Disaster averted (pop spilled on keyboard)

*This is a long story about a recent mishap I had with my computer. You might get really bored if you are not interested*

I don't know if any of you have ever had this happen, but this is something I have stupidly done at least twice.

The scenario is that I will be drinking pop next to my computer. (yea yea, I know, dumb thing to do) So on at least two occasions, I have accidentally spilled pop on my keyboard. The first incident was a doozy, a complete disaster, because the pop bottle tipped over and spilled all over my keyboard. On my then still relatively new laptop! I tried to clean it up as fast as I could, frantically. But to no avail. The keys ended up sticky as hell and didn't work properly.

I ended up taking it to a repair shop, and they charged me $100. They then took the keyboard apart, cleaned the insides of all the gunk, and said they would have to replace the whole keyboard. That cost me another $60 (it was the cheapest one) We are talking about an internal keyboard by the way, the one that comes built into the laptop.

Anyway. so now the story about the second most recent incident - this happened last night. I had a 2 liter pop bottle in my hand and it accidentally was slipping out of my hand, so I tried to regain my grip, and that caused a swaying motion of the pop bottle. Well you can guess what happened next. Pop sprayed out, but this time it was on BOTH of my keyboards.

I'm not making this up, lol. See, I use an expensive mechanical gaming keyboard as my main keyboard, which I use underneath my laptop, which is on a stand. Well, the pop splashed not only on my laptop keyboard, but on my mechanical keyboard as well!

The only good thing was it wasn't a huge amount of pop, I mean, it was not a trivial amount, but it could have been a lot worse.

So anyway, I then immediately thought to myself - not this again, you damn idiot! - and tried to clean it up as best I could. I even sprayed a special electronics type cleaner into the keyboards, knowing that is improper, because you are only supposed to spray it on a cloth and then clean. I thought it might help dissolve any pop down in the base of the keyboard. And hell, I was desperate.

So trying to shorten the story. I thought at first after cleaning it up, that all was well. Fired up the computer, no problemo. But then, when I tried typing anything, it would go haywire. Key presses would open weird programs and make a weird windows-like warning/error sounds.

What is even weirder, is that I have a wireless keyboard. I hooked that up, but still had the same problems! Typing any characters would result in either weird programs being opened and/or a windows annoying noise being made. WTF?? I couldn't figure it out.

Then I disconnected my mechanical keyboard. Then all of a sudden, the keyboard worked again. I couldn't believe it. Finally, I knew that something to do with my mechanical keyboard was the culprit, and apparently causing all keyboard strokes, no matter even from a different keyboard, to go haywire.

I then browsed for help on internet tech advice forums. I finally found a thread where a guy said that sometimes this can happen because the windows key is held down, or other keys are being held down for some reason.

So I hit the windows key on my mechanical keyboard, and the scroll lock key too, and even caps lock, alt, fn, and ctrl for good measure too. Finally that fixed it! It now works normally. I think it may have been the scroll lock key being held down for some reason as a result of the pop spill, but not sure

So, a happy ending. Disaster averted. And all my keyboards are working fine once again. Thanks to those who were patient enough to read the whole exhausting story.

Well call me another idiot as I spilled soda on my brand new keyboard last year. It was in slow motion then all of sudden splash all over the keyboard, and I knew it was ruined.

I instantly tried to drain all the soda off and clean the keys but the damage was done already. After drying it out certain keys were dead, and others acted weirdly.

Bottom line I just bought another $40 Cooler Master combo.

Couchpotato said:

Well call me another idiot as I spilled soda on my brand new keyboard last year. It was in slow motion then all of sudden splash all over the keyboard, and I knew it was ruined.

I instantly tried to drain all the soda off and clean the keys but the damage was done already. After drying it out certain keys were dead, and others acted weirdly.

Bottom line I just bought another $40 Cooler Master combo.

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Yea, I imagine this happens more often than we think, especially to gamers...lol.

Anyway, join the club, I guess!

Over the years, I've almost dowsed my keyboard at least twice with coffee, but one was a clean miss, the other only a few drops actually hit the keyboard. I continue to try to improve and be more aware.

The clean miss lead to a vigorous carpet cleaning, which may have been more harmful than hitting the keyboard. Another lesson chalked up!

Been there, done that at least twice. And lost my cell phone in the toilet (it didn't like that). And applied superglue to things while sitting at the keyboard….And other things.

BTW: To prevent spilling of fluids I now use the Mighty Mug, which doesn't tip as easily when sitting on a hard, even surface (Not the Microsoft Surface tablet)

pibbur who ought to be more careful than he is.

Go with diet! Less sticky!

After we went to mostly laptops at work, I started getting a keyboard for everyone. Replacing $15 keyboards was better than $1500 laptops.

One of the reasons I got a mechanical keyboard, is cleaning it is a breeze. But I use a side table now for drinks, that sits lower than the desk.

This is why you should embrace the sweet, sweet taste of Aspartame and drink diet sodas. Minor spill? No sugar, no problem.

Mmmmmm. Carcinogens.

Drithius said:

This is why you should embrace the sweet, sweet taste of Aspartame and drink diet sodas. Minor spill? No sugar, no problem.

Mmmmmm. Carcinogens.

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That's usually the main argument against diet soda. But viewing the top 10 causes of death in the world, none of them are related to any cancers that are loosely correlated with artificial sweeteners. 5 of them are related (or indirectly related) to sugar and other refined grains.

1) There is little scientific evidence that artificial sweeteners cause cancer. And the studies that do show it, are massively high doses in mice and not humans and only show a correlation with certain types of cancers. Massively high doses of caffeine will also kill you…

2) There are far more studies that show a major correlation with refined sugars/grains and cardiovascular diseases, brain issues (Alzheimer, dementia, epilepsy), diabetes, etc.

TLDR: If anyone tells you that an artificially sweetened beverage is bad for you, while they are downing sugar laden soda, they're being penny wise and pound foolish with their health. It's the lesser of two evils.

That being said, there are some studies that point to artificial sweeteners having an insulin response. So if your markers already point to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, water is probably best. But if a diet drink is helping your risk markers come down, why fight something that is keeping you compliant?

What were we talking about? Right. They're less sticky when they spill on your keyboard.

Sadly.....

Although said it before, have to repeat it.
I buy only the cheapest keyboards and mice. They don't last for decades so I toss them and buy again cheap rubbish.
At work I use external keyboard attached to the laptop.

Did I ever spill something? Yes I did. Can I avoid spilling by being careful? Frankly I can't - drinking "hazardous" towards the keyboard liquids is vice I love and I refuse to selfinduce more stress in order to be careful.
It's cheap stuff for me then.

tl;dr: Keyboards are like umbrellas.

joxer said:

Although said it before, have to repeat it.
I buy only the cheapest keyboards and mice. They don't last for decades so I toss them and buy again cheap rubbish.
….

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This is a bit like buying umbrellas.

Umbrellas are important where I live on the west coast of Norway. Ideally, you'll want one of the large, sturdy ones, which offer the best protection, and lasts forever. Unfortunately, those tend to be expensive, and unfortunately I tend to loose them, especially on leaving public transport vehicles. The trick is of course to buy umbrellas that on the average lasts just as long as you're able to keep them. Until now that means that I had to go for the cheapest I could find, which unfortunately tend to be too small for efficient rain protection.

Fortunately, my current backpack comes with a smart loop which allow me to (temporarily) fasten the object we're talking about to it. So as long as I don't forget my backpack, which (strangely) has yet to happen), I (almost) no longer lose umbrellas. So these days I can justify buying better quality (still requires a bit of adjustment to reach the optimal balance).

pibbur who admits he has several objects other than umbrellas and keyboards that needs similar attention.

PS. Losing umbrellas is not restricted to buses and trains. Sometimes I can't remember where I put my umbrella inside my house. But, those should be easy to find, right? Wrong! They're gone. Even the wife, who finds things that aren't there, is at loss locating them. DS.

PPS.There are of course places where you can go to to retrieve missed objects back, but with umbrellas there is a complicating factor: Many people consider them to be a pool available to anyone who needs one. I take your umbrella? No problem, you just take another one. Maybe I should, but I can't subscribe to this way of doing things. DS.

PPPS. A major problem with umbrellas, not addressed by the discussion above, is of course deciding whether you should take an umbrella with you when leaving your house, or not. My advice is, that if you wonder if you should take one with you, you definitely should take one with you. And anyhow get an additional umbrella small enough to fit inside your backpack. And hope that you remember to put it back after using it. DS.

pibbur who said:

tl;dr: Keyboards are like umbrellas.


This is a bit like buying umbrellas.

Umbrellas are important where I live on the west coast of Norway. Ideally, you'll want one of the large, sturdy ones, which offer the best protection, and lasts forever.

Click to expand...

They're not as important here. It's windy where I live thus classic umbrellas can't protect even your head and break easily - the problem is wind being so unpredictable in one minute it's a breeze and another it feels strong enough to lift you.

I ought to try rainshield when it's made, sadly it didn't move away from it's concept and was never produced:


Seen reverse umbrellas on aliexpress that should do the trick but didn't buy any, it's over with any lasting rain here for next few months. Will try one after summer.
https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-reverse-umbrella.html

Till then, it's fisherman raincoat.

I once had a very good Umbrella, of the "Cyclone" brand. It was more robust and could survive stronger winds than the average umbrella. But the shopkeeper admitted the brand name was a bit misleading.

pibbur who ... eh ... lost it. Much too early, it was still in good shape. What a waste.

Soda. The death of all keyboards.

you said:

Soda. The death of all keyboards.

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Not just Soda as Tea & Coffee are also the death of all keyboards.

Yeah, my Fresca wouldn't damage a fly if it landed on it. My coffee, on the other hand, would likely eat a hole straight through to China, at the sheer strength that I brew the stuff. It would look just like that viscous gunk from Alien.

Grape juice is EXTREMELY sticky within keyboards !

And healthy to the underlying contacts.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Grape juice is EXTREMELY sticky within keyboards !

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I've been lucky so far...but the er...'detritus'... that tumbles out of my ancient keyboard after a long shake, is quite disturbing :-o (mostly because it only gets shaken very infrequently) Not sure how you can easily clean the internals...so usually I just give up and buy a new one after N years....

What is all this strange talk??

I get not-quite-so-cheap Microsoft ergo keyboards. Those things LAST! I don't throw them away until the paint gets wiped off the (checks his keyboard) oh... well, it seems I don't throw them away until some years after most of the paint gets rubbed off the keys. WASD always go first, of course.

As for umbrellas, I've still got the one my grandma gave me back in the... 90's? Maybe late 80's. And yes, it's plenty windy out here. When the wind changes direction, you move the umbrella. Fast. You're a GAMER, you're great at that sort of thing!!