Forums Forums Enthusiast Forums A - Z Gadgets & Tech Laptop keyboard , how to clean

my problem is that I got coffee on my laptop keyboard

What would you recommend me to wash the keyboard in.

I stripped it out this morning and washed it in water but no joy

priced a replacement on ebay. £16 including delivery

Nomad

Windscreen wash and water.
As long as it evaporates it should be ok.

* It may just have to dry out a bit more before it wants to work.
*Make sure you have the connector the correct way up on the motherboard.

Try plugging in a physical keyboard just to be sure its accepting typing.

cheers mark,

using the on screen keyboard feature at moment

nomad

I wouldn't use any solvents like glycol in windscreen wash. You have no idea what it might affect. Stick to fresh water. The biggest problem is drying it, and time is the best way of doing that. You are best not trying to heat it. Open it so that air can get to the inside if you can.

You can accelerate it by putting it in a sealed container with silica gel which you can get from Hobbycraft and lots of other places. This will absorb about 40% of its weight of water from water vapour in the container which result in quicker evaporation from your wet keyboard.

You can regenerate the Silica gel by heating it in a moderate oven at 150C to drive off any water its absorbed and re-use it again.

Some people advocate using dry rice. I have no experience of this but I don't imagine it would work as well as silica gel does. I've used it on several mobile phones over the years and its always worked, although it is slow - a week or two at least.

It goes without saying that you shouldn't leave it powered up. And if its a wireless keyboard, remove the battery. If you want to try it to see if its recoverd do so for as short a time as you can manage.

Good luck.

hi, I ordered a new one from ebay. will give the old one a good clean and keep as spare till I sell it early next year .
cheers for advice

Nomad

Strange the keyboard is now working, when I washed I most have sorted problem out but was not completely dried somewhere. cancelled order fro ebay no problem.

only noticed because I had forgotten and started typing on the keyboard. that's £16 saved :-)

Nomad