cleaning laptop keyboard

[Bash]

Hey all,


The keyboard to my gateway laptop lost in a fight with a can of minutemaid lemonade a while back. The computer is fine, but a few keys up towards one corner are quite sticky. Has anyone out there ever cleaned a laptop keyboard before? I have managed to disconnect the keyboard from the laptop completely--it unplugs as a completely separate unit. Do you think it would be really crazy to pour something like alcohol, windex or just hot water on the sticky keys and then let the kbd air-dry?

thanks,
Bash

ps. I know that pouring a drink on my keyboard is a moronic thing to do, you dont have to remind me

[goatsnuts]

I would have thought that something that is at least 96% alcohol will be ok as it will maybe clean and then evaporate afterwards.


Anything less than 96% might be too impure.



I shudder to think what kind of old foods are residing in this keyboard

[Bash]

Well we got some nice pure alcohol methyl & ethyl in the lab...I'm going to give it a try. I suppose I'll wait til after I finish this last paper for the semester, though.

[SkyDog]

On a lot of the laptops I used to service, I would start by removing the sticky keys and cleaning under them with alcohol and a swab. It depends on how the keyboard's put together, though -- I don't want to recommend you try this and then have the keys break when you try to remove them!

[russ_watters]

My compaq laptop has keys that snap on and off easily - i wouldn't try taking apart the whole computer, just snap off the effective keys (CAREFULLY!!) and clean under them with swabs or something.