A recent twitter post by Skawtnyc was brought to my attention. The enigmatic tweet can be read here. This simple statement brought back something I had completely forgotten about: washing keyboards in a dishwasher. Can it be done? Is it recommended?
If you’re an avid gamer like me, your keyboard probably goes through a great deal of abuse use. I’ve often thought that all gaming systems should come equipped with the sturdiest keyboard possible, and for years, used an old IBM Model M. I’d often joke that if my chair broke, I could lay the keyboard across two cinder blocks and use it as a bench. I’ve since graduated to a Logitech G15.
My keyboard is tough, but would it survive the wash cycle of a dishwasher? There are dishwasher safe keyboards out there being marketed to hospitals, but what about normal keyboards? What makes a keyboard dishwasher safe to begin with? A little digging has yielded me some confusing results.
An Engadget post from 2005 suggests your keyboard is (maybe) dishwasher safe. Nell Greenfieldboyce at NPR experimented with the idea in 2007, with good results, despite Microsoft’s Sean Butterworth’s warnings cited in the article. Despite Skawtnyc’s and Nell Greenfieldboyce’s experiences, I don’t think I’ll be putting my G15 in the dishwasher anytime soon.
In spite of all this, a recent Lifehacker article spells out why I may be concerned about my keyboard’s hygiene: the average keyboard harbors more harmful bacteria than areas of your house you certainly wouldn’t want to eat from. It’s rather sobering to think my hands come into contact with grime of this magnitude. I’m thinking a can of compressed air and some alcohol should probably do the trick. A tutorial on how to do a thorough job can be found here.
For laptop owners concerned with cleanliness, VideoJug has a wonderful tutorial on how to get the job done.
For those of you concerned about the inside of your computer, wikiHow has some great tips on keeping your system free of spyware and running in tiptop shape!
For those of you still curious about putting your keyboards in the dishwasher, do so at you own risk, but please come back and tell me how it worked.
May 30th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
I have been doing this on a desktop keyboard for a while now.. I put it in the top rack, keys down and wash it with just a little soap. Take it out before the drying cycle comes on or it might melt. This Dell multimedia keyboard is still doing just fine. I let it dry, keys down overnight and plug it up in the morning. I didn`t believe it when I first heard about it, but it works. I haven`t tried this out on a really expensive keyboard.
May 31st, 2008 at 10:22 am
Really? I keep hearing this, but I still don’t think I’m going to try it out on my G15.
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:11 am
Yesterday I’ve dropped a cup of coffee on my laptop keyboard.
First I tried removing some keys and clean then individually. Worked like a charm but after a couple of hours the coffee got sticky behind the keys’ spring mechanism.
A new laptop keyboard is quite expensive, around 50 euros ($77), so I’ve decided to disassembled the laptop, removed keyboard and let the keyboard soak in a medium hot bath of water. After 1 day of drying I reconnected the keyboard: still some water inside of I think, resulting in that the keyboard was continuously typing stars (**). One extra day of drying did the trick: a clean and working keyboard