IT was on a small knee height table, next to a round serving tray that had a full cup of coffee placed upon it.
Oh yes you know already exactly what happened, but I'll tell you anyway, Whilst talking to someone else in the room I turned away from my U750 and accidentally nudged the edge of the tray, which I had precariously placed in such a way that part of it was hanging over the edge of the table. I heard the rounded cup fall over and already knew that the storm had begun, I glanced down through my legs to the table, I could already see the great tidal wave of coffee on the move in mid-wave, as I span around I saw that the wave of coffee had already mounted the side of the tray and had already concluded it's short journey to the newly installed Sony Coastal Barrier System. The Sony which was on but had already engaged the screen off timer, looked lifeless
The response was instinctive the knowledge instantaneous, "remove the battery" 26 years of electronics knowledge transformed itself into a frenzy of unlocking the battery, then holding the battery release clip.
I grabbed all manner of linen dish clothes to remove the excess coffee, but I knew the stuff had already got inside, especially around the LCD bezel.
I'd already whipped the back off the Sony once before to have a gander at the worksmanship. I knew I had to get the thing to pieces very quickly otherwise I suspected that the Cmos battery would be the next component to be shorted out.
2-3 minutes later I had the back off the Sony and the plastic casing that makes up the sides of the U. Tissue paper lots of tissue paper!!.
release all connector ribbons, main PCB now separated from LCD(Liquid Coffee Display) front assembly, The LCD module is encapsulated in a plastic wrapper of sorts containing lots of liquid coffee, great for upping your screen refresh rate I mused momentarily., I cut the cellophane and remove it and get mopping. Next get the hard drive off and finally disassemble the LCD fully removing all the button electronic boards located either side of the Display module. Finally inspect the Ball Grid Array(BGA) Style chips on the main PCB, the Pentium-M is totally dry, I now blow gently under each chip any sign off coffee and the tissue is on it. these BGAs are notorious for a capillary action and suck the coffee underneath them.
I'm now fairly convince I've found a lot of the seepage. Next step attempt to shake coffee from components.
Take a break. Get a hair dryer set it to cool mode and start drying them individual parts. So far so good. 3 hours later and I'm convinced everything is as dry as I can get it.
Reassembly is completed about an hour later, battery on, no power cable(important as this limited the current to solely what the battery can give) limiting any inrush currents.
Power. Sony logo startup
Beep. Beep. Beep. Cmos checksum invalid, F2 for set-up.
All system go are go.
Disaster Recovery Successful.
Time for a coffee!!
Yes folks you too can recover from this kind of disaster.
The screen looks slightly weird because of some sort of moisture condensate presence between the layers affecting the refractive index properties of some of the display layers. I've had the unit on now for a whole 24 hours with the screen on max brightness to encourage the condensate to diffuse. so far it has evapourated approximately 75% a couple of more days should see it right as rain.
The standby button is a little tempremental but still probably needs to dry further, we'll see.
I'm not sure if the display being switch off was a major factor in why little damaged was caused by this Exon disaster.
Needless to say I am very pleased.
Upon reflection.
pieces of kit like these ultraportable fit into your life very comfortably to the point that we may become flippant whilst around them no giving them the regard they require in order to ensure their continued service to us.
Remember kids liquids and lecky is never a good mix.
Hats off to Sony's build quality and engineering, and utter ease of disassembly. I'm a PC engineer by trade and have dismantled many a laptop. only wish some of them were as easy as the Sony to get into bits and back together again.
Oh yes you know already exactly what happened, but I'll tell you anyway, Whilst talking to someone else in the room I turned away from my U750 and accidentally nudged the edge of the tray, which I had precariously placed in such a way that part of it was hanging over the edge of the table. I heard the rounded cup fall over and already knew that the storm had begun, I glanced down through my legs to the table, I could already see the great tidal wave of coffee on the move in mid-wave, as I span around I saw that the wave of coffee had already mounted the side of the tray and had already concluded it's short journey to the newly installed Sony Coastal Barrier System. The Sony which was on but had already engaged the screen off timer, looked lifeless
The response was instinctive the knowledge instantaneous, "remove the battery" 26 years of electronics knowledge transformed itself into a frenzy of unlocking the battery, then holding the battery release clip.
I grabbed all manner of linen dish clothes to remove the excess coffee, but I knew the stuff had already got inside, especially around the LCD bezel.
I'd already whipped the back off the Sony once before to have a gander at the worksmanship. I knew I had to get the thing to pieces very quickly otherwise I suspected that the Cmos battery would be the next component to be shorted out.
2-3 minutes later I had the back off the Sony and the plastic casing that makes up the sides of the U. Tissue paper lots of tissue paper!!.
release all connector ribbons, main PCB now separated from LCD(Liquid Coffee Display) front assembly, The LCD module is encapsulated in a plastic wrapper of sorts containing lots of liquid coffee, great for upping your screen refresh rate I mused momentarily., I cut the cellophane and remove it and get mopping. Next get the hard drive off and finally disassemble the LCD fully removing all the button electronic boards located either side of the Display module. Finally inspect the Ball Grid Array(BGA) Style chips on the main PCB, the Pentium-M is totally dry, I now blow gently under each chip any sign off coffee and the tissue is on it. these BGAs are notorious for a capillary action and suck the coffee underneath them.
I'm now fairly convince I've found a lot of the seepage. Next step attempt to shake coffee from components.
Take a break. Get a hair dryer set it to cool mode and start drying them individual parts. So far so good. 3 hours later and I'm convinced everything is as dry as I can get it.
Reassembly is completed about an hour later, battery on, no power cable(important as this limited the current to solely what the battery can give) limiting any inrush currents.
Power. Sony logo startup
Beep. Beep. Beep. Cmos checksum invalid, F2 for set-up.
All system go are go.
Disaster Recovery Successful.
Time for a coffee!!
Yes folks you too can recover from this kind of disaster.
The screen looks slightly weird because of some sort of moisture condensate presence between the layers affecting the refractive index properties of some of the display layers. I've had the unit on now for a whole 24 hours with the screen on max brightness to encourage the condensate to diffuse. so far it has evapourated approximately 75% a couple of more days should see it right as rain.
The standby button is a little tempremental but still probably needs to dry further, we'll see.
I'm not sure if the display being switch off was a major factor in why little damaged was caused by this Exon disaster.
Needless to say I am very pleased.
Upon reflection.
pieces of kit like these ultraportable fit into your life very comfortably to the point that we may become flippant whilst around them no giving them the regard they require in order to ensure their continued service to us.
Remember kids liquids and lecky is never a good mix.
Hats off to Sony's build quality and engineering, and utter ease of disassembly. I'm a PC engineer by trade and have dismantled many a laptop. only wish some of them were as easy as the Sony to get into bits and back together again.
