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Spilled milk on keyboard
So yea...was reading something and bowl tilted just a little to much and milk splashed on keyboard. this was earlier in the day too, hours and hours ago. I cleaned it up as best i could but i had to get going to work and when i came back some of the keys are sorta hard to push down, and one or two of them when i push them down, it takes a few seconds to come back up
i have the microsoft sidewinder x4 if it matters. what can i do to clean it? i realize the stickyness of the milk is the main issue but is this a keyboard that i can pop the keys off and on easily? and if so, how should i go about cleaning the milk off?
help is appreciated.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Comments
Gut it off all electronics, and clean it thoroughly, then let it dry overnight. If that don't work, go buy a new one!
This is why I buy cheap $10-$20 KBs, because I eat at my PC frequently, and it doesn't cost much to replace if I experience such an event. And it has happened several times before...heh
Lol ive done this before lmao and its not hard to fix at all. However I do not know how smart of a person you are and you do this at your own risk.
Get a small phillips screwdriver and remove all of the screws. Get a piece of paper and draw a layout of all your keyboard buttons, or a picture from online so you know how to put them back in. Take the back off and you will see a rubber mat. This needs to be cleaned(sometimes they will just be little rubber buttons inside of each key. They will need to be cleaned out.
DO NOT CLEAN ANYTHING ELSE but the keys them selves and the keyboard covers, and the rubber mat. Lay the actual electronic part off to the side. You can take a paper tow and hand dry everysingle piece. Is it tideous yes have I dont it before? Yes to every keyboard mouse and game controller i have ever owned.
P.S. dont over tighten the screws they will break off the plastic ends. The rubber mat & build up around the key are keeping them from comming up.
I bought a really nice backlit keyboard once....
cat horked up a hairball right in the middle of the keys.
You can run it through a dishwasher and then wait until it is all the way dry before using it again. If you plug it in too soon while it's still wet, you'll fry it. And it needs to be dry internally, not just on the surface. So I'd wait until it seems completely dry, and then give it another day or so.
^ Win, Saved many devices.
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i dont think im tech savvy enough to take it apart and put it back together again.
i'd rather not spend money if i can help it so i'ff try fquiz's suggest first, he's always given me good advice beore, even if it sounds crazy but i did read that when i googed, thought it was just a trollllllllllllll post
thanks for the suggestions, illlllllllllllllll fpost back in a day or two on results of the dishwasher
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Just dont cry over it.
Sorry, had to post it.
For what it's worth, I have run a keyboard through a dishwasher before, and it worked great. Just water, nothing fancy. The way that water can hurt electronics is if there's current running through them and you short something out. If the keyboard pulls its power through a USB cable (as a typical wired keyboard does), then it has no power while it is unplugged. So long as the water is gone before it gets power back (by plugging it it), the water is harmless.
Actually, I should back up and warn you that if there are batteries in the keyboard, a dishwasher could be a problem. That's especially something to worry about for wireless keyboards, but fancy keyboards may also do something weird.
What kind of milk are we talking about here?
Skin? 2% ? Whole?
One other thing: you probably don't want to get the keyboard unduly hot. I don't remember exactly what I did, but it probably didn't go through the drying cycle.
im pretty sure my keyboard doesnt have batteries in it, its just a regular wired gaming keyboard, though it does have a backlight feature which i assume uses lightbulbs? that wont be a problem for the dishwasher would it?
lol 2% no other kind in this house.
and trust me i'l be crying if i have to buy another keyboard, this cost me 50 bucks or somethin around there, to have it done in by a stupid careless mistake....*sigh*
edit: and i'll remember that, no drying cycle, also no super hot water
editx2: gonna head on off for now, work in the morning, but thanks again for all the suggestions and wish me luck!
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Sometimes it's a question of what other options you have. I've had a keyboard malfunction and figured, it's worthless if I can't fix it, so I'd open it up and see if I can fix it. If I break it that way, then, well, it was broken anyway, so no loss.
Again, I want to emphasize that you have to wait until the keyboard is all the way dry before you plug it back in. If it's still kind of wet internally, plugging it in may fry it instantly.
If you think a keyboard in a dishwasher sounds crazy, there are stories of people who have revived dead video cards by baking them in an oven. Though that only fixes one particular problem that afflicted a couple of generations of Nvidia cards.
Chemicals in water usually lead to more corrosion of the electronics?
(idk where u live but we get all kinds of shit put in our water)
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
OP, I've been into the same position as yours. Mine was logitech something, roughly about 60 bucks. Dont worry, your keyboard will be ok since most expensive keyboards comes with spill protection. Turn over your keyboard and you'll notice there's holes for liquid to seep out.
Sticky keys is to be expected since there's dust collected under there and combined with any liquid it'll form some sort of "sludge" (for the lack of word). What I did was I pry out all the keys and wash them under running water. For the board itself I wiped it with a wet towel (avoid too much water on the now bare keyboard). Let it dry, and it worked like it was new.
Good luck.
edit: If you have a table fan, use that to dry your keyboard. Otherwise let it dry normally.
Plain old water is the best you can do
The dishwasher idea isn't crazy, but yeah - don't use soap, don't use the extra heat option, and don't use the heated drying cycle. I have done it in the past, and all in all - probably better to just run water through it under the sink.
Some keyboards the keys don't pop on and off very easily. I don't know about the Sidewinder - the more keys you can get off to get in there and get it rinsed out the better.
And make sure it is 100% dry before you plug it back in. Hard to do if you can't see every crevice, it may take a few days.
And even after all of that, there's still a good chance it'll be dead, or permanently quirky.
I had an iPhone go through the washing machine in my pants pocket (I didn't notice until it started ringing underwater...). Got it out and set it on the table, it was thoroughly drenched and had made it through the complete wash cycle. I let it dry out for a couple of days, and tried to sync to get all my data back off, and it would fail to boot up. I left it for dead and went and got a new shiny 3G and left it in my truck. 3 weeks later my brother gets it out and it turns right on - works fine, and is still working to this day, the only glitch being that one corner of the LCD screen is slightly faded.
That being said, I'm only about 50/50 for rescuing drowned keyboards in various beverages.
Its something my wife does often , anything from milk to wine to soda pop lol
Like all have said just unplugg it, take screws off (just look at what you are doing and know you will have to put it back so remember what you do). Clean evrything that is sticky.
If only the top part of the KB is sticky just clean that, more often than not the rubber mat just under the keys usally gets the worse of it. I just usaully run the rubber mat under warm water and dry it off by patting it with a towel thats not "linty" and then i let it air dry for a day .
Just be sure you clean off all the stickiness, dont even touch the circuit board if it isnt sticky. If the circuit board is sticky you can clean it too but be very gentle, i use a small wash cloth .
ONly time it wont work again is if something blew in the intial spillage or if your not carefull and "rub" something till it breaks lol
IM dubious about all this put it in the dishwater stuff ..... if its soaks to much, water can infiltrate into odd places and maybe why the low succes in "fixing it" others have had.
Maybe have a look here:
http://inspirefellows.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/sidewinder-x4-cleaning/
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
I would be inclined to follow Quizzical's advice. Or pop the keys off and wash then in a basin and see what you can do with the board itself.
You could even pop it in a relatively cool temp in the oven to speed up the drying process. Hell, some people have been known to pop in graphics cards and other stuff like motherboards into the oven to try fix dodgy soldering.