Worst accident?

I'm sure the majority of laptop users have at least one horror story in regards to their physical treatment of their laptop. Accidents happen, more often than we'd typically like, and out machines often pay the price. What's your story?

Aside from accidentally cooking one of my laptops to death by not giving it enough room to breathe (I was stupid back then), my worst laptop-related accident was a simple fall. I had the laptop sitting on a desk on my lap, and I sat up to reach for something. The whole laptop slid off of the desk and fell straight down onto a hardwood floor. Wham. Not that much of a fall, but it was enough to bork the keyboard and disable the power button. Had to pull the battery out to turn the stupid thing off. $200 in repairs later it was fine, but still. Grr.

 

I left a bottle of water open some weeks ago, the cat as nearby and he did what he does best: knock the water bottle over Sadly my laptop was nearby. I tried to save the keyboard, but it was too late it was damaged and I had to get a new one. It took such a long time to get it, but one month and half later I got it. I'll never leave a glass of water or a water bottle without the tap on it ever again.

 

OMG I love my kitties, but one of mine did something similar, but knocked a container of Damp-rid onto my leather furniture. It totally ruined my ottoman .

I haven't really had too many issues with laptops, but I did flip my iPod Touch into the tub full of water while I was picking up a towel before. Thankfully, the rubber case protected it, and I was able to scoop it out right away, so it wasn't damaged.

A friend had just bought a brand new laptop several years ago, and as she was putting it into the trunk of her car, she dropped it. It was pretty smashed, but still turned on, although it wouldn't do all that much more. She sat on it (figuratively) for a while, and didn't want to bother trying to see if she could get a replacement. I sold it for her on eBay, and got $75. The purchaser was really happy with it, and said it was in much better shape than he'd expected. I'd rather undersell an item and have the buyer happy, than oversell it and have the buyer be disappointed, so we both came away from that transaction feeling like winners.

 

Ohhh man. That's harsh. I yell at my wife for putting water bottles or glasses of juice near her laptop all the time, because I'm paranoid of exactly that. Water usually isn't too bad, so long as it doesn't spill in massive amounts, but getting dunked is... eesh. Bad. One reason I'll probably never get cats, because I could never trust them around my tech.

 

I haven't had any bad accident with my laptop yet, knock on wood, only that it fried itself from overheating problem. The only thing I remembered was dropping my laptop at the airport when we went through the checking point because of the rush. Luckily, it was in a protective shoulder carrying bag, and I was more than thankful to find it intact.

 

It didn't get really dunked, it was just a small amount of water, but it seems these new keyboards don't offer a lot protection. My older Toshiba laptop was fine after some soup fell on it This one couldn't handle a tiny bit of water, but back then the keyboard seemed to have more protection and be more sturdy.

 

So sorry to hear about your ottoman! What a pity! I wasn't mad at my cat, only because I knew this could be fixed, hehehe and also because it was my fault mostly, you just can't leave containers with water near a laptop if you have a cat >_< Lesson learned!

By the way, how come that person bought that laptop? I thought it was all smashed and did only turn on, but didn't do anything else? The person who bought it surely fixes laptops and resells them, I guess?

 

@Sefie, Thanks, I ended up turning the ottoman into a DIY project. I bought some fabric and batting (to even out the top and side, where it had puckered),and staple gunned it onto the top half of the ottoman.

Yes, people buy them for parts, as well as, in some cases, to try to fix up and sell. There's even a category for something like Broken Or For Parts on there. That's where I listed it. It actually did more than just turn on, but I wasn't able to create or open a document or do an internet search, etc., so it was pretty much useless. Some of the software would hang up. I was advised by a friend recently that people buy those especially if they have the software key, because then they can use that key to load the software onto a different device.

 

@Diane Lane I'm glad you could solve that problem A at least you turned it into a DIY project ;D I bet it looks amazing, very original! Hopefully the kitteh learnt his/her lesson and never did that again. As for me, I learnt the lesson and I will never ever leave an open bottle of water near the laptop... I might get a silicon cover as well for the keyboard.

And that makes even more sense! At least your friend didn't lose all of her money I would consider selling my old Toshiba laptop, but I'm too afraid someone might get my personal details. Never thought of selling it by parts though!

 

I've seen them listed without hard drives, so you could try pricing it to see approximately how much it would sell for in that condition, to see if it would be worth your while. We weren't concerned about that, since she hadn't used it much, so there was nothing sensitive on the hard drive. Yes, I got the DIY bug after that project, and ended up re-covering two large cat scratching posts while I had my neighbor's nail gun .

 

@Diane Lane I might try doing just that! The laptop is in a good condition, sadly 2 our of 3 USB ports are broken (my bad), but the rest is just fine! So I will definitely try selling the 'shell'' just because I feel bad for just throwing it away like that, I'm sure that is not right at all. I might use the hard drive as a storing device. I'm glad something positive came out of that situation

 

Thanks @Sefie Yes, it's always nice when something positive comes out of a situation. If nothing else, hopefully we've learned (as we both have, apparently) new ways of doing things, to avoid recurrences. If you're not familiar, do an advanced search on eBay (top right), input the approximate information about the brand, type, etc., and check the Sold box, so you can see what similar units actually sold for, not were just listed for, whether or not they actually sold. Good luck with it!

 

Thank you But this has given me an idea! There is a person who buys used laptops, even broken ones locally. Do you think someone would still buy a laptop that his missing the hard disk? It will be funny to call and ask him myself, he might ask how that happened I might say: 'errr accident, yes...'' and stop right there. I know i am not crazy for not wanting to sell the laptop with the hard disk in D:

 

The worst is when I've dropped it and accidentally let my young kid pound on the keyboard and pull back the screen. The time I dropped an older laptop I had, it shattered the screen.

 

It was 2010, an Acer Netbook worth $200 which I got as a prize from a competition. It may not seem like much, but to 14 year old me, that was the most valuable possession I had. I was working on my laptop as normal, I still remember exactly what I was working on, what the time was, how the last few minutes of my laptop were like. I started getting thirsty so I got up, walked normally to the kitchen, but on my way there, in fact a mere 3 steps after leaving my chair, I realized my foot was pulling the charger cord with all its might, but alas, it was too late as my laptop was already mid-air by that point. I stood there stupefied, time slowed down, as I looked at its shattered screen and was speechless for hours to come.

I had to scrap it for $50 A screen replacement didn't work. The harddrive itself got pretty damaged and I was told the data was irrecoverable.