Gateway laptop won't turn on

[04sbstang]

So I just came home from being out, I opened up my laptop, only to find it wet. I asked my mom what happened, she said she knocked a small cup of diet pepsi over and it spilled on it (it was closed). She wiped it down after she spilled it, but now it won't turn on. I don't know if it was on or not. When closed, as some of you may know, my computer goes to sleep, but does not turn off, however it turns off after a couple hours of not being opened. Bottom line, spilled diet pepsi, don't know if it was on or not, don't know how much spilled, and how long it sat. I took the battery out, put it on its side and i'm letting it dry now.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

[mjc]

It doesn't look good...you probably need to have it completely disassembled and cleaned. And not by some place like BestBuy or Circuit City. This is before a damage assessment can be made. Sweet, sticky liquids like soda pop are incredibly destructive to electronics, so any residue needs to be removed before it completely dries or there will be other problems.

[sassie05]

On the plus side, at least it was Diet Pepsi.
A little easier to clean.

[04sbstang]

Good news and bad news....The computer works, with no problems running. Bad news is that it won't run off the battery. It only turns on when plugged into the charger. If I try to turn it on with batt. power, the charge indicator flashses red 4 times. If I leave it plugged in, the charge indicator will go from purple to red, after about 15 mins. Gateway's crap ass phone support wouldn't help me at all because i'm out of warranty. Luckily the online support helped me a little bit. The tech I spoke to told me to relearn the batt. through the bios menu, and if that didn't work, it is most likely a bad battery.

[mjc]

Good news, indeed...but it still needs to be cleaned. Probably not as extensively as I first thought, but still. You can try cleaning the battery terminals yourself.

With the laptop powered off and unplugged, swab the terminals with a cotton swab that is just dampened with rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol. Do this several times. Leave it sit for a while. Also, do the terminals on the battery itself. The swab can't be too wet, just barely damp.

Do this before starting the 'relearn' procedure.

[04sbstang]

Cleaned, relearned and ready to go!! Whew, I really dodged a bullet with this one. After 5 1/2 hours of relearn, everything is good as new! And now, according to the results after the relearn, the batt. capacity was 4080 mAH, and is now 41XXmAH, so I actually picked up some. I may still look into getting a 12 cell battery though. After all this researching, I found I only have a 6 cell.

Thanks for all your help! I'll be sure to stick around these forums!