Erm, an Ant just crawled into my Macbook.

This is possibly the only thread of its kind on these forums...

I've just been sitting outside in the sun with my macbook on my lap. All was fine, untill I saw an ant walk across my keyboard, then into the fan (inside the hinge).

I'm not too worried about the ant, but could it cause damage inside my machine? e.g shorting out connections somewhere?

Any suggestions about what I should do?

And yes...I do realise how stupid I am. :redface:

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Reply 1

jemsta

i really dont think an ant will cause significant amount of damage to the comp
im sure itll crawl tis way out sometime :smile:

Reply 2

Angel Interceptor

Or die. Or not.

Either way, I'm sure your MacBook will be fine.

Reply 3

Tyrannosaurus Cal

Yeah, I have to admit I don't think it'll be coming out...
Thanks though, I wasn't sure if theres circuitry it could confuse!

Reply 4

HigheR

Just as long as it wasnt two ants im sure it will be fine

Reply 5

scribble_girl

I may be wrong, but by 'Gtown' you don't mean THE Gtown, ie, Guildford?

If so yay :]]
If not... ignore me.
Anyway, I wouldn't worry, a fly one flew into my disk drive of my laptop whilst it was open once and as far as I'm aware it's still in there, and it's been a good few months now :smile:

Reply 6

Tyrannosaurus Cal

I'm thinking it might be slightly more of a FRY than a FLY!

Oh sweet lord.

And yeah, Guildford's where it's at baby!

Reply 7

wicker_man

My old laptop was an Athlon 64 one with two huge fans and once when I opened it up, I discovered a dead fly amonst clumps of dust.

You could try getting a vacuum and attaching the brush bit and going over the vents (while laptop is off) and hopefully the ant will be sucked out.

Reply 8

thomasp

It'll either crawl out or die from the heat. Probably not too much to worry.

Although the call to Applecare would be funny. "Err, hi. My MacBook's broken - an ant shorted it out"

Reply 9

Tyrannosaurus Cal

See! It's not a completely isolated incident.
(Antcident?)

Laptop manufacturers should really design for this kinds of issues. I feel indignant as a consumer...

Reply 10

prXXX344d

Maybe try running some ant-ivirus software?

Or submitting a bug report to Apple?

I'll get my coat.

Reply 11

Talya

That'll teach us pesky Mac users to use our computers outside!

A beetle crawled into my friend's MacBook USB port... He panicked but it crawled out again.. phew.