Comments on: Keyboard + Dishwasher = It Works!

By: Connie

Connie — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 13:33:13 +0000

This was linked on the welcome screen on AOL on 6/12/2010.

By: Laura

Laura — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 12:05:57 +0000

I got here from
http://www.diylife.com/2010/02/11/the-daily-fix-clean-up-a-keyboard-spill

By: Chris Higgins

Chris Higgins — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:23:40 +0000

I’m curious how folks are finding this post now and commenting on it. Was it linked somewhere big?

By: Sandy

Sandy — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:17:25 +0000

Regarding Cathie’s comment about washing keyboards in the dishwasher, she said put the keyboard and cord in a plastic bag and secure it shut. How could it get washed that way? This is the quote from her post:

We disconnected the keyboard, wound up the cord and put it in a plastic bag & secured it shut. We then put in on the top rack of the dishwasher with the keys facing down. We ran the shortest cycle WITHOUT any detergent, water only. DO NOT RUN THE HEAT DRYING OPTION. After the cycle was over, we removed the keyboard and with the keyboard facing down again, gently shook it until all the water was shaken out. You can take the cord out of the plastic bag at this time too.

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:34:45 +0000

Done it, WORKS! Learned this trick in the the mid-90s while working as a Sys Admin at the university. Was the admin for the engineering college computer labs with over 200 Sun workstations. Naturally things got spilled in the keyboards despite the food/drink prohibition.
Five screws to split the keyboard in half. Put each half in the dishwasher, no soap, no heat drying. Afer washing let them sit out a couple days, then reassemble. Plug them in and use them. All of them I did survived. Having a brain-fart about the cable; cannot remember if it got disconnected or washed.
Awesome engineering. I believe that Sun meant for them to be serviced. I recall these keyboards were expensive, approx $100.
Not sure about todays $25-$50 keyboards. Wonder what is inside. Bet it will not survive dishwashing. This one has 16 screws in it. At least it is not a snap together. That is a project for when I have nothing else to do.
Remember, if you spilled something nasty on it, what have you got to lose?

By: Dale

Dale — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:32:29 +0000

I’ve meaning to look this up, but hadn’t. I have at least two keyboards that were headed for recycling. The one I’m typing on now could use a good scrubbing as well. I’m a little confused, however. Do you have to pop the keys off or not? Thanks for the tip! I’ll give it a try…one keyboard at a time!

By: daleburg

daleburg — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:55:10 +0000

I wrote up this tip when I was writing Mary ELlen’s Helpful Hints books and columns in Womans Day and Star 20 years ago (it was sent it by a computer repairman’s wife) and when I worked with Robert Stevens –the Geek Squad founder — on his book, The Geek Squad Guide Guide to Solving Any Computer Glitch in 1999–passed it on to him, he tried it, and we put it in his book. It STILL works. I like the techniques people have developed.

By: Cathie

Cathie — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:56:06 +0000

I know this will sound crazy, but I know it works so I’m posting this. 18 yrs. ago my 5 yr. old was home sick and I was at the computer typing away. He threw a nerf ball and knocked over my cup of coffee which was loaded with light cream and sugar. The coffee landed all over my keyboard, and I mean all over. My husband’s friend who was an engineer at General Electric told him that this happens all the time at the G.E. (the coffee spilling, not the nerf ball) and told us how to solve the problem. We disconnected the keyboard, wound up the cord and put it in a plastic bag & secured it shut. We then put in on the top rack of the dishwasher with the keys facing down. We ran the shortest cycle WITHOUT any detergent, water only. DO NOT RUN THE HEAT DRYING OPTION. After the cycle was over, we removed the keyboard and with the keyboard facing down again, gently shook it until all the water was shaken out. You can take the cord out of the plastic bag at this time too. We then put it on a fluffy towl for a while face down, shaking it gently from time to time to remove any water that may linger. After that we put it on an elevated metal rack, the kind you’d put freshly baked cookies on to cool, and let it sit in a warm place for a couple of days. When dried, we plugged it back in and lo & behold, it worked perfectly and we never had one problem with it. The engineer told us that keyboards are for the most part, sealed pretty well. We had nothing to lose really but a keyboard full of very sticky coffee with light cream!! Once again, it sounds crazy, but it absolutely worked!

By: kate

kate — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 19:19:09 +0000

My old TV used to do that “goofy” thing. You had to push volume up to turn it on.

I once spilled a liter of water on my keyboard and all I did was dump it out and kept typing. That was almost 2 years ago and it is still going. It is probably due for a clean, though.

By: Tdave

Tdave — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 08:56:08 +0000

BTW, What I meant by “goofy” is that I would hit a key for one thing and something else would happen.