# holy cat pee on a laptop, batman!



## ancientsound (Jul 13, 2009)

Hi there,

So I think my cat peed on my laptop. I can't fathom why he chose a laptop over his preferred shoes. This morning I woke up to find my trusty ol' lappy sitting in a pool of strong-smelling liquid, as though the laptop itself had peed, and I can only guess that it was cat pee because I didn't see what happened.

Anyway, right before I found it in said pool of strong-smelling liquid, I tried powering it on normally and nothing happened. Well, nothing normal, anyway. I smelled burning plastic, there was hissing from inside the computer, and a bit of smoke started coming out of the fan vent. Again, this was right before I found the cat pee puddle.

My question is -- is my laptop completely lost re: the burning plastic and smoke, or can I leave it for a few days before getting its insides cleaned? (And is that really honestly cat pee? Because I'm still in shock that my cat _pissed on my computer_.)

I'm clinging on to a few shreds of hope that it might not be dead because this is a newish laptop (less than two years) and I was hoping that it would carry me through the rest of uni. Boo. :/


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## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

By your description, I guess you will be needing a new laptop or a motherboard repair.

If you know how, open it up and visually check the motherboard and other parts for any burnt component. Give it also a good clean (all sources of power removed before you do this) and letting it dry for a few days to be sure.


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

I believe I can say with authority, from my experience with both computers and the mixing of cat piss and electronics, that you are well and truly screwed.

My cat peed on a guitar effects pedal of mine once (only three weeks old too!) and I didn't realize it until I turned it on. "BZZT" No smoke (except that coming from my ears when I noticed the dark splotch on the carpet), but when I opened it up the circuit board inside was very obviously scorched in one spot, and it looked like there was a burst capacitor. Took it to the guitar shop to see if they'd replace it, but they refused because I'd opened it up to see the damage. :upset: Plus I'm not sure damage from cat urine is covered by a standard warranty...

(Lesson: try to get something replaced BEFORE attempting possibly warranty-voiding inspections or fixes)

As for smoke coming from a laptop, it's fair to say that at least one of your components is probably dead, possibly many, and there's no way to know for sure what's busted without turning it on (if it will turn on). At least open it up and see if you can salvage the hard drive. If you have a local non-major-chain computer shop they might be nice enough to pop it into one of their computers to see if it will read (Computer Parts USA did it for me once). If it does, good, if not then there's probably cat urine inside and nothing short of a full professional recovery will get your data off it. Your laptop as a whole is probably a lost cause, unfortunately. :4-dontkno

Anyway, I wish you better luck than you just had. Maybe there will be a miracle and it will work. Probably you'll need a new computer. C'est la vie! :sigh:


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## ancientsound (Jul 13, 2009)

Hey folks,

Thanks for the replies -- to let you know, the warranty on the laptop expired about a year ago, and the extended warranty (like all extended warranties... what possessed me to purchase it?) doesn't cover stuff like water damage or accidents. Big sigh. Well, what can you do...?

I followed your advice for a cleaning and removal of the hard drives. The hard drives look okay to my eyes, but it could be that there's damage I can't see, so I'm going to take them in to the local computer folks and see if they can't, like you said, pop one or both of them into their box and attempt to give them a whirl.

Interesting fact: following a cleaning and a test-drive plugging-in-and-attempt-at-booting, the laptop's QuickPlay buttons started flashing on and off for about a minute, and then the mute button turned red and started flashing on and off too. Cool, huh? I'm pretty sure that's just a laptop death-rattle, but my dad thinks it means there's still something going on under the hood of the poor little thing. I don't exactly know what to think, at this point...

Anyway, thanks again for the funny/sad anecdote (my dad sympathises very acutely with the loss of a new guitar pedal :C) and the advice to grab my hard drives and go to local folks with my... unusual problem!


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