Mac laptops forum: Macbook 13" (A1342) -- trying to revive after wine spill

I tried that and got a similar result -- the fan engaged, the monitor lit up, and after about ten seconds of trying it clicks and shuts off. No chime, no real boot up.
I have the tools to remove the logic board (Torx tools, etc.), and have done so before. Anything else I could try, or is this thing likely just good for parts? Thanks again.

No, scrap it. That almost certainly means the logic board took a hit. Maybe... If you could find someone else on ebay selling one for parts on the cheap and you wanted to try doing a transplant (assuming their MLB was good), but I really wouldn't sink more than $200 into this, and even that would be pushing it.

I know if can be kind of a fun little project, but don't put too much money into this. Better yet, IMO anyway, just part the thing out on ebay. Liquid damage is a b!tch to deal with. I've seen MLBs with a pretty decent amount of corrosion that still work fine, and others that just crap out from like a single drop of liquid.

Set yourself a budget, if you want to try and repair it, and then stick to it religiously. Whatever you're willing to potentially lose/waste trying to fix the thing, is your budget. Do not let yourself get caught in the, "If I just replace one more part" syndrome, because before you know it you've spent more on fixing the thing than it'd cost to buy a new one at retail.

So I had some time to kill and I took out the board again, cleaned it, let it dry, reinstalled it -- and now I'm getting the chime and it starts up. Getting on is password protected, however, and a few keys (a, e, 1, delete) aren't working, so I was unable to log in. I have a spare external keyboard, which I'll try this evening, so I don't know yet whether things are actually working or if this is just another step in a lengthy burial. If it's just a few keys, I'm guessing cleaning under those keys is next.

Be careful, because those keycaps have a little plastic scissor under them that is easily damaged, not to mention the rubber plunger that is the actual key mechanically. There are no replacement keycap kits for the MacBook unibody, you have to get a new top case, and as I've already explained, that's a bit of a trick to do on a unibody without a special positioning block. Which you can buy without being an AASP tech, but it's about $50, so not really cost effective unless you're going to be doing multiple repairs with it.

(I tried to post already -- apologies if this is basically a double.)The keyboard is currently not the main problem. It boots up every time now -- chime, get to the system log-in screen -- but then shuts down without warning. I've made it past the log-in to the desktop (very briefly) and got a quick glimpse of the "Are you sure you want to shut down?" window before it clicked off. This is probably 15 seconds into start up. I tried a safe start and the progress bar at the bottom made it only a quarter inch or so across before it shut off. I've tried it with and without the battery connected -- same results. Not sure what this indicates (apart from the computer is a goner). Thanks again for your help.

That is usually the sign of a stuck power button, which means a bad top case, which means this repair just got a lot more difficult and probably isn't worth it. Unless you can find someone selling the same model MacBook with maybe a bad logic board, but everything else works, and it's cheap. Then you could swap in your logic board, and hope for the best.