Well, I finally hit the nexus of nerve, opportunity, need, and time that led
me to wash a ThinkPad keyboard in the dishwasher. This keyboard had several
years of grunge in it, to the point where several keys wouldn't work without
hard presses. Of course I'd tried turning it off and shaking it, but that
mostly just seemed to move the junk around to different keys.

 

I had a spare keyboard, with a dozen or so key tops worn clean but slightly
less dirty, so I swapped that in temporarily, then cleaned the filthy one as
I've done with desktop keyboards: top rack, short wash, no soap or rinse
agent, unheated dry (and I paid attention and actually pulled it out as soon
as it got to the drying cycle, as I figured it didn't need the heat).

 

Then I dried it inside for several days, then several more out in the garage
(temps in the 70s and 80s). I had it standing on edge, and every time I
walked by it, I'd turn it 90 degrees, so any water trapped anywhere had a
chance to drain out.

 

I just now swapped it into a machine to test, and it works fine. That
doesn't mean it won't die tomorrow, obviously, but so far so good.

 

For anyone who's reading this on the web: no, this isn't a joke, and yes, I
TOOK IT OUT OF THE MACHINE FIRST. I've seen too many jokes about people
putting entire laptops in the dishwasher for me not to say that.!

 

.phsiii

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