red ants invaded my acer laptop

abhicool27 · 09-27-2007, 12:27 PM

This looks absurd but it happened to me. Nearly hundreds of ants creeped into my laptop. I dont know how to remove them because some of them have even entered inside through vent hole. Will it cause any damage to my laptop? Is it true that it may cause a short circuit or mother board failure if ant remains in it there. I have switched on my laptop after that to check whether it works or not. What should i do?

bry623 · 09-27-2007, 12:56 PM

If you are very concerned, take it into a repair shop. They can take it apart and clean it.
If not, I would use some canned air to try to get them out, or just suffocate them and spray them out.

**TheMatt** · 09-28-2007, 12:48 PM

I honestly don't know how well fire ants conduct electricity. If they do the same amount as humans its no big deal.

I do know that humans from one hand to another have about 5 MΩ (MegaOhms) of resistance which is plenty to not cause problems with short circuits. Measuring on the fingertip with the probes 10mm away from each other yields a resistance of 800 kΩ which is still plenty safe.

Use air to blow them out. If you turn the laptop on many of them will likely die because of the heat. So if you do turn it on be sure to blow out the ants again because there will be plenty dead ants.

09-27-2007, 12:27 PM	#1 (permalink)
abhicool27 Registered User Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: India Posts: 1 OS: Windows XP Professional SP2	red ants invaded my acer laptop This looks absurd but it happened to me. Nearly hundreds of ants creeped into my laptop. I dont know how to remove them because some of them have even entered inside through vent hole. Will it cause any damage to my laptop? Is it true that it may cause a short circuit or mother board failure if ant remains in it there. I have switched on my laptop after that to check whether it works or not. What should i do?

09-27-2007, 12:56 PM	#2 (permalink)
bry623 Manager, The Conversation Pit/Analyst, Security Team Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: NW Territory circa 1787 Posts: 11,143 OS: winxp pro sp2	Re: red ants invaded my acer laptop If you are very concerned, take it into a repair shop. They can take it apart and clean it. If not, I would use some canned air to try to get them out, or just suffocate them and spray them out. __________________ No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.- Eleanor Roosevelt

09-28-2007, 12:48 PM	#3 (permalink)
TheMatt TSF Enthusiast Join Date: May 2006 Location: Boston Posts: 13,702 OS: Win 3.1, 98, NT 4.0, XP Debian 4.0, Kubuntu 6.06 My System Blog Entries: 3	Re: red ants invaded my acer laptop I honestly don't know how well fire ants conduct electricity. If they do the same amount as humans its no big deal. I do know that humans from one hand to another have about 5 MΩ (MegaOhms) of resistance which is plenty to not cause problems with short circuits. Measuring on the fingertip with the probes 10mm away from each other yields a resistance of 800 kΩ which is still plenty safe. Use air to blow them out. If you turn the laptop on many of them will likely die because of the heat. So if you do turn it on be sure to blow out the ants again because there will be plenty dead ants. __________________ - Matt M - KB1OSC - Folding@Home 85015 [url="http://www.techsupportforum.com/hardware-support/"] If TSF has helped you, please consider donating. If I have stopped responding to a thread, feel free to send me a PM with a link to the thread. It is advisable to subscribe to threads so you will receive updates when replies are posted. You can subscribe to threads from the "Thread Tools" Menu. »Memtest86 »Prime95 »UBCD »SpeedFan »NHC Personal »Everest »Sandra »PC Wizard »RivaTuner »ATi Tool Click here for Useful Articles and Guides