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Laptop Care: Cleaning my Laptop Keyboard

Author: J. Angelo Racoma Category: Gadgets, Tips Tags: cleaning, Gadgets, keyboard, laptop, maintenance Views: 27642

Tuesday
Jul 24, 2007

Last time, I wrote about how I protected my laptop’s palm rest and touchpad with frisket film. I mentioned in passing how avid laptop users buy (expensive) skins for their palmrest and keyboards, and these include the iSkin for Apple laptops, among other brand silicone or rubber skins.

Unfortunately, however, not all laptop models have skins that fit the keyboards. Also, I’m of the opinion that keyboards can stand the wear and tear of everyday use, and the best thing to do to maintain them is keep them clean regularly (yeah, that and both my laptops don’t have skins available for them). Besides, I like the feel of the keyboard beneath my fingers. Having silicone in between, no matter how thin, just ruins the sensual experience.

My one-year old Compaq Presario V2000 was almost made new again with the LCD assembly, lid and housing replacement. But the keyboard was still filthy and grimy.

laptop keyboardThe before image. Check out the grime to the left of the Z key.

So armed with some patience, an hour of free time, and some cleaning implements, I set out to clean up my laptop.

Computing.net and lifehacker have a few tips on cleaning your lappie’s keyboard, along with materials you can use, ranging from common household cleaning solutions to auto-detailing sprays/lubricants. Since I labored with cleaning my car’s exterior and interior the day before, I decided to use some auto interior cleaning implements.

For this, I used Armor All protectant and some soft cleaning cloth (the kind that comes in different colors, and which street vendors hawk at intersections).

cleaning my laptop keyboard

Basically what I did was spray a liberal amount of cleaner/protectant to the cloth, and wipe each key thoroughly. I made sure to focus not only on the top surface, but also the edges of each key, where the grime usually accumulates. For the edges, cotton swabs come in very handy.

As the protectant’s packaging said to “avoid use on painted surfaces,” I had to make sure I didn’t apply it onto the laptop’s painted surface (which, on the V2000, meant all the silver colored parts).

Of course, these were done while the computer was turned off.

And the finished product:

clean keyboardHere’s the keyboard after cleaning.
laptop keyboardHere’s the before cleaning image again. Compare.

As an alternative, you can use alcohol, or even water with mild soap. If you’re the meticulous kind, you can follow the computing.net link above and actually pry off each key for thorough cleaning. Desktop keyboards can easily be cleaned this way, and you can actually clean each key as if you were washing dishes.

Now keyboards tend to accumulate dust, food particles, hair and other such stuff in between the keys. If you have a can of compressed air, or a manually-pumped blower (a nebulizer compressor will do, actually–you know, those noisy things you use when you have asthma attacks!) you can use this to force out any dirt lodged beneath the keys.

You’ll feel great using a laptop that looks and feels new. Happy laptop computing!

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J. Angelo Racoma is a technology journalist and blogger. See more of his blog posts here at racoma.com.ph, commentaries at racoma.net, and Twitter feed at @jangelo.
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Comments

greg

July 24th, 2007 at 2:48 am

Have u checked out KB Covers? http://www.kbcovers.com

Reply

dodong flores

July 24th, 2007 at 5:36 pm

Oh, you’re giving me an idea of using Armor All protectant to clean my laptop. I think I’ll be more comfortable using it than alcohol and/or mild soap and water.
Thanx for the tip. That surely helps…

by the way, I hope you don’t mind occassional intruder…

Reply

Robin Lim

July 25th, 2007 at 8:35 pm

I simply get laptops the are colored black or dark grey :)

Reply

jerliza

July 25th, 2007 at 8:47 pm

thank you for the blog you post. it’s very useful to my studies……

—jerliza—

Reply

jerliza

July 25th, 2007 at 8:49 pm

thanx a lot but i…… drop my lop top……..hehehehehe!!!!

Reply

jerliza

July 25th, 2007 at 8:52 pm

i, mean lap top…. thnx… j! post more blogs about computers…….. it helps my studies……..^_^

Reply

chris

July 31st, 2007 at 10:27 am

I tried alcohol swaps that worked I’m gonna try a Q-tip but I don’t think it will fit between the keys.

Reply

jozep

August 21st, 2007 at 1:33 pm

I use a solution of 80%-water and 20%-alcohol to clean my laptop.
Does anyone know where can we buy a can of compressed air?

Reply

dak

June 15th, 2008 at 5:38 pm

hi,

i want a silicon cover for my keyboard… because i am seeing dusts hiving between my keyboard keys. there’s a generic cover offered by CDR-king but since it fits to any kind of laptop brands, it’s not really ideal.

i want it to fit perfectly on my keyboard… like the ones available on macbooks.

do you knoe where i can buy? btw, im using an HP pav dv6000.

Reply

admin_papa

August 30th, 2008 at 9:16 am

Hi Folks!

Just wanted to share my new experience.

If your system fails to run due to an error related to missing HAL.DLL, invalid Boot.ini or any other important system boot files you can fix this by using the XP installation CD. Simply boot from your XP Setup CD and enter the Recovery Console. Then launch “attrib -H -R -S” on the C:\Boot.ini file and delete it. Run “Bootcfg /Rebuild” and then Fixboot

Cheers,
Carl

Reply

marthafines

December 25th, 2009 at 11:01 am

Merry Christmas to all… and to all a good night.

Reply

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