[chibitotoro]

Hi folks, kind of an odd question here. There was a fire in my apartment building early this morning, and though my apartment was not damaged by fire or water, there was a LOT of smoke. Upon returning to my apartment after the fire I noticed there was a fine layer of soot over everything. What I'm wondering about is how this could affect my MBP. It was on and running at the time of the fire, which means the fan was spinning and bringing in air. The area around where the MBP sits had a very light dusting of soot, so I'm not too worried that a lot got inside, but I know it's still possible. It's also possible that a small amount got in through the keyboard, though that also would not have been much. Do you think it's worth going through the considerable trouble of shipping my MBP to Apple and having them open it up, clean it, and make sure everything's ok? Or, given the small amount of soot around where my computer sits, is it probably not a big deal? Thanks for any suggestions here, I know this probably isn't a situation that many of you have faced.

[rjt1000]

There are vacuums made for laptop keyboards. If you cant find one, a small brush attachment for your home vacuum could be used to (carefully) vacuum any particulates from the keyboard. I would also give the whole laptop a good wipe-down with a damp paper towel (not dripping wet of course).

As long as the computer is working well, I would not involve Apple. I don't think they would do anything, and the danger is that they may well presume that anything that ever goes wrong with you MBP is due to this issue and therefore jeopardize your warranty.

If your MBP continues to smell of smoke, I would contact your homeowners insurance and see if they will cover smoke damage to it.

[slpdLoad]

Yeah, you should be fine. Just do what rjt1000 said and maybe use a can of compressed air afterwards to get the last of it out of the keyboard and especially the ports.

[chibitotoro]

Thanks a lot to both of you, that's just what I wanted to hear. I suspected that there wouldn't be much of a problem and now that's been confirmed, so I'll just do an exterior cleaning and leave it at that. Thanks again!