How do you clean a keyboard?

[masonyes]

My keyboard has ash underneath the keys and the keys themselves are a bit dirty. What is the safest/most effective way to clean my keyboard and cheaply!

[lordofduct]

canned air does a ok job... as long as it hasn't gotten to bad.

If it's beyond canned air... try an air compressor.

If it's still to bad for that... then take the thing apart. The insides of a modern keyboard are very simple and basic. You've got to be a monkey with syphilis to screw that one up.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

take it apart, throw it in the dish washer (or you can always clean it in the sink (w/o keys)) then pull it out w/o drying and let it sit on the counter till dry. I do this w/ mobo's as well, works great at getting your laptop and/or keyboard clean.

[lordofduct]

take it apart, throw it in the dish washer (or you can always clean it in the sink (w/o keys)) then pull it out w/o drying and let it sit on the counter till dry. I do this w/ mobo's as well, works great at getting your laptop and/or keyboard clean.

I wouldn't be going around telling people you do this with mobos. You "can" do it with a mobo, but you need to be careful of a lot things, especially the capacitors. If any of them discharge in the water... well, ermmm, ouch, no more mobo.


As for the keyboard it won't hurt a thing. The keyboards response pad is made of the plastic sheets. Make sure to take them apart and lay them out seperately... everything must dry THOROUGHLY. Like, wait 24 hours past the time you even think it might be dry.

Then again, a keyboard costs 5 bucks dude. If it's that bad... get a new one! I buy them 10 at a time and just swap them out when ever. I just pulled a new one out of the closet today because I spilt mountain dew all over mine.

And you probably won't have to buy one. I find them constantly. I stole one from my sister just yesterday, and it isn't the one I pulled from the closet.


the shit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6823164012

get's the job done at pennies on the dollar. And if you go PS2, you can get em at 2.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6823164010

love the comment for number 2:

Pros: -Fast
-Efficient
-Clean (when it arrives)
Cons: -I kept getting mustard all over it.
-It is extremely prone to spills of all kinds.
-The keys are not as good with mustard on them.
Other Thoughts: As has been reported, cheap to replace.

damn mustard prone keyboards!!!!

[marurun]

Ick! That Newegg keyboard you link to is a crappy one. Avoid it.

The backslash is in the wrong damn place. I hate the keyboards with the backwards "L" shaped enter keys because the backslash is always in the wrong place and sometimes the BackSpace key is too small or incorrectly placed.

[lordofduct]

I've never noticed that... hrmmm... weird.

But sure enough I have two keyboards in front of me and one has the L return key and I use them both a lot. I guess I subconsciousily know to change or something.

[masonyes]

I have a top-of-the-line unique keyboard. It has a finger-print scanner on it!

[marurun]

And does that fingerprint scanner actually do anything for you?

[Niode]

I second the 'throw it in the washing machine'. Done that on plenty of keyboards. As long as you make sure it is completely dry (aka leave it in a warm dry place for at least a day) you'll be fine.

I wouldn't do that with a Logitech G15 or something like that but it works fine for more normal keyboards.

Remember kids. Water is only damaging to components when they are switched on! As long as they are completely dry when they are switched on it's fine.

Or if you are extra posh and can afford a vat of pure (read: 200 proof ethanol) alcohol then you could just stick the keyboard in that and clean it. You'd be pissed as a fart afterwards from the vapors but it would work and you could just dab it dry and use it straight away .

[arion]

speaking of keyboards with unnecessary features i got one with volume buttons,shutdown button, play,pause and stop. And lots more i think there is one for email im guessing it just boots outlook or whatever.

And i never ever use one of those..because i got a mouse