I wrote about my older MacBook Air having a close encounter with a bottle of water a few months ago, and set it aside while I took care of a bunch of other, more pressing life issues.Now that I’ve got some more free time, I sat down with it yesterday and took the bottom of the case off to chase down a possible solution: the Lid Angle Sensor, a tiny little board in the back corner of the case which, apparently, is a common failure point when water enters the case. From what I was reading online, failure of this part often kills connectivity to the keyboard and trackpad. I got out my tiny Torx screwdriver kit, squinted my middle-aged eyes, and got to work. Removing the board really wasn’t too hard other than trying to keeping tiny, fiddly little screws from launching themselves across the room, and within a few minutes I had it out and on the bench. Putting the case back together, I booted the machine up and was thrilled to find the keyboard was working again.

Apart from needing to remember that I have to manually put the machine to sleep until I get a new sensor, the machine is up and running as it did before. This means I can leave the newer, faster Air on my desk and use the older machine as a walk around, which is a huge relief.