Chosen Solution

First of all, I’m from the Netherlands, so my english could be a bit off, sorry for that. ;-) Got a MacBook Pro 13" here from a friend. He spilled lemonade on it, I got it two days after the incident, the Macbook will not power up and gave no response. So I took it apart and cleaned everything with Isopropyl 99,7% to remove the lemonade residue (by the way it was spilled while the lid was closed, so it only got wet on the bottom side). After completely cleaning everything making sure there were no lemonade stains anywhere, i put the macbook together again. Now if i press the power button, fans come on for 1.5 seconds, the hard drive makes 1 very quiet startup “click” and the sleep LED blinks one time. After that the whole machine turn off again and give no sign of life. Pressing the power button again gives the same result. Is there anybody who can help me or point me in the right direction? What I have tried so far: Reset SMCSwitched the RAMBooted on only batteryBooted without batteryBooted without HDD Also tried booting using the power pads on the logic board. All give the same result. So if there is anybody who can help me or point me in the right direction, please speak out! ;)

I think you need to go back in and do some more cleaning here. Often you need to remove the logic board fully from the system as there is a second side that could have gotten wet here. As your removing the logic board you do need to practice good ESD handling as static can damage your logic board. While Isopropyl is a good cleaner it fails to clean sugar or neutralize the lemons acid that is still present in your system. Making sure to disconnect the battery first, Then wipe down with damp cotton swabs (Q-Tips) the areas you remember seeing the spilled drink with distilled water (not tap water!) Distilled water has nothing in it other than H2O so it won’t be damaging when it dries unlike tap water which has lots of junk in it. This will dissolve the sugars and dilute the acid down. Then go over the areas again this time with the Isopropyl alcohol as it can also act as a dryer here with the traces of water you still have on the board. I still like letting the sun dry out the board the rest of the way. See if that helps as I fear your logic board may have a damage component or two.

Stefan, did you fix your problem? I have the same issue… this works for me. Connect power source. Hold command, option, shift, r, p, and power for 10 seconds. Release all at the same time. Immediately after release, power source light turns green; press and release power. Fans come on, and stay on. Machine starts 20-50 minutes later. I will travel to the U.S. soon and will have it serviced there. I hope this helps.

I have the exact same problem as OP. Mine’s a mid-2012 MacBook Pro, but I may as well attempt to contribute to the discussion… After drying the laptop, I changed the DC-in board for a working (used) one and cleaned the logic board with 99% isopropyl alcohol, since I thought the DC-in board is most likely to be the source of the problems (the water appeared to mostly touch the MagSafe socket area). This hasn’t helped, which makes me suspect a minor component on the logic board got fried. I can’t tell whether or not my attempts at SMC reset have actually worked, since it’s hard to get the machine to boot. However, it has, on a couple of occasions, booted as a result of jigging different MagSafe configurations. By this I mean…

  • When I connect the AC cable, the MagSafe LED switches between green and orange.
  • I get the same constant faint click/beep as described by OP (coming from the HDD…?).
  • Whenever connected to power, the machine seems to be attempting to turn itself on (even if I don’t touch the power button), but fails every time.
  • Different sequences of plugging-in/unplugging/holding power button/attempting SMC reset, etc. sometimes produces a steady green light on the MagSafe adapter, after which point I can get the laptop to boot for about 10 minutes (just long enough to recover my files!). On the few occasions it has successfully booted, the fan has been constantly on. So next time I get it into a state where it looks like it might turn on, I’ll try another SMC reset instead. Additionally, when I’ve got the damned thing to turn on, there’s an X in the battery icon. Which is just one more reason to persist with the SMC reset attempts. Yet I’m certain there’s also an underlying hardware fault. Investigations continue.

have u all tries to push the power button 5-10 sec,i have mine coffee spill and clean it with soap now its working fine if i use it without battery but if i use the battery kernel task always at 80% and makes my macbook run really slow

Tool it the Geniusbar and agreed to the $300 depot repair for new logic board. When I went to pick it up i was informed that the problem was covered by warranty after all and the entire service was free! Happy with the way it turned out but am a bit upset they didn’t tell me it was covered. I spent a lot of time stressing about whether or not to repair it.

single slow blink and no power seems like a moisture / humidity issue. If you have a photography hot box, keep it in for about 48 hours. if not, keep it over a refrigerator (not inside) or atop a hot device so that all moisture gets dried out from the ambient heat. worked for me. But dont use a hair dryer or direct hot blower (you may melt some delicate components). All components (all sides) need to be thoroughly dried out and a hot box or refrigerator top is ideal (the refrigerator is usually the hottest appliance in the home).