Oops.

[Ineeda]

I averted catastrophe today, but I'm looking for advice on what to do if I mess up again. So here's the story. My workspace is very cramped and I work on a desktop. Yesterday morning I knocked over my coffee travel mug and a tiny amount of coffee splashed onto/into my CPU, right into the perforations for the fan ventilation. All hell broke loose: White screen, followed by the black "Windows did not shut down" safe mode restart option, followed by a crazy "stretched" desktop that closed if I even touched a key. After several tries, and looking to see if opening the CPU case was possible, I gave up and went about my Thanksgiving events, all the while thinking, Doom, doom. Now what? Do I call Geek Patrol? Do I just buy a new computer. (QVC is having an HP as their special tomorrow. You can break it down to five 'easy payments' and it's loaded with security and software.) Anyway, lo and behold, this morning all is well. I'm working perfectly. A holiday miracle.

So, other than not spilling coffee into the works, any advice?

[Lionessa]

1. Whenever you spill liquid into an electronic

device. Leave if off (or turn it off) and give the liquid time to drip through and then dry. It will nearly always work thereafter. It's the keeping it on and trying to see if it's okay while the connections are still wet that cause the problem.

IE of course it works fine this morning, all is as it should be.

Next time don't keep trying to see what's wrong and if it works, that's when damage is done, while everything is still wet or damp.

[hobbit709]

3. Exactly. If it gets wet , IMMEDIATELY shut off and let it dry out for at least a day.

[Fumesucker]

2. Have a backup computer ready to go if your primary unit goes Tango Uniform?

I don't spend much on computers because I assemble them from junk and bits and pieces but I try to have one good one and a cheapo ready to swap in for basic browsing, email and so on if the good computer has a cardiac event.

I see perfectly functional old desktops for thirty to fifty bucks on Craigslist pretty regularly. It takes about ten minutes to unplug and plug all your connections and swap a working box for a non working one.

Then for a few dollars more you can get a USB hard disk interface and plug the HD from the broken computer into the working one and suck out your data.

While you're running on the backup computer then you can take the time to shop for a new "good" computer at the best price, panic mode buying is seldom really frugal.

[Lionessa]

4. That sounds like the solution for someone who can't wait a day

to let things dry. You're just assuming the liquid is going to ruin it, and it rarely does.

That said, you're convoluted round about way isn't as easy as buying an external harddrive to back up data daily including all docs, program downloads, pics, vids, and such, you can borrow anyone's computer for a couple of days if the liquid in fact kills the thing for good. Or plug it into any device that accepts USB drives as input.

[Fumesucker]

5. I didn't mean just for liquid, thought the question was more general

Computers break, they get liquid spills, drives go bad, cpus smoke, gpus give up the ghost, the ethernet port burns out, the sound card quits, gets a bad virus, I've had all that and more personally. People also don't back up their data as they should.

In my particular situation trying to borrow or buy another computer is more "convoluted" than simply having a second cheap one of my own put aside for emergencies. I can literally be up and running in five minutes after the most disastrous computer malfunction.

So many things depend on situation, I was giving advice for someone who needs to be fairly self sufficient for whatever reason, a scenario I'm quite familiar with.

[Ineeda]

6. Thank you everybody.

[Tunkamerica]

7. If you do spill coffee...

sugar and cream are much worse than black coffee.