Washing laptop keyboard

Question

I spilled juice on my laptop keyboard. It has dried and many of the keys are sticky and difficult to use. Assuming I've detached the keyboard from the laptop, is it safe to wash it with water? My concern is that the ribbon cable connector will get damaged, rendering it unusable when I reconnect it my laptop.

Is there a better way of cleaning the keyboard?

I thought of removing the keys one by one with the keyboard still attached to the laptop but that seems tedious and some of the plastic might break.

My laptop is HP Pavillion dv6t-7000 CTO Quad Edition. The keyboard looks like this:

Answer 1

Two products I recommend will clean grease, oil, etc: "Brake clean" aerosol products, and "Electronics cleaner" aerosol. Obviously the latter is more suited to the task, but neither should do any harm. both contain a good deal of alcohol and evaporate quickly without leaving residue.

Answer 2

Your concern is well-founded. It would be almost impossible to remove all of the keys without breaking at least a few of the plastic "scissors" mechanisms. (I've been there.)

Since you are obviously comfortable with removing the keyboard, you're better off just buying a replacement. There's someone on eBay selling new ones for $25 shipped: http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-HP-Pavilion-DV6t-7000-CTO-DV6z-7000-CTO-Series-Keyboard-Black-Laptop-/400606760279?pt=US_Laptop_Replacement_Keyboards&hash=item5d46060d57

If you do decide to clean the keyboard with water, I wouldn't worry too much about the connector as long as it's thoroughly dried before you try to use it again. I would worry more about corrosion. If there are any corrosable metal parts in there, corrosion has already started, and it will never stop.

Answer 3

Instead of water, why not go to your local pharmacy and get isopropyl alcohol - its quite cheap and evaporates quickly. I believe this is designed for cleaning electronic components.

Answer 4

Had the same problem like you but with an Envy dv7 keyboard and milkshake.

I wasn't sure to try and rinse it in water after removing it, but gave it a shot after reading that someone else also had the same idea as well the concern for further damage.

After rinsing it and getting it nice and clean, I used high presure air coming out of a vacuum for more than 5 minutes so the water could come out from all the nooks and crannies and after making sure that it was all dried up, put it back on the laptop and all is working ok.

As a side note, none of the milkshake got past the bottom of the keyboard so the other components of the laptop were not affected.