# oil spill on computer



## homie101

hey i have a dell laptop and it got soaked with cooking oil is there any way it can be repaired or even save the hard drive? please help!!!


----------



## PohTayToez

Actually, cooking oil, assuming it wasn't used cooking oil, shouldn't do a whole lot of damage.  As it is non-conductive, it would short anything out like water or most other liquids would.  If it got into the hard drive that would probably do permanent damage, and if it got between the layers of the LCD would be very hard to fix without replacing the entire LCD, but other wise the rest of it would just need to be fully dissembled and cleaned.


----------



## bkribbs

PohTayToez said:


> Actually, cooking oil, assuming it wasn't used cooking oil, shouldn't do a whole lot of damage.  As it is non-conductive, it would short anything out like water or most other liquids would.  If it got into the hard drive that would probably do permanent damage, and if it got between the layers of the LCD would be very hard to fix without replacing the entire LCD, but other wise the rest of it would just need to be fully dissembled and cleaned.



Doesn't shorting stuff out do some major damage?


----------



## linkin

Cooking oil won't short anything, but it will damage the ahrd drive and make the computer very uncomfortable to use... yes, if you take the HDD out quick smart you should be able to save it. maybe take out the battery too.


----------



## ganzey

bkribbs said:


> Doesn't shorting stuff out do some major damage?



cooking oil is non conductive, meaning it wont short out electrical components. look up oil cooled computers


----------



## bkribbs

ganzey said:


> cooking oil is non conductive, meaning it wont short out electrical components. look up oil cooled computers



Oh I was confused by PohTayToes' first post. He has a typo, saying it would short it out, not causing much damage. But I understans. Thanks.


----------



## PohTayToez

*wouldn't


----------



## ganzey

hey, at least you didnt spill any oil the the gulf of mexico XD


----------



## strict

what I would do is try to clean it with a few lit matches. Not only does the oil not conduct,  it is flame retardant and actually cleanses when combined with fire. 


umm. . .   ?


----------



## linkin

I would not try to light it up. that will damage your hardware if it ignites... msot likely melt a lot of plastic and mess up what little airflow the laptop has.

does the laptop itself still work?


----------



## bikerkid

since oil is a non conductor of electricity it shouldnt damage any of the components bar the harddrive, however it will mess up all the heat sinking as it willl stop airflow and could cause the whole motherborad to heat up. If the oil was just spilt on the keypad then chances are the keypad will be rewened but the oil shouldnt have filtered into the mother board. best way to find out is take off the screen and flip the laptop upside down to try and get as much of the oil to run out as possibel and pull it apart and see how far it has gone. good luck


----------



## Ultranothing

What causes conductivity in fluids is dissolved metal ions like Iron, Copper, aluminum & disolved salts like NaCl (table salt), KCl, &  various others. Pure H20 will not conduct electricity. This is why over-clockers with water cooling systems use distilled water which has no dissolved ions in it (or at least not enough to be an issue). 

If the oil he spilled has enough metal ions or salts in the solution there is the chance that he can get a short. Its important to know what type of oil he spilled as that will hint at the possibility of it not having any of these dissolved ions.

Usually computer parts are placed in a chemical called Saphire (with one p; it's not spelled like the gem stone) by Tyco or in Mineral Spirits which is a mineral oil. It would be possible to use Distilled Water for this if you could keep ions from dissolving into it but its much easier for ions to dissolve into water than the two chemicals mentioned above (water is the universal solvent as they say) so its not practical.

On a side note PCBs as mentioned above are poly-chlorinated bi-phenyls which are poisons & not Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) which are used in computers. I think its a good idea to clarify this early on just in case wink.


----------



## paulcheung

If is not an expensive computer, I would advice to get the hard drive out and save the data, and the ram and battery etc. as spare part and discard this computer. cooking oil will stick if you can't totally clean it out. You can't even type on it later. best luck..
Paul


----------

