keyboard cleaning : Computer Hardware Buyers’ Glossary

Why Clean Your Keyboard?

• How many hours a day you spend keyboarding?
• How much of your hair falls out in frustration?
• Do you snack at your keyboard. Crumbs and rice grains are murder on keyboards?
• Do you spill coffee or liquids into you keyboard?

Clearing a Keyboard Glitch

1. Tapping in turn these keys: capslock capslock left-shift left-alt left-ctrl right-shift right-alt right-ctrl then the key giving trouble.
2. If that does not work, try shut down, power off and restart.

Quick Keyboard Cleaning

1. Isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol without massage oil). You can get this at any drugstore.
2. Some Windex.
3. Foam swabs that you can at an electrical supply store, or failing that cotton Q-Tips. Q-Tips tend to shed shreds of cotton you have to pick out with tweezers.
4. Replacement foam wrist pads if you keyboard uses them.

1. Turn the keyboard upside down and shake it to shake out crumbs.
2. If you have a vacuum cleaner, hose between the keys.
3. Take a Q-Tip soaked in isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol without massage oil), and run it between the keys.
4. Wipe the top and side of each key with the Q-Tip.
5. Clean the entire outside of the case with Windex.
6. Replace any foam wrist pads. You can use moleskin from the drugstore if you don’t like paying the preposterously high prices for replacement pads.

Thorough Keyboard Cleaning

1. A keycap-puller (two loops of wire on a handle). If you try to pry them off some other way, you can easily damage the keys. You need the wire loops to lift straight up evenly on both sides.

   You can find various suppliers by Googling keycap puller

2. Tweezers for pulling out trapped hair, crumbs and grit. They can also be used to scrape gunk off.
3. An old, clean soft-bristle toothbrush.
4. Cotton pads like women use to clean off makeup. Failing that Kleenices. Failing that a clean cloth.
5. Paper towels.

1. Draw a map of the keyboard key layout or print one out on paper. Mine looks like this.

   

   You could also create the map by photgraphing your keyboard with a digital camera and printing it out as large as possible. You will need this map when it comes time to put the keycaps back on. Even if you are a 100 WPM touch typist, you will still need this. Having a layout diagram in the computer is of no use because: your keyboard will not necessarily be functional enough and because pressing keycaps back on at random will drive you computer insane and your computer won’t sit still displaying the map, constantly scrolling away from showing the map.

2. Shut down and turn off your computer.
3. Unplug the keyboard.
4. Remove each keycap with a keycap-puller. You need the wire loops to lift straight up evenly on both sides. If the key does not come easily, check that you have not inadvertently snagged part of the key base post.
5. Don’t pull off very small or very large keys such as the space bar or backspace. These are often tricky to get back on.
6. For keys like Shift, Alt and Ctrl that have left and right versions, mark which is which on the back with a Sharpie fine tip permanent marker.
7. Write on the back of the four arrow keys which they are U D L R. Mark each one as you pull it off. If you get confused, you can figure it out by looking at the symmetries of the surrounding keys which goes where.
8. Let the keycaps soak in isopropyl alcohol or a little Lysol All Purpose Cleaner and water. Put them in a jar and shake. Lysol All Purpose Cleaner is absolutely amazing for this job. The orange variant smells nice and it gets the keycaps clean without even scrubbing.
9. Clean all around the key base plugs daubing ispropyl alcohol with a foam Q-Tip and scrubbing gently with an old toothbrush at the recalcitrant gunk.
10. Use the tweezers to pull out trapped hair and grit. The grit is usually the crucial thing causing a key to fail or stick.
11. Scrub the keycaps with an old toothbrush, dry on a paper towel.
12. Replace your keys according the map. You will find the job goes easier if you first do numbers, then letters, then punctuation, then control keys, then finally the left and right Shift, Alt and Ctrl and finally the tricky arrow keys, referring to the markings you made on the back later and ensuring their contours match their neighbours. It is easy to get an arrow key on upside down, or in the wrong spot.
13. If your keys are still wet, some keys may not work properly. Just let them dry and hour or two and they should be fine. Don’t panic if some keys fail to work properly after a cleaning. Overnight drying clears many problems. Check them for bits of recently disturbed hair or gunk.
14. Just try jiggling an unworking or intermittent keycap. If that does not work, give the mechanism under the keycap a tiny dab of WD-40 to lubricate it. If you cleaning was too thorough, the mechanism will have lost any lubrication it had.
15. Reconnect your keyboard.
16. Power up and logon.
17. Test that you got all the keycaps in the right place. If not, just swap them while inside some program than does not mind random keystrokes, such as a text editor.
18. If some key still does not work smoothly, or does not feel right, pull it off with the keycap-puller, clean its base further, wiggle the inner plunger mechanism, and replace the keycap squarely.

Drastic Keyboard Cleaning

1. DeoxIT (née Cramolin) contact cleaner and preservative from Caig Labs.
2. a suitable screw driver.

1. Once you have the keycaps off and everything thoroughly cleaned, take the keyboard apart by removing the screws that hold it together. Put the screws into a jar or bowl.
2. Don’t use force. Keyboards are delicate.
3. Clean the plastic parts inside with your toothbrush and pads and alcohol. Avoid touching the delicate electronic parts.
4. Clean the electronic parts with a foam swab moistened with a little Cramolin. Any debris or gunk could cause a short.
5. Press any socket-mounted chips firmly into their sockets.
6. Make sure there is no loose debris rattling around inside.
7. Reassemble the keyboard.

Desperation Keyboard Cleaning

1. Dawn dishwashing soap.

1. Put the complete disassembled keyboard in a sink of warm water with little Dawn Dishwashing detergent in it.
2. Let it soak for a while to remove grease that may have worked its way inside. Everything is submersed, including the electronics.
3. After it has soaked an hour, give it a going over with the toothbrush but don’t scrub the electronics.
4. Rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse in clear, soft, warm water. You don’t want any soap residue fouling the contacts.
5. Let it dry overnight. If you are in a hurry, you can use a hair dryer on warm or the lowest setting of your oven.
6. Replace the keycaps and continue as per a thorough cleaning,

Caveats

• The most important thing to remember is to use a keycap-puller. Almost any other tool will damage the keycaps or keyposts.
• Never pull the back off an IBM keyboard. Little spring and flapper plates will jump out at you and you will never get it back together again.
• If the keyboard does not work when you are done. Don’t panic. Give it overnight to dry.
• If a key is behaving intermittently, pull the cap off and poke all around it with a toothpick. Usually you will find a little tube of dust blocking the key from sliding smoothly.
• If that does not work, give the the key post a blast of compressed air to blow out any dust you cannot see, both with the key up and depressed.
• Double check your keycaps with a map of the keyboard. It is pretty easy to get Ctrl and Alt reversed or your arrow keys on incorrectly.