I'm not a genius, I just have a good memory and for some reason, about a year ago, I watched a tutorial on how to clean your keyboard. The best tip I took away from the video was to take a picture of it before you disassemble. I know, you think "I know my keyboard" or "I'll remember" or "I'll take them off in order so I can put them back in order". But let me tell you, taking a photo was the smartest thing I did this morning.
The other little interesting fact was that I had cleaned out the cupboards under the bathroom sink and found several Q-tip boxes plus some no-name ones. JP didn't like the no-name quality, so I scooped them for my craft room. That was just a couple of days ago. So when the great keyboard flood of '07 occurred, I was ready.
All keys were popped off with a letter opener and the base of the keyboard plus the sides of they keys were cleaned with about 100 swabs. All keys were easily replaced by referring to the three pictures I took.
I just need to fix my "enter" key which seems to stick a bit in the 'down' position, but that's it. It's good to go, and even seems to type better at the moment. I'm just wondering if any water was able to get deeper into the keyboard and in about a day or so, it'll all quit. You know, just before a big deadline.
The only puzzling thing was all the unidentified objects under my keys - lots of dog hair, which is a bit surprising considering they're not in my office that often. Can you imagine what the keyboard would like if I had one of those cats who liked to sleep on or around the computer? Also found under the keys - sawdust. Now I did take a woodworking corner about a year ago, but I don't think I tossed around the sawdust that much, so I 'm not sure how that happened.
9 comments:
Smart thinkin', taking the pictures. I DO have cats (2 of them) that like to sit next to the keyboard. I can only imagine what it looks like inside there. I LOVE taking stuff like that apart and fixing it. Used to fix typewriters and photocopiers just for fun and only 2 days ago helped repair a grinder. That was fun.
My you're quite the handy woman. Now I know who to call when I need help!
I have a 35 year old dishwasher that needed a new timer, the repair shop told me to take it out for refurbishing and they'd put it back. So I disconnected about 30 different coloured wires coming from every direction... when the repair guy came by to reinstall the timer, he was a bit shocked. He said the office should not tell people to disconnect on their own if it's older than 1980. He was lost! He could have used a 'before' picture!
Good for you for taking apart the grinder. That's pretty cool.
Where I used to work, keyboards would get stuff dumped on them all the time. My old boss spilled his sugary coffee on a keyboard once and ended up drying it out with a leaf-blower!
Good thing it was only water. Use a hairdryer to dry it thoroughly before use.
Thanks for your help Jennifer. A leaf blower would be pretty crazy!
I guess you could always carry a spare.....this might be going a little far, though...http://home-on-the-hill.blogspot.com/2007/04/of-mice-and-men-and-paper-dragons.html
I shook out a keyboard someone at work gave me and I swear an entire sandwich came out of it. Disgusting! It was all sandwich crumbs. Blech.
Carol, you're too funny!
And endakoJo - Art sure has a whole history of computer mice! His organizing efforts look great.
Thanks for the great comments.
Just found some more while cleaning up in the basement. Hmmmmm
endako jo - are you kidding? More computer mice? And how many more keyboards? Maybe you should sell them on e-Bay?
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