Broken/glitchy input controls after spillage damage cleanup
crwdns2934249:0crwdne2934249:0:
Hi everyone,[br]
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I'm hoping someone will be able to help with this. A few weeks ago I was travelling with my Steam Deck OLED. Unfortunately, I had a bottle of Irn-Bru (soda type is relevant I believe due to it's orange colour) that wasn't sealed properly, and my bag was drenched with the Deck inside. I had an aftermarket case so it got completely flooded. [br]
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As I was travelling, I didnt't have access to tools, I was able to turn off the deck and had it drying for over a week turned off before I got home (the battery wasn't disconnected as I couldn't get access but it was powered down).[br]
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I got home and started to take it apart (thank you so much for the teardown guides, they were invaluable!). There were a few orange red splash points and I was aware of the triggers and buttons sticking. So I took it completely apart and used a combination of cotton buds, Deionised water, and isopropyl alcohol. some of the parts, particularly the side connection boards for the trackpads and thumbsticks were covered. But I persevered and cleaned everything up, some of the parts were really bad so I used a wash station to remove as much of the orange residue as possible.[br]
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I allowed everything to dry that evening (that was after washing off the water with alcohol) and reassembled the Deck (Again, I cannot stress how useful the guides were for this. I left the back off to allow things to evaporate.[br]
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The next day, I powered it up, and it posts, goes into the bios screen, but I can select Continue and it'll boot into SteamOS. Screen works great, touch and display, speakers are fine, and it can connect to wifi.[br]
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But the buttons and triggers are a mixed bag, they don't map correctly and when I press B for example, the haptics in the right trackpad triggers. So I can only assume things are shorting unexpectedly.[br]
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I've left it off for now to dry further, but I'm wondering if there was any kind of contact grease in the deck for the connectors. I looked at some options and saw the one iFixit sells is a reddish orange liquid... which I think I've been studiously removing from the entire machine.[br]
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Would anyone happen to know if this is the case, and if it isn't, would something like the DeoxIT® Contact Cleaner 25ml Needle Dispenser available on the iFixit store be a good idea to help with the low voltage shorting I'm seeing?