battery acid on mobo

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kmkrreeves1

Member
I am working on a couple of laptops for someone, and they have suffered some abuse. One is a samsung NP700Z5B-S01UB (with a nice dent on the lid). It wouldn't do anything at all when I got it (they didn't tell me they thew them regularly) I opened it up to discover a cracked battery, and later a bad HDD (not from the acid) The battery is not accessible from the outside, so all the acid (not much actually) leaked in the case. most of it was just on the plastic, but some ran down the wire, and corroded the area where it connects to the board pretty badly. I attempted to clean it with some battery acid cleaner, but it didn't affect anything.

any ideas what I should do? the mobo is $300 on amazon... so they probably wouldn't want to bother fixing it.

(if you were wondering the other nice HP laptop also has a bad hard drive, but no other damage... easy enough)
 
the yellow stuff was the battery cleaner
https://plus.google.com/photos/111692566155647864212/albums/6004609532563845489


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The laptop was abused, cracked battery, damaged HDD, and now acid corroded parts of the MoBo...normally grounds for cutting one's losses and moving on to another unit. However, that particular laptop actually looks pretty decent, even properly refurbished they are going for $700+. I would let the owner know the cost of parts and labor and see if they want to deal with it. If they don't, I'd probably ask if they were interested in selling it to you for cheap. Hell, if you don't want it and the shipping isn't too bad, I'd probably buy it for cheap!
 
That's what I was thinking, the screen alone (I don't know how it's not cracked) is worth quite a bit... So the motherboard is totaled though right?

I found another mobo on eBay for 240, battery for 50, and I'm gonna suggest an ssd so maybe they won't kill it again...

And they didn't tell me it had been abused, but how else does all that happen?
 
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I wouldn't trust that motherboard - aside from the damage you can see, what about the stuff you can't? It's hard to stop corrosion unless you completely remove and replace the corroded areas - on something as intricate as a MoBo, it's going to be an exercise in futility.

SSD's are tough little buggers, but they aren't indestructible. Plus there's the $/GB to consider - if you/they opt for that, just realize that the storage compared to the original 1TB will be drastically reduced.

"Abused" in this instance simply meant the laptop itself had something traumatic done to it, albeit maybe not intentionally. I probably could have worded my first Post a bit differently. For the amount of damage you say it has, it was at the very least dropped - hard (possibly repeatedly). Honestly, if you/they opt for it to be repaired, I'd spend the extra time and go over every single part and check for damage (you'll have it 80% dismantled for the MoBo replacement anyway). Aside from the added labor, who knows what parts would possibly need to be replaced - everything else could be perfectly fine, just something to keep in mind.
 
Yeah, I was going to go through the options with them, I don't know how much space they need... And I'll Check the lcd, but that's about all I wouldn't be replacing, maybe the keyboard too, it looked like it's ribbon cable got acid on it, he probably won't want to mess with this one anyway...

I said it was abused because the other laptop was also dropped or something, just not as badly. (or often)
 
I'd say it's a lost cause on the motherboard, and it needs to be replaced. Since this looks to have been abused, did you check the display to verify there are no cracks in it?
 
Only thing I'd be wary of is the size of the SSD. Remember, he's going from a 1TB to something drastically smaller. 128GB could be fine, but if he has a lot of files, it may get filled up pretty quick. If not, go for it and let us know how everything turns out.
 
I gave him a bunch of options and prices, he said they only use it for online gaming (I don't know exactly what he meant by that) and that would be enough. I think he knows enough to know if that would be enough (but I could be wrong). These laptops have been dead for a year, so I don't think it's their primary computer.

I have a 60gb SSD in my laptop with windows 8.1 pro 64bit and have 20gb left (10gb music, and probably 5 of pics and stuff) , so if that's really all he does, 128gb should be fine.
 
I already attempted to clean it up in the pictures, the plastic bottom of the inside was cover in corrosion (especially around the battery) and the motherboard was corroded around where the battery connects to it. The battery wasn't removable, so it was all in the laptop.
 
lcd probs

I got all the parts today, and put it all together. everything is working great. I did notice some battery acid behind the LCD (how did that manage to happen?) and although it does work, it looks very bad. There are random light spots all over it, they aren't dead pixels, they change with the color, they are just lighter than everything around it. Even black, it's just a lighter black.

Is there anything that can be done it help this, I'm not sure if it was caused by the acid or prior abuse... Could one of those burn in/stuck pixel fixer videos on YouTube help this at all? I plan on letting him look at it before I buy anything else of course though...
I'll link a few, but I put a lot of picture here: Picasa web album

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kmkrreeves1 said:
I did notice some battery acid behind the LCD (how did that manage to happen?)
Click to expand...

Are you sure it was acid? If so, how the hell did they manage that? Was it inverted during or after the damage was caused?

The text isn't distorted, so your flex cable/inverter/whatever they're calling them these days doesn't appear to be damaged. The problem looks to be the actual LCD; it's doubtful a pixel fixer will work. Easy enough to replace, but it's added cost and time.
 
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I ordered a new LCD, I warned him before we ordered anything that the LCD was probably bad too, I don't see how it survived this well after a battery smashing blow... I showed it to him, and he said he definitely wanted to fix it... $83 more didn't bother him much, he has already spent $300 in parts for this thing... this laptop is still going for over $700 used on amazon... so it's still not a total loss....
 
Yeah, that's a decent higher-end system. Personally, I'd put at much as $450-500 into it repair-wise before I'd cut my losses. Just be careful removing/installing the new screen; connectors on flex cables and inverters are usually delicate.
 
yeah I noticed that, I already removed it to look at it. I had to order a new bezel also... $37... I kind of bent up the paper thin aluminum they glued to the front... I hate it when they do that kind of crap....

and to answer your earlier comment... I have no idea how they managed to do all that, I'm assuming the hard drive probably died first, then they got mad and threw it, and it landed upside down, and they left it there for a year, allowing the battery acid to slowly seep into the display, I still don't see how so much managed to get in there... but I don't know any other reason everything would be corroded back there and what looks like dried acid all over it back there...
 
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I just noticed some of the keys on the keyboard randomly stop working, they work sometimes, but it it seems like they all stop and start working at the same time. they aren't sticking or anything, I removed one of the keys, and there is nothing wrong underneath... the only keys doing this are the 9, 6, 3, decimal, and enter key on the keypad, and the close bracket and backslash keys. they are all right next to each other, could this be a connection problem with the cable? There was some residue on it, but I didn't think it would have messed it up.

could I have not plugged it in good? or does this seem more like a actual problem? all the important keys work, and the numbers at the top work. (I did try every button...)

update: I just installed this keyboard tester and now all the keys are working 100% of the time, rather than about 15%. I unsinstalled it and everything is still working... who knows...
 
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kmkrreeves1 said:
I have a 60gb SSD in my laptop with windows 8.1 pro 64bit and have 20gb left (10gb music, and probably 5 of pics and stuff) , so if that's really all he does, 128gb should be fine.
Click to expand...

A 60GB SSD gives you 58GB of usable space, minus 20GB for the OS, and you only have 38GB of user accessible space left. Install a few programs and suddenly your hard drive is full.
 
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