Laptop won't turn off or turn on—any fixes?

Hey there. So, I had a bit of a disaster yesterday—spilled some wine on my laptop. It wasn't a direct soak, more like a splash, but still. I wiped it down immediately and tried to shut it down, but I couldn't even find the cursor because the touchpad had completely died on me. I tried every other way to force a shutdown, but nothing worked. I just ended up leaving it alone, hoping it would eventually run out of juice and turn itself off. Eventually, it did shut down. But then things got weird. The screen started flickering, and it kept getting stuck on the "Thomson" BIOS screen. I tried holding the power button down for a solid 30 seconds, but it wouldn't budge; it just kept cycling on and off repeatedly regardless of what I did. I even pulled the battery out, but the behavior stayed exactly the same. My plan was to just let it sit until the battery drained completely. Once it finally died and I popped the battery back in to plug it into the charger, the cycle started all over again: the screen lights up, shows the Thomson logo, and then immediately cuts out. Just a constant loop.

Honestly, you probably need to crack the whole laptop open and wipe everything out from the inside—basically dry it out completely. I know, I know, it might not be the most "expert" advice to give, but what else can you really do at this point? It might be worth calling in a professional to get it sorted out properly...

Thanks for the reply. I'll give that a shot. My goal is to see if I can tinker with it a bit myself before I end up hauling it down to the Apple Store for repairs. Mind you, I don't exactly consider myself a tech wizard 😵

Just type the make and model into YouTube—I’m guessing there might even be a step-by-step guide on how to open it up...

Maybe don't go poking around if you aren't sure what you're doing; there's probably a better chance you'll just break everything instead of actually fixing it...

I just opened it up and gave it a good cleaning. Honestly, nothing changed. 👎

I have a similar situation here..

While I was cleaning my laptop, I think I managed to get some water under the keyboard.
The machine boots up and shuts down just fine—no issues there—but half the keys don't work when I try to actually type.
Is there any way to fix the keyboard itself, or am I better off just buying a new one?

It’s honestly pretty tough to fix—it’s usually one of those "it works or it doesn't" situations. If I were in your shoes, though, I'd probably crack the whole laptop open and make sure everything is completely bone-dry. I’d also give the keyboard connectors a quick wipe down with some isopropyl alcohol just to see if that clears up the connection issues. Might be worth a shot, right?

It makes zero sense—I can’t turn it on, but I can't turn it off either. If you can't shut it down, it clearly means it's running. So, yeah, it's definitely on. Hahaha-kad you start drinking, you gotta watch yourself.
Honestly, just drink straight from the bottle if you're working on a laptop... If it's just the keyboard acting up, who cares? Unless you're rocking some high-end flagship—those older models are dirt cheap on eBay. Just tell us which laptop model you're actually using so someone can actually help you... otherwise, if you're totally stuck, just plug an external keyboard into a desktop via USB and call it a day. Peace!😛😉☕

You should really have someone take it apart and wipe everything down. It definitely hit the motherboard, but if there wasn't much liquid, I doubt it traveled much further through the keyboard itself. Most modern keyboards are somewhat isolated to prevent liquid from seeping deeper. That said, even though alcohol evaporates, the sugar in wine can leave a residue that makes the keyboard totally unusable by gunking up the contacts. You won't know for sure until it's fully disassembled. Right now, any diagnosis is just a lucky guess.