Keeping details brief. Spilled some water on the keyboard of my Framework build. Immediately turned it on its side and powered it off, then removed input cover and set it near a dehumidifier/fan to dry as well.
I know normally when drying water damage I should wait about 48+ hours before turning on the device. Unfortunately, I do not have 48 hours; I instead have a paper that I need to have together within 12 hours.
Question is this: given that it is not a perfect solution, how long do I actually need the keyboard and laptop to dry for? I technically have a backup, but it would involve hauling out an extremely janky setup (Alienware laptop with busted screen + drawing tablet to serve as “monitor” propped against said screen) that hasn’t been turned on in months, so I would prefer to avoid doing that if at all possible.
Laptop 12 with touchscreen, i5-1334u core
Running Linux Ubuntu. I am not 100% sure of the exact distro number but tend to update it fairly regularly.
It was not a ton of water. Maybe a quarter cup, generously. Filtered tap water if that changes anything.
I am a college student and I am not particularly good with computers. I don’t really have many maintenance tools on hand right now.
It will depend on things no one will know. Exactly how far liquid has seeped in, exactly where, how much air exposure these locations have, the temperature, humidity, air turnover / flow, and a bunch of evaporation math.
Not waiting will be a risk, exactly how much risk, I don’t think anyone can tell you.
It comes down to, can you afford to replace your Framework 12? If not, I’d advise you to drag out your backup system.
It would be good to take it all apart, remove battery and mainboard and see if any liquid reached under it.
It will dry quicker in bits. Try to find some fans to blow air over it.
The advice above is conservative and likely the best your going to get.
Your at a university, you may have options.
Any friends you can borrow a device from?
Does your university have a computer lab or devices you can check out? (The university my son attends has laptops students can check out.)
will your professor accept a hand written paper?
If this were my device, I would disassemble as much as possible any part that came in contact with liquid, visually inspect it for signs of liquid, blot that dry, possibly use a small amount of isopropyl alcohol to clean off the liquid, and let it air dry at ambient disassembled.
If your willing to take more risk after the step above, you can try a hair dryer at low or other source of dry air to gently warm the components that got wet. If you use external heat, keep the temperature below 60 Deg C (about 140 deg F) - you should be able to touch it with your hands.
You could use a desiccant (some people recommend uncooked dry rice but I’d still wait the 48 hours using rice if it was my device). Do you have access to a university chem lab?
How much water spilled on other parts? If only the input cover is affected, you can remove that and run the computer using a USB keyboard, as long as the mainboard and the expansion cards got ZERO water on them.
If there are water spill on other parts as well, remove the battery to avoid additional damage then remove the SSD and install it on the Alienware, an Alienware typically has 2 SSD slots you can keep the original one and extract the data from the other one.
If you have or can borrow an M.2 SSD enclosure, use that on the Alienware or a university computer instead, easier than opening up another laptop.
Do a complete tear down. Hand dry any liquid present on parts. Blow dry everything on low or no heat until you are confident it is dry. Take compressed air to the keyboard and blow any liquid out, then blow dry…however the correct answer is to do all of the above and break out your backup to use. I would not risk a $1000+ laptop because of a deadline. I would still do the above but let it air dry after that in a well ventilated situation.
TLDR: Bust out the janky backup and run with it then take care of the detailing of your Framework.
Update: Thank you all for the advice and for telling me to wait it out. Turns out a HUGE Linux exploit got publicly revealed later that exact same evening, so it’s probably for the best that I moved to the backup plan of borrowing someone’s laptop! Even if the machine would have been physically fine (not sure yet, it’s still drying), the cybersecurity sure wasn’t. :V
Doubt that would have impacted you in this case unless writing your paper involved running random stuff from the internet. It is a very spicy exploit but not like the laptop being on would have instapwned you.
Either way I would sugest taking the ssd out before booting it the first time in case the water actually damaged stuff your data might still survive.