My battle-tested MacBook Pro has been through a lot in the last six months. I spilled seltzer on it in July. I also spilled black coffee in late November and, in attempting to dry the computer, I broke the connector to the fan cable. And just in time for the new year, the keyboard’s home row stopped functioning. The non-alphabetical keys, such as ;, ’, Caps Lock and the Return keys worked fine. I knew that the problem was not with the logic board because I could type these keys with an external keyboard.

After much hesitation, I decided that the only way I could get the computer to work properly was to open the computer and clean out the keyboard. Apple does not make it easy. To access the keyboard, you have to take apart the entire computer and then remove the keyboard from the notebook’s upper case. The process must be complicated because you can only find instructions on replacing the upper case on iFixit.com, a process which they already rate as difficult. Separating the keyboard from the upper case requires peeling off the keyboard illumination sheet and then unscrewing about forty of the smallest screws you’ve ever seen in your life.

I’ll spare you the details, but I was able to remove upper case and the keyboard. I cleaned out the keyboard with some rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol and a cotton swab. I also scraped some white substance that has settled under some of the keys. I used nothing more than a thin plastic straw, such as coffee stirrer. I also used some compressed air, from a can, to blow away hair, dust and other detritus from under the keys.

Putting together the computer was a bit more difficult. Shortly after I took the computer apart, I had to leave for Los Angeles for five days. Today, I finally had the chance to put the computer back together. Thankfully, I labelled the screws by placing them in small cups with post-it notes, which made putting the computer a lot easier after not having looked it at my machine in over a week.

When I finished reassembling the computer, I powered on the computer. Immediately, the fan went into overdrive and was spinning at its maximum speed. I was able to login to the computer and, most importantly, all of the keys were working. However, the Wi-Fi wasn’t working. The Wi-Fi menu indicated that there was “No Wi-Fi Hardware Found.” Looking at Activity Monitor, the kernel was consuming as much as 100% of the processor, and attempting ro to run any other software resulted in very slow performance.

After some investigating, it appears that the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and camera are all connected via a single cable to the display. I removed the “camera connector” and reconnected it, hoping that securing the connection would get the computer to work. I rebooted the computer and noticed that the fan was spinning at its normal speed. Then after encountering a kernel panic, which has been more common since Mountain Lion on both this MacBook Pro and 2009 iMac, the Wi-Fi menu showed a full signal to my usual Wi-Fi network. I verified that the FaceTime (iSight) camera worked, and the Bluetooth is working, too.

Yes!

One mystery remains. Why does the lack of a camera, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth cause the kernel to take up so much of the processor and cause the fan to spin at its maximum speed?

I’m embarrassed to admit that only a few months after spilling seltzer inside of my MacBook Pro, I have spilled yet another liquid. This time it was about an ounce of coffee instead of about twelve ounces of fizzy water. However, the saving grace was that I take my coffee black and without sugar, and usually black coffee spills are rarely devastating.

As I did last time, I took apart the computer, removed the memory DIMMS, and disconnected the battery. I was very concerned about any coffee residue inside of the machine, so I attempted to remove the logic board. IFixIt.com has a guide on replacing the logic board. One of the first steps in removing the logic board is to disconnect and remove the fan. As I did so, I broke the connector between the fan and the logic board. Egads! And the small piece of the connector fell on to the kitchen floor, never to be seen again. At that point, I gave up removing the logic board and simply set the computer, keyboard facing down, on a dry towel to let it dry as much as possible.

A day later, I reconnected the battery and, with the back cover still off, I powered-on the computer. It was working! There was a brief moment where the letter G didn’t work, but after another day, the G would return to working order.

The good news was that my computer was working, but the bad news was that fan was not spinning. The fan is crucial to the computer’s operation: after only a few minutes of being powered on, the logic board was very hot. I immediately powered the computer down to prevent damaging my computer’s internals. Feeling defeated, I put the computer back on the desk and went on with my day. My biggest concern was that I would need a new logic board.

After fretting about my dear computer, I spoke with a friend of mine who works as a mechanic. His do-it-yourself attitude was a great help. He suggested rigging a piece of copper wire to bridge the broken connection. The fan has four wires that connect to the logic board. I’m unsure what each does, but he guessed that two of the wires were for DC power, one was a ground, and the other was for a temperature sensor or the like.

His solution worked. I was able to harvest a thin strand of copper from an RJ-45 cable. I inserted the strand into the fan connector and pressed the other end of the copper against logic board, where the broken connector was. I powered-on the computer, and it worked. The fan spun and was cooling the logic board. The only issue was that when I stopped applying pressure to the copper against the logic board, the fan would turn off. I would somehow need to adhere the copper to the logic board.

The obvious, albeit somewhat scary, solution would be to solder the copper to the logic board.

After reading up on soldering, I bought a very basic 40-watt soldering pen from Radio Shack. Along with a spool of the thinnest 60-40 solder I could find, I spent under $20. This was against most advice I read online about needing to get a soldering iron that has an analog (or even a digital) temperature control. If I didn’t need my computer this week, I would have opted to buy a better soldering iron and wait to have it shipped to me¹. But time was crucial and thus the $20 gamble to reconnect the broken fan cable seemed worthwhile.

As you can see in the video, I don’t have the steadiest of hands when soldering, but the solder was good enough to get the connection working. The fan works at both the normal speed (2,000 rpm) and that really noisy speed (6,000 rpm) when I am processing video.

The DIY attitude saved the day yet again.

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Just before heading to one of the best Independence Day parties ever, I spilled a full pint glass of seltzer on my open 13″ unibody Mid-2009 MacBook Pro. The computer immediately shut down, but I unplugged the Mag Safe A/C adapter. As fast as I could, I grabbed my computer screwdriver set and took apart the computer, removing the battery, hard disk drive, and two memory DIMMs.

We’re in the middle of a pretty oppressive heat wave at the moment and since we don’t have an air conditioner running in the apartment, the room temperature is about 90°. I left the computer opened up on the kitchen table, propped up like a pyramid with the hinge pointing up.

The next morning, after the computer had been drying out for about 16 hours, I put it back together. Thankfully, it powered up normally and since the computer had essentially crashed, it took awhile for it complete the start-up process. The only problem was that the P key would not work.

I connected the external keyboard from my iMac, and when I typed P, it registered fine. That was reassuring because it suggested that logic board wasn’t damaged and the non-functioning P was due to some residual moisture keeping it from working properly.

Some web searches revealed that when people spill liquids on their computer, it is often the P key that malfunctions. Some went to the trouble of replacing their logic board, but I didn’t think that would be necessary.

After a few minutes of leaving the computer powered up, I noticed that the P key was registering on its own but was repeating as I had been holding down the key (i.e, PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP).

By late afternoon, the computer was working normally. I consider myself lucky that I spilled plain seltzer water on the keyboard. Being able to take apart the computer and remove the battery was clearly an important step in fixing my MacBook Pro. Also, it was fortunate that it’s currently very hot but not very humid. The high heat and low humidity helped dry the depths of the computer’s innards in very little time. If the temperature was more mild, I would have left the computer drying for as long as three days.

Sarah has a newish (2011) MacBook Air, and those computer cases require a Pentalobe screwdriver to open the case and disconnect the battery. I am about to buy one just from iFixit just in case she ever spills something like I did.