Laptop + wine = Random bootage

[NYHoustonman]

Around a year ago, my dad's (ex) friend "accidently" poured a glass of wine into his laptop (a Sony Vaio, 1.7Ghz P4-M). At first, it would hang at startup. He took it apart and cleaned parts, and now it boots one out of every ~6-10 times. Yesterday, it stopped booting up entirely. He uses it to work from home, so it would be nice if he could get it working all the time again. Any ideas on what the issue is most likely? I'm assuming that, no matter the problem, it'll end up with a trained professional... I'm guessing it'd be a permanent hardware-type thing that can't be repaired, but can be replaced, and I've never worked inside a laptop before.

 

[imported_Phil]

I'm guessing it's the wine, personally.

 

[Cogman]

lol, I thought you where refering to wine. Though I dont think I'm much help, I think it may be a problem with the power button possibly not making countact and turning the system on.

 

[NYHoustonman]

I'm thinking it's the PSU... I basically wanted to know if there was anything I could do to fix it, but apparently not ><.

 

[boran]

most likely it's corrossion, that's the most common electronic death by water, contacts and traces corrode, getting less and less reliable, (this would explain the intermirrent errors)

 

[oldman420]

I spilled a 16 ounce glass of Pepsi in an old gateway laptop, I didn't get it going again.
liquid and lappys do not mix .
IMHO that lappy is FUBAR.
You might get some parts out of it though