Public Service Announcement: Clean Your Keyboard

Just a reminder from someone who was shocked to see the above scene about an hour ago. 

Clean your keyboard.

Hit the jump for more about how I declared "War on Grime."

Because the internet has a billion articles on ugly designed websites, I'll do a quick writeup for you here on my easy to look at site. This walk-through is really entitled for desktop keyboards. Laptop ones are tougher to clean because of the variety of ways keys attach, as well as the laptop keys being small and easy to break. I may do another writeup later on that if everyone enjoys this one.

The process takes about 30 minutes if done correctly, and to help you I'll post pictures of my process along the way. Let us begin.

BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING, TAKE A PICTURE OF YOUR KEYBOARD! You can use it to make sure keys go back where they belong. Duplicate keys and arrows can be confusing!

A shot of my Dell Multimedia keyboard before cleaning. Notice the dust between the keys. Click to make bigger.

1) Fill up a bowl with hot soapy water

2) DISCONNECT YOUR KEYBOARD and then pry up your keys with a flathead screwdriver. Be gentle. They will pop off, so don't go all Rambo on them and ruin your keyboard.. 

NOTE: It's usually its not a good idea to pry up large keys like the space bar, return key, and perhaps even shift keys. They usually have a metal bar to help stabilize the key underneath, and you can break where this metal bar connects underneath. If you choose to do so, be extremely careful.

4) Soak the removed keys in water for a few minutes, then lay out on a towel to dry.

5) While they dry, take a vacuum that has a hose attachment to the keyboard. As you can see from the above picture, it can get quite dirty. 

6) The suction wont get everything. If you have a can of compressed air, you can blow out whatever is left behind

7) Take a dry towel to the nooks between the key sockets, and the other surfaces of the keyboard. Clean until you are satisfied.

8) Now start replacing the keys. The bottom of the keys have wells, so they can retain water. Make sure they are dry. The compressed air can help here.

After shot. Nice and clean. Click to make bigger.

That's pretty much it. It's a 30 minute operation, for the most part. I hope this helps some of you. Any more tips? Use the comments below.

~Jimmy "I can't believe I let it get that dirty" the G.

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This post has a Shenanaganary rating of:

"Grime is Crime"