Keyboard in the Dishwasher: NO
2008-02-02 13:44 - Tech
A while back, I remembered reading that cleaning your keyboard in the dishwasher would work just fine. My new desktop has a black keyboard, and the new monitor is dark compared to the white CRT that got replaced. This leaves one white IBM keyboard sitting on my desk as a real eyesore.
There were a few old black dell keyboards lying around at work which nobody was using, and I managed to snag one to clean up my desk's appearance. I took it home and it was rather nasty dirty, so remembering that old article, I fired up the shower on hot, and ran it under the water for a little while. It came out quite clean and I was happy. I waited for it to dry, plugged it in, and found that the CTRL keys didn't work. Both of them. Everything else was OK, but those didn't. Drat. I tried another one. This one, I tested first unlike the other. It definitely worked, while dirty. Another cleaning in the shower dislodged a ton of hair and crumbs and gunk. And also completely destroyed the keyboard. The lights light, but none of the keys, none work at all.
So, think twice before submerging your keyboard to clean it. Unless it's a free extra, like mine were.
