How This Mess Started

Now I’ve always been an avid reader of LifeHacker. Last night I was doing my regular browsing on the hacker and came across an article: How to clean your keyboard. I scanned through the article and started reading the comments. A lot of people mentioned that they don’t even bother cleaning their keyboard, they simply buy a new one. This seems like a huge waste to me. Some people even posted comments with instructions on how they went about cleaning their keyboards.

keyboard.jpgNow all of this brought back some memories. I know that I had done this before. I do remember popping keys off off a keyboard sometime in my distant past. After a bit of diving into the past I realized that this was two computers ago, which equates to about 5 years. I’ve had this keyboard for a lil’ over three (3) years and I haven’t given it a thorough cleaning. I mean I’ve done the compressed air, but how much does that really get out, huh? So with inspiration from LifeHacker, I set out to clean my keyboard like never before.

I started by popping off the keys one by one with a butter knife. Most instructions say that you should take a picture of the keyboard so that you know where to put the key back. Bah, what do they know? So I started placing all the keys in a grocery bag. I was going great and feeling good. Before too long this keyboard would be clean enough to eat off (some of this is what got me into this mess in the first place).

The Keys To More Stress

When all the keys were off, I started thinking. Even though I brush the gunk off that wouldn’t be good enough. So, I went and got hold of my screwdriver and went to work. My goal was to remove all the circuitry and wash the plastic parts. That was the plan anyways. For those of you who haven’t seen inside a keyboard. The layout is pretty simple. There is one small, green circuit board where the NUM LOCK, SCROLL LOCK, and CAPS LOCK lights are where the cable attaches. This is then connected to a larger clear, thin, plastic like surface. This is where the keys make contact to and send the information back to the green circuit board.

Why Do Tiny Important Parts Always Blend Into Your Carpet?

Enough technicality: I took off one board, removed some screws then removed the other one. Piece of cake. I then proceeded to lift the plastic casing. What I didn’t cater for, however, were the little plastic contacts. There are what sit in the hole for the keys and what actually makes contact with the surface below. There is one for each key on the keyboard. Not knowing they were there, I didn’t hesitate to lift. They went flying all over. The brilliant keyboard designers also decided to make these clear so that they blend into any surface they fall onto. This is where frustration first started to settle. I didn’t give it much thought, though. I figured that I would find them.

Onward to task two. I put the keys and the key contacts in a grocery bag, filled with some soap and water, tied it off and started shaking. This should get them as clean as they need to be. I took the plastic portions to the kitchen sink and started working with a dish brush and some soap. Confidence started coming back as I saw everything gleaming. Things were going to be great, don’t worry Baz.

When I thought everything was all clean and dry, I started pulling things back together. The first thing I had to do was put the plastic contacts into the holes. When I was done, I was missing two of them. Now I would still have the actual keys covering the wholes but they would just be lying there and not able to be pressed. The spring in their step would be gone. This is where I had to make a decision. Which keys don’t I need? How about “~”. Who uses that anyways? I mean really. There were two Windows keys so one obviously had to go. I can’t remember using SCROLL LOCK for anything, so that was another option. So, with two keys less that what I started with, I put back all the circuitry and plugged things up.

Green Lights Don’t Always Mean Go

Things didn’t seem to work right away. I was a bit worried, but I figured that’s nothing a quick reboot can’t fix. I restarted the system and the three LOCK lights greeted me with a broad green smile. So, everything seemed to be working great. I went to kitchen grabbed a cold beer as a reward for all my hard work and came back to see that Windows had started. I hit the start button and nothing happened. I wondered whether I put the contact under the wrong key; I hit the other one, no dice. I started hitting keys like a mad man, nothing. Hit NUM LOCK, SCROLL LOCK, all the LOCKS and nothing worked. I rebooted a number of times withe same results. Now I’m getting mad.

Maybe things weren’t as dry as I thought they were. So, my exercise in frugality seemed to be thoroughly biting my in the ass. Now I was going to have to buy a keyboard, lovely. I decided that I would give it a couple more tries then just give up and watch a movie or something, that was the plan. On my very last attempt, I made a crucial mistake: I restarted the computer in the middle of a boot. Now my system has a funny little game it likes to play. It pretends that it can’t remember who it is or what speed it’s processor is. When it reaches this point you need to go into the BIOS setup and restore settings, no big deal right? Wrong. When it finally restarted there was a nice big message talking about restoring settings; at the bottom of the screen said “Hit DEL to enter setup”. Just great, no keyboard and no computer.

Happy Ending

Wouldn’t you believe it, while I was stomping around the apartment all angry, I found one contact in the sink and another on the carpet in front of the computer. I dissected things and tried one more time and everything worked like a charm. So, the moral of the story? “If it ain’t broke, don’t clean it”.

Popularity: 22%

Similar Posts

  • None Found