Emerald Green Glasses

In addition to routine cleaning, keyboards are often subjected to spilled liquids. If this happens, the very first thing to do is to disconnect your keyboards power. If it plugs into the back of your system, pull that plug immediately. If it’s a wireless keyboard, remove it’s batteries immediately.

Ok, now that you’ve unplugged the keyboard, you can take a moment to consider the problem. Spilled liquids bring two threats to the table as far as keyboard functionality is concerned. First of all, there’s the threat of a short circuit. This threat is the reason you want to immediately cut power to the keyboard. It’s also the reason that whatever other cleaning you do, you’ll want to let the keyboard sit afterward for at least 24 hours (longer on humid days) to ensure its internals are completely dried out.

Your other concern is residue. If the liquid you spilled was just an ordinary glass of water, residue will not be much of a problem. If it’s unsweetened coffee, tea, or diet soda, residue might give you problems, but the danger is not as severe as if there was sugar dissolved in it.

The key to blocking residue is to dissolve it with water. Since your keyboard is only vulnerable to short circuits when its plugged in, putting it in your shower and spraying down the keyboard is a very good precaution against residue. If you have a keyboard that was disabled by a spill, there’s a chance you might be able to clean out the residue using your shower like this.

I’ve even heard that some people has successfully cleaned out a spill disabled keyboard by running it through their dishwasher. I’ve never tried this myself, so I can’t offer any personal input on it. But rationally this would probably work best if whatever was spilled on your keyboard contained a fair bit of fat like ice cream. The most important thing to remember would be to put your keyboard on the top shelf of the dishwasher, since the plastics making it up are vulnerable to melting.

Now whatever method you use to wash the residue out of your keyboard, you’ll need to let it dry out afterward. Be sure that you let it dry at least 24 hours, and be sure to reposition it a few times during that drying period. Repositioning it will help ensure the keyboard doesn’t retain small pools of water inside it that could wet things again when you plug it back in.

And once you’ve waited the recommended 24 hours (if not a little more), you’ll want to plug it into your system and give it a test run.

As the components of the computers that gets the most direct contact with you, your mouse and keyboard will have the most need for regular cleaning. Though when I say cleaning, I also mean disinfecting. Your keyboard and mouse can pick up significant volumes of bacteria through handling, and rubbing alcohol wipes do perfect double duty at killing the bacteria and cleaning whatever’s stuck to the plastic making up your keyboard and mouse.

The first step is to dislodge the large stuff (It’s surprising how much there is.) Take your keyboard, turn it upside down, and shake it side to side and backward and forward for a minute or two. Afterward, direct your can of air into the cracks between the keys, and spray in short bursts to knock loose the smaller dust. You can likewise use your air to blow dust loose from under the buttons on your mouse.

Once you’ve dusted your mouse and keyboard, you then take an antibacterial wipe, and gently wipe the keyboard and keys. Then wipe down your mouse and it’s buttons. Once finished, give your keyboard a few moments to dry and it should be good as new. If you don’t have antibacterial wipes, you can use a paper towel, dampened with a very small amount of rubbing alcohol.

Most systems use LCD monitors, replacing the old CRT monitors. The most visible difference between them is the thinness of LCD’s. But in cleaning terms, there’s another important difference. CRT’s have screens made of glass, while LCD’s screens are made of plastic.

The majority of monitors sold in the last few years were LCD monitors. Their screen is made of a plastic that’s much more prone to scratching than the glass of older monitors, making glass cleaner and paper towels a bad choice. To clean it, you need a specialized piece of equipment, a microfiber cleaning cloth. Either as is, or with a light misting of water, wipe down the screen, being careful not to apply too much pressure to it. That’s usually all you need.

If you’ve held onto your old CRT monitor, you should already know that regular glass cleaner is the best tool for cleaning the screen. But, it’s important to keep in mind that if you spray the cleaner directly on the screen, it can drip down through the gap in the front, and get water onto certain components that you very much want to keep dry if you want your CRT to keep working. So you should only spray the cleaner onto a paper towel and use the dampened cloth to clean the screen.