laptop touchpad issues

**si-amigo** · 14th March 2013

hi everyone

My clumsy missus spilt a drop or two of tea on her laptop last night and now the touchpad doesn't work properly. Its very jittery and sometimes just sits there jumping up and down and side to side all on its own for 10 secs at a time

I tried a few things like reinstalling drivers and stuff based on what I found through a google search but nothing has worked so far. Has she fried it or is it fixable? How easy are these things to replace as we have an old one of the same model and could swap out the part? Its an Acer Travelmate 5330

Thanks
Si

**evilsatan** · 14th March 2013

If you spill liquid on a machine and then it plays up the indication would be liquid damage rather than drivers etc. you should have powered the machine off and removed the battery, taken the kb and top cover off and inspected the board, soaked up the tea and clean any affected area with cleaning alcohol.

They should be fairly easy to replace but if the motherboard is screwed then you are in trouble. As its early days still you may get lucky and be able to clean up any areas before too much damage is caused.

**akimba** · 14th March 2013

If only the trackpad effected then doubt got to the board, yeah easy to replace usually u need to to get the whole top bezal which includes the track pad and is a matter of undoing 10-15 screws,

Tip of the Day = Use an old creditcard to split the top from the bottom as this it less lightly to break the clips and also doesnt leave any damage to either the top or bottom bezal ;-)

**DejaVu** · 14th March 2013

A 'few drops of tea' usually turns out to be shit ton and once you clean it off carefully, it should all work fine.

Removing moisture ASAP could be the difference between saving and destroying.

Had a similar experience about 2 years ago with my missus laptop - but was a whole cup of coffee.
I immediately turned it off and put it upside down and took it apart straight away.

Had to separate the "LCD sheets" to do a proper job, but she's still using it today.