Only after you have got rid of all the water should you attempt to put the 
battery back in and turn it on.  Using ethanol (as Bill did) is a good way 
to get rid of all the water, my suggestion was to turn it on to encourage 
any remaining ethanol to evaporate.

Sorry if that wasn't clear... I take no responsibility for anyone damaging 
anything :-)

Post a reply to this message

>> I thought turning it on would help it dry, and apparently it was an 
>> error...
> 
> You need to make sure all water (or anything water-based, eg beer) is 
> gone before turning it on.  As soon as you get water in anything 
> electronic rip the battery out immediately, otherwise the tracks on the 
> circuit boards (and the glass if you have an LCD) will start to corrode 
> very quickly.
> 
> Only after you have got rid of all the water should you attempt to put 
> the battery back in and turn it on.  Using ethanol (as Bill did) is a 
> good way to get rid of all the water, my suggestion was to turn it on to 
> encourage any remaining ethanol to evaporate.
> 
> Sorry if that wasn't clear... I take no responsibility for anyone 
> damaging anything :-)
> 
> 
Well in my case the damage is done and I will only blame myself :-) In 
fact I'm surprised that the screen is the only thing that died in that 
laptop...

I guess what confused me in your previous post was the term "moisture" 
which I associate with water.

That raises another question: how can one be sure that no water is left, 
before turning the screen on? And if liquid can be seen still, how can 
you tell it's ethanol?

-- 
Vincent

Post a reply to this message

> That raises another question: how can one be sure that no water is left, 
> before turning the screen on? And if liquid can be seen still, how can you 
> tell it's ethanol?

Good point, I assume that Bill has it covered though:

"Well, I'm hoping that my overkill sloshing of ethanol is the main
culprit here,"

I had a look through a few documents here and my suspicion is that the 
ethanol might have done some permanent damage to the polarisers.  Here we 
have to test the polarisers for lots of different things (petrol, diesel, 
sweat, face-cream, cleaning fluids, coffee etc), and one of the tests for 
cleaner fluid (some mixture with ethanol in it) often fails and leaves 
permanent marks on the polariser...

FWIW we use IPA (isopropyl alcohol) for cleaning the polarisers... might be 
worth a shot if you can get to the inside.

Post a reply to this message

And lo on Tue, 11 Sep 2007 10:28:22 +0100, Bill Pragnell  
<bil### [at] hotmailcom> did spake, saying:

> Well, I put it back together and booted it up last night. I think it  
> needs some more drying time :(
>
> I think the HD and motherboard and everything actually within the case  
> is fine. However, the screen has been badly affected - it has big glare  
> artifacts across more than a quarter of its area, although all the  
> pixels seem to be firing OK so maybe the moisture is in a different  
> layer or something. The keyboard has 7-8 non-functional keys and I have  
> a suspicion it's sending the wrong characters, because I can no longer  
> log in - it complains about the password, even though all those keys  
> appear to work.

That'd be the hangover, try not to type so heavily.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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scott wrote:
> I had a look through a few documents here and my suspicion is that the 
> ethanol might have done some permanent damage to the polarisers.
Yeek, now I hope it was the beer after all. Do you make LCDs for Apple 
or can I also hope that their materials are sufficiently different that 
I might be in the clear? :-\

> FWIW we use IPA (isopropyl alcohol) for cleaning the polarisers... might 
> be worth a shot if you can get to the inside.
I'll look into it, cheers

Post a reply to this message

>> I had a look through a few documents here and my suspicion is that the 
>> ethanol might have done some permanent damage to the polarisers.
> Yeek, now I hope it was the beer after all. Do you make LCDs for Apple or 
> can I also hope that their materials are sufficiently different that I 
> might be in the clear? :-\

I know we supply the LCDs for the full-size iPods and the iPhone, not sure 
about any other Apple products though, it's not out of the realms of 
possibility that we do.  The other groups tend to keep themselves very much 
to themselves, I only really know about LCDs in phones and cars in Europe. 
But even within my small area of knowledge we use several different 
polariser suppliers and each of them has several different versions of 
polarisers, each with different good and bad points.  It's always a matter 
of compromises when you select which one to use.

It's worth noting though that the front polariser usually has some 
anti-glare and anti-reflection coatings (unless you have one of those "CRT" 
effect LCDs...) and possibly even some layer to protect it from impact with 
the keyboard, so the front is usually much better protected than the back...

Post a reply to this message

It lives!

24h in an airing cupboard, 24h sealed in a bin liner with a tray of 
silica crystals. The keyboard works perfectly, although the touchpad 
button sticks a little. It boots to the desktop properly, no problems. 
The screen is still a bit munged, but I think the effect has shrunk 
slightly, so I'm going to keep drying it when not in use. The pixels all 
fire ok, it's just a smudge of brightness variation... looks really weird!

I've invested in an external drive to back up my system properly just in 
case the HD throws in the towel at a later date (which I was meaning to 
do anyway, so not really an unexpected cost).

Thanks for the sounding board, everybode :)

Post a reply to this message

"Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:46e93964@news.povray.org...
> It lives!
>
> 24h in an airing cupboard, 24h sealed in a bin liner with a tray of
> silica crystals. The keyboard works perfectly, although the touchpad
> button sticks a little. It boots to the desktop properly, no problems.
> The screen is still a bit munged, but I think the effect has shrunk
> slightly, so I'm going to keep drying it when not in use. The pixels all
> fire ok, it's just a smudge of brightness variation... looks really weird!
>
> I've invested in an external drive to back up my system properly just in
> case the HD throws in the towel at a later date (which I was meaning to
> do anyway, so not really an unexpected cost).
>
> Thanks for the sounding board, everybode :)

Very Impressive. I just bought a MacBook Pro this afternoon and I hope to
never have to go through this. I am reassured however that it is possible in
some cases.

-r

Post a reply to this message

Ross wrote:
> "Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
> news:46e93964@news.povray.org...
>> It lives!
>>
>> 24h in an airing cupboard, 24h sealed in a bin liner with a tray of
>> silica crystals. The keyboard works perfectly, although the touchpad
>> button sticks a little. It boots to the desktop properly, no problems.
>> The screen is still a bit munged, but I think the effect has shrunk
>> slightly, so I'm going to keep drying it when not in use. The pixels all
>> fire ok, it's just a smudge of brightness variation... looks really weird!
>>
>> I've invested in an external drive to back up my system properly just in
>> case the HD throws in the towel at a later date (which I was meaning to
>> do anyway, so not really an unexpected cost).
>>
>> Thanks for the sounding board, everybode :)
> 
> Very Impressive. I just bought a MacBook Pro this afternoon and I hope to
> never have to go through this. I am reassured however that it is possible in
> some cases.

Get one of those silicone keyboard covers if your home is a high-risk 
beverage environment. I plan to. Any day now. Promise.

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