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April 11, 2005

Chemical Spill

Sadly, keyboards these days aren’t very coke-resistant. I had to test mine out the hard way (dammit, it was an accident). After draining the keyboard from all the soda (insert straw), I have discovered that the control and shift keys don’t work (hard to press, sticky, don’t pop back up the whole way). Well, the problem was a little more complicated, enough to actually piss me off (I don’t never use the right control and shift keys).

The right control key was “forced” down, and under Mac OS X, it imitated a right click - rendering the whole keyboard unusable (you can’t type in right click). What a dumb thing.

But now that the coke has “caramelized”, it works just fine. For future reference, I am going to keep in mind not to drink and blog at the same time. Well, thats precisely the commitment I made last time (yeah, I ruined a keyboard before), but now, my dad committed me.

Come to think of it, thats the only piece of good advice coming from the IT people (well, they don’t actually tell you that, otherwise they will lose their jobs).

Posted by Oleg Ivrii at April 11, 2005 09:05 PM

Well Oleg, one solution that I've been using to solve this problem is washing ur keyboard. It’s a good idea to keep the PC clean, so I’ve made it a habit of mine to “wash” my computer every week or so. Keeps it working smoothly and increases the life of mouse and keyboard. Cause u all know what is the advantage of having a smooth working mouse and keyboard for online gaming... Specially action games like MOHAA and Halo (which I unfortunately still play although the games are about 3 or so years old).

Anyways washing the keyboard is a big pain, but still is worth doing once a year or something, especially when u pour coke in it! I really must warn you, make sure u DO know the position of the keys on ur keyboard or at least u got a spare keyboard that u can look it before unscrewing your keyboard.

So first unscrew it. MAKE SURE IT IS FACING DOWN or else all the content would be flying on the floor. So lift the cover and unscrew the chip and take it out. Make sure u don’t force it out :D, that would cost u the keyboard. After taking off the chip, take off the next layer off slowly (should be a transparent once with black little carbon-based tips). That should be filled with coke. :D

Its best to clean it off with Alcohol. Its best not to use acetone, cause it will dissolve the plastic: D. AND DON’T WASH THE CHIP, IT WILL MOST LIKELY SCREW the keyboard UP. But water will also do. Then take all the keys out and soak them in water and wash-em up. U should also wash the hardcover of ur keyboard that I assume is filled with cola. (u can take the keys out using tip of a knife or something. Just take out one from each section and the rest would come out easily). Make sure u don’t break the keyboard and open out its hart!!!

Anyways just DRY IT before putting it all back together. Now put all the keys back (hopefully u did remember were each one was!) and enjoy a new non-sticky keyboard).

Posted by: Arash Joushaghani at April 11, 2005 10:10 PM

Hehe, will try with the one I broke last year. :D

Posted by: Oleg Ivrii at April 11, 2005 10:34 PM