It Tip: Cleaning Keyboards

[BogMonster]

Got some stuff to enter into a spreadsheet and I thought I might do it on the laptop this afternoon while the Grand Prix is on (the TV here isn't "live" it's "live + 4 hours" to make sure Coronation Street is on at the right time of day for the troops....doesn't do much for live sporting events as now I have to avoid all live news feeds until this afternoon!)

So, fine idea but the laptop doesn't have a number keypad which will be a PITA

.....thinks .... I am sure I still have a keyboard off the old PC that blew up somewhere, that should fit.....

bit of rummaging around .... found it .... however my office, ahem, "doesn't get hoovered very often" so it's nestling under a not inconsiderable amount of dust

.......hmmmm.......

keyboards have always been a pain to clean properly, how am I going to do this?

.....Light bulb comes on above head.......

March boldly to where the hoover is stored

......you just know what's coming don't you?

fire up hoover...

rrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR thinks "this is working really well....." nice clean keyboard appearing from under the dust.......

RRRRRRRRrrattleclattersqueakclattercrunchclatterclatterclatterrattleclatter

........erm ......... **** ...... suddenly realise that was the sound of a random assortment of keys disappearing up the hoover pipe......

B*****s!!!

Without going into unnecessary detail I don't recommend trying to locate keys in a near-full hoover bag in the house either....

Numbers are OK as I can count to 10 but does R go between E and T or U and O .....

Nice clean keyboard though

I think next time I'll use the compressor

[Steve King]

That gave me a chuckle, but I've never had a problem using a small hand held vac on the keyboard myself.

Someone at work was trying to clean a keyboard with a spray and dustfree cloths the other day. They managed to drop the keyboard on the floor. There was a small crash and clatter. I looked around an saw loose keys all over the floor.

In one of those rare moments when I can think up an immediate witty remark I said "Any one for Scrabble?"

All I got in reply was a word that is not in the official Scrabble dictionary.

[siggy]

I think we have a new contender for the old pratt moment series

Nige are you willing to take up this challenge or anybody else for this matter!!!!

[rtbarton]

Believe it or not, they will be in the same order on your laptop keyboard

I used to do this job regularly, simply start up notepad or something and press a key, see what appears on the screen and fit the relevant keytop.

This does assume that with the keytops removed there are pushable stubs left behind.

[BogMonster]

That gave me a chuckle, but I've never had a problem using a small hand held vac on the keyboard myself.

Er .... yeah

Trouble is I looked at the battery operated vac on the kitchen wall on the way past and thought "nah its really dirty I'll use the big one..."

Actually I more or less know the order of the keys anyway and I just looked at the desktop keyboard for less obvious ones like the * and / and Num Lock, the unpleasant bit was recovering them from the hoover bag (you might think they would be at the top but sadly a key travelling at 100mph has quite good ballistics when penetrating a huge bag of fluff dust and cat hair and it took a while to find them all!)

After all that I went to plug it into the "thing that looks just like a PS/2 port" on the back of the laptop & it doesn't fr*ggin fit what this port is for I don't know (it has an S next to it, looks like PS/2 but the pin config is slightly different so the plug won't fit, I'll have to look in the book!).

No idea how you are supposed to plug an external keyboard in as I've never seen a keyboard apart from PS/2 and the old DIN plug ones that haven't been used for a few years, all the other laptops I have ever used had a PS/2 port. Maybe you can buy USB keyboards now, but I haven't got one anyway so I will have to use the ordinary laptop keys ... PITA

[Stephen337]

If the "S" port has a square hole in the middle it could be a s-video output for connecting it to a projector or such like.

Some laptops have a keypad mode where you press Fn-F11 or something and the keys "789", "uio", "jkl", "m,." become a keypad. My Toshiba and my old Sony one do. Not quite as good as a norm keybord but heh!

IMO best way to clean a keyboard is to take it apart and clean it in the bath (or similar large water holding vessal) , then put it in the oven (on a low setting!) to dry it out. Goes without saying that it needs to be very dry before re-use.

(No responsibility for broken baths, ovens or keyboards taken)

[western]

ROTFLOL

the external keyboard socket on my laptop has a rectangular hole in the centre the plastic bit is a funny lime green colour.

[Niall_CSK]

I hate to admit to this but I already tried the compressor method some time ago, the only piece of advice I can give is do it while holding the keyboard inside a big strong bin liner - I think you get the idea , there is still a Pause/Break key under the garage bench somewhere.

There are USB external numeric keypads available and not too pricey either. The best thing I have ever bought for the garage PC is a rubber keyboard, yes complete full sized rubber thingy, guy sold it to me was using it in a basin of water, you can roll it up & stuff it behind the monitor when it's not in use, brilliant. Princely sum of Singapore $ 55 (19 quid), anybody interested & can't find one let me know.

Just looked at the office keyboard I am using now and realised there is some sort of mould or fungus growing between the < & > keys, where's me compressor

[Hybrid_From_Hell]

I am not alone..................

Nige