Intermittent/random audio (speaker&headphones) [Dell Mini 9, Prof x32)

Hey guys, we'll see how good a post this is...

On vacation in October, spilled a *little* water in the keyboard of this laptop. Powered it off IMMEDIATELY and flipped it over.
For about two days it refused to boot.
On the third day it rose again; all was well except... no audio. (In the speakers or headphones.)
Naturally I assumed it was kaput.

But lo! Occasionally we'd hear a system sound. Rare, but not often. And very quiet.
After fiddling around for a few weeks I gave up on minor fixes and reinstalled Windows.

STILL the rare-and-very quiet audio. Actually, only the speakers are very quiet; IF I get sound AND I have headphones plugged in, they're just as loud as ever.

My FIRST thought is that it's a hardware issue. But that doesn't explain why a system "click" or login sound will play, and then two seconds later nothing... does it? Sometimes the sound will work for hours, and sometimes literally only for one system sound....

If I go into control panel -> sounds, the little "levels" meter next to "Speakers" dances around happily when something should be playing...

Last bit of information: when I have the headphones plugged in, I can tell if I'll get audio or not, because it seems like power to the jack must cut on and off (power saving feature?) since sometimes I'll hear a quiet hissss (and know that audio will work) but most of the time there is no hisss and no audio.

Any thoughts besides "get a new laptop, the Mini 9 is from 2008?" lol

Your response doesn't surprise me, although of course (a) I was hoping for something else and (b) I'm still confused how the audio can cut in and out so quickly when the machine is just sitting there...

Mebbe I'll try cracking it open when I get home from this trip I'm on. Already looking at getting a newer machine, but it's a shame because this one still works just fine aside from the audio annoyances...

Edit: I forgot to mention the computer acknowledges when I plug/unplug headphones with that pop-up "you just plugged in a device..." etc. I don't get how it would know that if there were a connector problem.