I Before E except after Key
Chapter: Random
Putting keyboards inside a dishwasher seems to be a thing of Internet lore. Will a keyboard survive a regular rinse cycle? My guess is, for new models, probably not. I’m not willing to even chance it. How about you? Have you tried washing your keyboard in the dishwasher? Share your tales of success or doom in the comments below.
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May the best (worst) tale of tech win!
-Krishna
These beautiful and intelligent people wrote
Tell me what you think!
Brian Marsh
March 20, 2013 at 1:29 pmit works, just make sure it doesn’t do the dry cycle. (I’ve seen a couple that became a melted mess after someone forgot)
Even hand washing can work (may take multiple tries), it can depend on if anything shorted out while it was plugged in.
Krishna M. Sadasivam
March 21, 2013 at 6:18 amThanks, Brian. I have the Apple aluminum keyboard – so I’m going to see if there’s a safe method I can use to pop open the spacebar key (the key that’s feeling ‘spongy’ and clean it.
t3rminus
March 20, 2013 at 1:35 pmThe dishwasher works, although like you said, I’d be careful depending on the make/model of they keyboard.
I had a great BenQ keyboard a while back, and three or four of the keys were sticky from spilled beverages. After much hesitation, I caved and ran it through the dishwasher. Normal wash, air-dry only.
The results were incredible.
Not only did the sticky keys completely clear up, keys that had been just a bit unresponsive now worked GREAT.
The only side effect was that since everything had loosened up a bit, the keyboard gained a bit of flex, and the keyboard would creak if you applied too much pressure, but that’s something I attribute to cheap plastics, and didn’t really occur unless I lifted it up and actually flexed it.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t put my slim aluminum Apple keyboard in the dishwasher, especially knowing the inside is almost entirely melt-at-high-temperature glue.
Byron Patterson
March 20, 2013 at 10:21 pmpop the keys off and hand wash it.
Krishna M. Sadasivam
March 21, 2013 at 6:17 amIt’s one of the aluminum keyboards – is there an easy method of doing that without it breaking?
Byron Patterson
March 21, 2013 at 4:09 pmI do not know :( But that method has always worked great on my Logitech keyboards
Frank
September 23, 2014 at 6:35 amI’ve been in IT support for 23 years, but have never put a keyboard in the dishwasher. I did have a customer once who reported a faulty keyboard. I asked him if anything had happened to cause it to become faulty, and he assured me that no, it just stopped working. This was back when I used to repair keyboards instead of simply replacing them, so I took it apart and as I separated the upper and lower plastic moulds, about a gallon of still warm coffee fell out. I cleaned it and put it back together and it worked OK. He was a bit shamefaced when I returned it to him with a pointed comment about what had caused the problem :-)
Krishna
September 23, 2014 at 6:56 amhaha, it’s the classic PEBCAK (Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard). ;)