Woman + Laptop + Orange Juice = FAIL!

DanGlee

Hi All,

So, it turns out that the other day my ever so beautiful fiancée decided that my lovely Dell XPS M1330 was a little thirsty and needed a drink of fresh orange juice.
Now, as much as I'm sure the poor lappy was a little parched the orange juice did nothing for her keys and now its P, L, K, M and J are all sticky!

Would anybody know the best way to clean this up, without taking the laptop apart. If not, does anybody know how easy / hard it is to dissect a Dell XPS M1330 to clean its keyboard?

And rest assured the lovely lady in question has been re-educated that liquids and electronics do no mix... (unless its a blender )

Thanks.
DG.

Blazer

tbh I wouldn't even bother with the hassle of cleaning it..the keys are too gimmicky and easily broken on notebooks.
Try ringing Dell and see how much a replacement one costs..
Way less hassle and you save about 2 hours of your life (if the cleaning goes right )

Voodu Child

Keyboards is (fairly) easily removed. You'll find instructions on Dells website.

But removing it won't make it much easier to clean, it comes away in one piece and you still wont be able to get in under the keys properly to clean out any gunk.

Best of luck anyhow.

Umiq88

You can get dissassembly instructions from the dell website theres very little tools needed just a screwdriver and its very easy to remove a keyboard just be careful with the connection the the motherboard read the instructions and dont break it.

Try your best to clean it if you cant or break it theres loads on ebay for reasonable prices shouldnt cost more than €30

I wouldnt go near dell they'll charge you an arm and a leg.

DanGlee

Thanks,

I might try this at the weekend as a little project! Don't want to rush it. It still types, but they stick and I get lots of lllllllllllllllllll or kkkkkkkkkkkkk argh!

I'll have a gander at the Dell website to see what the jist of it is and take it from there. Somebody did mention to me that the keys should individually pop off, but I don't know if it will let me get where I need to, to clean it.

Does anybody know if the Dell XPS keys just pop on and off like a normal keyboard?

KamiKazi

Keyboards are dishwasher safe right?

Umiq88

This is the service manual for replacing the keyboard.

http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xpsM1330/en/sm/keyboard.htm#wp1179891

First unplug the power adaptor and then remove the battery.

If your worried about static or that lark touch a radiator and you should be fine.

Shouldnt have any probelms the keys pop off quite easily as well.

If you cant fix it they can be bought cheap on eaby didnt have much of a look but this was the first thing i saw
http://cgi.ebay.com/Orig-DELL-INSPIRON-1420-1520-XPS-M1330-KEYBOARD-0NK750_W0QQitemZ290285811972QQihZ019QQcategoryZ31568QQcmdZViewItem

DanGlee

That looks like a piece of p*ss

I try removing the key caps first, if it doesn't reach the stick parts, Plan B will be to remove the lot... there is probably enough dead skin and DNA down there to reproduce myself 100 times over

Thanks.

Do-more

DanGlee wrote: »

That looks like a piece of p*ss

Yeh, pretty much, I had to take out the keyboard on the FIL's Inspiron 630M over the Christmas to install some RAM, I was dreading it as I'd never done it before and didn't want to make a balls of his laptop with him hovering over my shoulder.

Just make sure to have something made of strong plactic to lever off the cover between the hinges. A credit card can help, particularly if it's already been max'd out

FruitLover

KamiKazi wrote: »

Keyboards are dishwasher safe right?

Yeah, your dishwasher won't be damaged.

DanGlee

Do-more wrote: »

A credit card can help, particularly if it's already been max'd out

haha... no fear of that, I have a a couple of them

kikel

Just a quick note, the above mentioned keyboard is US spec. The @ and " are mixed up. Some people don't care. I ordered the same keyboard Uk spec from pcupgrade.co.uk last week. Arrived with no problems. I found the connector on these keyboard is more finiky than other models. Still a piece of piss.

Dartz

This is going to sound daft, but it saved my old Toshiba when I got Pepsi on it. Keys were stuck , and sure since it was scrap if I couldn't fix it anyway, I gave the keyboard a blast of WD40. It's non-conductive and water repellant so it shouldn't kill any of the electronics, and since it was kerosene based, it helped with the stickiness, though some of the keys went a bit off-colour. It's still working now though...

And it was better than buying a new one.

I'm just saying that, if you're stuck for it, at your last option before buying a new keyboard, you might give it a go. If it fails, you loose an already ruined keyboard. If it works, you save money.

Icdb

Dartz wrote: »

This is going to sound daft, but it saved my old Toshiba when I got Pepsi on it. Keys were stuck , and sure since it was scrap if I couldn't fix it anyway, I gave the keyboard a blast of WD40.

It should be renamed WD41 because someone has found another use for it..
useless bit of information here.. WD40 was named because of the 40 uses it's inventor came up with for it..

oh and for my 2 cent worth... replacing keyboard is the only way to go..

had same problem with Beer and keyboard on an old HP... i removed the keys cleaned didn't make any difference.. the moisture will most likely have gotten into the plasticy circuit board thingy on it.. the one with all the connections that goes back to the cable.. once the moisture gets in there it corrodes the contacts...

KamiKazi

They should add another few digits to the end of it then, WD40 fixes everything

Run_to_da_hills

There are crowds supplying aftermarket keyboards on Ebay, usually US spec from Hongkong. I done the same on an EEEPC and bought two for e30 and kept one as a spare. 2 mins to fit, no screws.

sceptre

Icdb wrote: »

useless bit of information here.. WD40 was named because of the 40 uses it's inventor came up with for it..

'Fraid not.

Worth trying a spray of it to see if it works though:)

Run_to_da_hills

sceptre wrote: »

'Fraid not.

Worth trying a spray of it to see if it works though:)

Maplin do several rapid drying electronic decreasing sprays and cleaners.