In response to this old post, Gnomie and Front 242 fan Don Dickinson writes:

I work at a laptop repair shop and have dealt with liquid spills a lot.

Especially with sticky fluids like coffee, soda, or wine, simply letting the machine “sit and dry out” will make things worse because the fluid oxidizes on the main board and shorts things out over time. I’ve seen several machines that were “dried out” and worked for a week or two, then stopped powering up or developed other problems. Once the liquids sit and solidify, the damage can no longer be fixed.

In our experience, the best way to make sure your laptop is salvageable is to turn it off, pull the battery, and bring it in to a repair shop right away (Within 24-48 hours is best).

The machine needs to be disassembled completely (not just by removing the keyboard, but totally taken apart to check for hidden liquid damage). Then the liquid can be cleaned with the proper chemicals and tested.

A lot of the time, if this procedure is done, you may only have to replace the keyboard and spend one or two hours of labor on the machine.

I hope this helps someone!