On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 11:20:40PM +0930, Tim wrote: > On Thu, 2008-08-14 at 08:35 -0400, max wrote: > > i was using a laptop that had beer spilled on it for awhile, the > > keyboard failed intermittently , the touch-pad didn't work at all, i > > attached an eternal keyboard and mouse to get around that but it would > > overheat and lockup after a few hours of use. It did however work > > fairly well until it overheated, by which I mean it randomly did weird > > stuff but it wasn't bad enough to make it completely useless. > > Now you know what happens when you get a computer drunk... ;-) > > I've not had to clean computer keyboards, but I have had to clean sugary > drinks, and worse, out of other equipment. Leave it to students to come > up with inventive ways to ruin equipment. > > As in that other cleaning thread, lots of unpolluted alcohol is one way > to attempt to clean crap out of something without damaging the item, > further. Gentle scrubbing with alcohol and a toothbrush on the surfaces > that you can make content with, and just flushing for the bits that you > can't get into. But the chances are, though, that spills onto a > keyboard will have gotten past the keyboard, and other parts would need > cleaning too, and with ALL power removed (take out all the batteries, > including the CMOS one). As others noted keyboards are inexpensive.... I have seen the most inept replace one. Most laptop vendors will send one via return mail. It is nearly impossible to clean the contacts and keys of a keyboard. Note that pure alcohol will not clean up sugar. You might need a jug of distilled water and use pure water or mix alcohol+water. The soft toothbrush works. In the past I used a gentle vacuum and a small wash bottle to rinse local areas (I worked in a repair department 20+ years back). At some point the motherboard will have been washed to remove solder flux so a wash in pure water followed by a good drying can recover some MBs. Gone are the days where you could use a dishwasher and even then depending on the local water supply you could do more damage than good. Fans do not like gunk like sugar... Look at the list of ingredients on what ever you spilled. Colas and most soft drinks contain phosphoric acid. Over time it will react with the contacts and traces wrecking the electronics. This is in part why it might work for a while then die a long and painful death. Can you say "backup"..... -- T o m M i t c h e l l Got a great hat... now what. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
