SGI: Hardware

I was clumsy enough to spill a drink over an octane style granite keyboard.

It wasn't even plugged in at the time but when I tried it a few days later it behaved strangely. Sometimes pressing a button will not show anything or it will display some letters not even close to the one you pressed. Sometimes doubled. On a PC the keyboard is working better but still with similar problems.

I opened it up and cleaned it as well as i could, but the plastic board is somehow welded to a metal plate by plastic pins. Before I try to take it apart further I was hoping someone has an idea to fix it.

I was thinking of the dishwasher trick but I don't know if it will help in this case...

Any ideas? Would be a shame to throw it out..

jmc

Assuming that "drink" was not just water, go buy a 5l canister of distilled water. Rinse the keyboard under the tap for a bit, then with the distilled water (1l of the distilled stuff should be plenty). Let it dry for ~ 1 week. If you really love that keyboard, take it apart before rinsing, reassemble after drying. If you just want to take your chances, just stick it in the dishwasher, my usual estimate is a 50% chance that a keyboard works flawlessly afterwards, with the added benefit that it'll look almost like new.

Thanks!

Yeah.. it wasn't just water. I'll try the distilled water method. I hope nothing was fried when I plugged it in, but it should have been pretty much dry at that point.

jmc

If it's already dried, you'll probably have to disassemble it all the way and at least use some mild dishwashing liquid to clean all the gunk out, otherwise the keyboard will probably slowly corrode beyond repair.

I dumped a rather large goblet of red wine on my vintage granite keyboard, but with a surfeit of TLC I brought it back to complete operability, with the exception that the shift keys are a bit dodgy. All the other keys work perfectly, but the shift keys just don't want to shift. I'm a bit mystified by that...