The other night I was enjoying a nice can of Canada Dry ginger ale when in an ill-advised moment I placed the container temporarily in front of my keyboard. One clumsy elbow later, and half of the contents of the can had now moved into my keyboard. I immediately unplugged it and ran it under the faucet, then left it overnight to drain and dry. I plugged it in yesterday morning to find out that some of the keys had gotten more than a bit gummy, and that now some fun things were happening, like I'd press the apostrophe key, and it would print 'p and then move the cursor back two spaces. So I made some free time and set about the mundane task of taking the entire keyboard apart, washing off the plastic circuit sheet and the little rubber domes that are used to complete the connection when the keys were pressed. I put everything back together, and it worked reasonably well last night.... but then I woke up today and found that my spacebar and some random letter keys are sticking. There's no problem (yet) with the output on the screen yet, but the keys don't spring up as fast as they should. Does ANYONE know a foolproof way to clean the goddamned keyboard out? Barring that, know where I can get a new or close to new Dell Quietkey keyboard for cheap (I love the keyboard, but don't want to have to buy a Dell comp to get one). Stupid stick soda and uncoordinated elbow.. :axe: :snipe: :smt011
Perhaps Dell can send you a replacement keyboard? Even if that isn't a viable solution (takes too long/they want too much money/etc), I'm sure you can find plenty of quality keyboards from other manufacturers at your local computer store, or your local newegg.com maybe
Ouch! Damn waste of a fine soda, too ;-) Anyway, I dont have a definitive solution for you, but I do know that spacebars can be pretty tricky... apart from the spring all keys have, often there's a metal clip too that holds the thing in position... make sure it fits fine between the hinges (if one of the hinges are broken, better get a new KB :Hangman: ) I remember cleaning out an old DIN-type keyboard and finding lots of orange goo beneath the keys :S
I've had milk, cereal, cordial, coke, tea and water spilled on my keyboard since i bought it a year ago (only £5 new!). not to mention dog fure eventually builds up under the keys and crumbs from various foods aswell lol. I do clean it though! and it still works!
Actually, somehow..... it's all better now. Well, not ALL better, but it's getting better with consistant use. So maybe a replacement isn't in order after all. Blur2040: I've been trying, but it's really card to come across the mind control USB dongle here - do they by chance carry them for a reasonable price in the stores where you live?
We've got this store called Microcenter. It's awesome. www.microcenter.com They're so cheap, and so awesome that it's nuts....got my wireless router for 20 bucks there. But I hate them. They won't hire me. So now I work at Home Depot.
