P-7811-FX spilled beer over keyboard, need advice

Hi there,
my most beloved wife with her shaky hands managed to spill beer over the left side of the keyboard.
I let the thing dry for 2 days, powered back up, no issues with the hardware.
Only thing: some of the keys do respond wrongly or badly now (backspace won't work, etc. I believe it is to the majority due to sticky tabs FN, Shift, etc.).
I know, I should have opened up and cleaned the keyboard right away, but well, now it's too late for that.
I pulled out the keyboard now, there was some minor damp left below it, dried it.
But now, what to do with the keyboard.
How do I best get rid of this sticky dried beer, which I believe causes this silly keystrokes?

Any advice is most appreciated!!!

Many thanks!

 

Elenthir, when something like this happens I recommend you just buy a new Keyboard on eBay for the laptop. The hassle of probably having to remove keys and clean it all out, and the high chance the keyboard is just badly damaged is not worth it. Buy a new keyboard and look for some dis assembly guides here on NBR.

 

Friend spilled Pepsi over key board, he removed the keyboard, took off keys and cleaned with rubbing alcohol. Good luck, I'm with the buy a new keyboard solution.

 

rot112...yes, if it was that simple....hehe, I am in germany, and this notebook doesn't exist here.....so have to wait for winter, when my brother might bring a keyboard over from the states.

None the less many thanks!

Anyone had the same mishap and fixed that keyboard?

 

Try rangers idea, that might work for you. Though not to be overly negative, but you might end up breaking some of the spring hinges on the keys. It happened to my brother on one of his laptops once. Just be careful and good luck.

 

LOL, I order stuff regularly from Amazon.de, anyways, just set eBay to US and you should be able to order a keyboard and have it shipped to Germany no worries. I love the internet, shipping may suck ($20+), maybe worth it.

 

Advice 1: Never left beer carrying wife near computer again
(I know your pain though, after my wife destroyed a 36in HDTV with a bowl of marinara sauce )

Advice B: With 95% pure alcohol, get the keyboard clean. Also after you have gotten it as clean as you can with the alcohol and q-tips. THen find Lectra Clean and spray the crap out of your keyboard. That should clean away most anything in the keyboard. Let it dry VERY THROUGHLY before even considering reattaching it. Then reattach and it should work fine

 

Keyboard is really, really easy to remove. Set the notebook infront of you and open it and push the LCD until it is back almost flat. Then use something thin to pop media keys at the LCD hinges off, you wanna be careful to disconnect the ribbon cable for the media keys. Then it is 4 or 6 screws at the top of the keyboard, lift the keyboard from the top, detach ribbon cable and pull keyboard toward the LCD. Very simple...a lot simpler then putting in the bluetooth chip (cute lil thing).

 

Elenthir when I clean automotive circuit boards, MAFs, TPS, and convertible tops sensors, and many more electronic parts on cars I use this and it works great. Might give that a try. Order where you can get it conveniently.

I used a bunch to clean cars we got from Hurricane Katrina and a lot of the time it helped.

*New - Oh if you do buy some. How you want to use it is. Arms length apart, and do very short bursts. Do 2-3 bursts let it dry completely and do it again 2 times.

 

Hi guys, thanks a bunch!!

So let's see:
1) don't let wife near the computer anymore....at least not with a drink: done
2) detach keyboard: done
3) I googled a bit: common advice is to "wash" the keyboard or bath it for some days in distilled water (do you call it distilled?) and then clean out the water with a specific alcohol, Isopropanol...: Ill try that today. Question I have, how to get the electrical connections under the keys cleaned. They are so close to the boar, that I can't imagine a way of how to clean out the sticky beer apart from taking off the keys, and we all know, how quickly these springs can break... any advice here? Or could leaving the keyboard in distilled water for some days be enough?
4) if that doesn't help, I will try it with the electrical circuit cleaner from sparkyman2000
5) if all doesn't help I will look for a replacement keyboard. Can someone tell me, what the manufacturer and or type is? I would probably get such a keyboard as well in germany (with german layout, which is more than fine), just have to find out the specific type.

Again, many thanks in advance!

 

For the time being, if its your main computer you use, you could use an external usb keyboard to get by? I don't know if you use your laptop as a desktop replacement or travel with it - but at least at home it should make things a bit easier to casually type etc.

Perhaps you have thought of this already, but on the off chance you haven't.

Good luck with the cleaning!

 

Things i have done and worked fine for beer and sugared coffee..

Trying to clean food products with 100% alcohol may leave a huge mess, careful..

Unplug and remove battery!

Remove keyboard, lay in pan of distilled water. Go back and check for overflow that may have seeped from around key board, clean with dampened soft cloth.

Exercise all keys in the pan of water to flush thoroughly, take your time. When drying, use box fan for three days..must be bone dry!

Water sounds scary but used regularly to prep our saltwater flooded electronics.

Good luck!

 

I prefer 100% alcohol. If the keyboard can be removed then soak the entire keyboard in a large pan and remove to let drain out, then redip and repeat several times. You may find also you have to replace the fluid in the pan a few times too. keep repeating until all keys are freed and the fluid running off the keyboard is CLEAN and the fluid in the pan stays clean too. Let dry appropriately and reinstall.

 

Well, did most of it yesterday.
First I used a warm shower on the keyboard (after taking it off the notebook! ) for about 10 minutes, to get rid of whatever one might be get rid off with warm water. Dried it as much as possible.
Then I placed it in a pan with deminieralized water (learned that it doesn't have to be distilled, the minerals are the issue when this thing dries) for about 2 hours. I did not have enough of the water, so I had to push the KB down under water.
Took it out, dried out as much as possible, then rinsed it thoroughly with the above described 100% alcohol (what a waste...) and left it to dry for ca 20 minutes.
After that I took a kitchen paper and kind of squeezed it around and below all keys. Worked pretty well, and thus discovered about 4-5 drops of water that seem to have evaded the prior treatments. Nice thing with the kitchen paper, you see right away, if there was a drop of liquid left somewhere and kitchen papaer "pulls" all the water when it touches a drop (silly wording, but I don't know how to better describe it).

The back of the keyboard is a bit of a pain. As there is a plastic cover glued to the back, it seems as if there is some water left on the sides, between plastic cover and actual keyboard. Lifted the plastic with a sharp knife and used the kitchen paper there as well, just to realise, it's not water, but air. Looks the bloody same if squeezed in-between plastic and board, grrrrr.

Anyway, cleaned and dried as much as possible and left it to dry for 24 hours.
Well, I can't relally say that it worked, as the 24 hours will be over this evening
And as we have currently close to 40 degrees Celsius, I spare myself the part of using a hairdrier, etc.
Will use compressed air as a last test, to see, if any water is left.

I'll give you an update and if it works, and write a little "how to safe your keyboard (from your wife )"

 

The key, no pun, is that it must be dry.

Yes, I meant to type deminieralized water, my bad.

Alcohol absorbs moisture from the air; which is another reason we gave it up at work. Try it if you must.

cheers

 

The other key (pun intended) is to keep your (obviously) technology hating wife away from your stuff

 

Now give the wives a break,(G).

I've learned to quit crying over my own spilled coffee..

 

ok, quick update: It didn't help
When powering up, it does not even come to the screen, where I can choose between the two dual boot systems. Givs an strange peeping noise (doesn't sound very healthy). I disconnected the keyboard again, no issue, the notebook will just fly through as it did in the past and be ready in no time.
Today I will pick up my G15 external keyboard, and will have to see, where I can get a replacement keyboard from.
The keyboard was as dry as it can get. My guess is, that the connection from keyboard to mobo somehow got damaged from the left overs of the beer.
Maybe there was some moisture left in the connection, but that should then dry out in the next days and weeks. I'll give another try each week.

Thanks for all your help and support. Last but not least one has to say:
"Beer is not good for a keyboard"

 

Exactly, my dell and HP took a while, about 3 days with window box fan.

Dell laptop KB runs abour $20 on ebay..shop around. GW may be a PITA to find.