Water & laptop keyboard

After a rather good Halloween party i managed to come back and somehow paint my laptop with water.

It was shut but i found water on the lid, water underneath it and the keyboard had left a big moisture imprint on the screen. I left it to dry out for a couple of days and turned it on again. Now (touch wood) the laptop itself works, boots fine and as far as i can tell operates normally, however the keyboard is a bit dodgy.

As far as i can tell most of the keyboard is fine, minus a few keys grouped together at opposite corners. Now, im using the OEM keyboard that came with it, however i do have a hankering to get my nice backlit keyboard back.

I have searched high & low but im yet to find another UK Studio 17 backlit keyboard, so i am curious to see if there are any ways of trying to clear out whatever i causing these few keys to stop working. It was water that was spilt.

Any ideas? Thanks guys :)

usually a few days in the airing cupboard will do the trick as it can take a long time to get it out between the membranes.

Will give that a go, its just been sat on my desk for the last couple of days. Iv managed to track down the original supplier of the backlit keyboard on ebay so im not that desperate to get it fixed now, will give it a go for a couple more days before i buy a replacement though!


thanks all the same! :)

Are you sure iot was water and not something else?

If it was something like lemonade or simular then residues left behind could be causeing problems.

How much is the replacement keyboard and how easy is it to get at, remove and replace? If it's expensive or you're feeling tight then I'd recommend you remove the keyboard, check for other places there could be moisture and give the whole thing a while to dry out. As has been said if it wasn't just water you may have a harder time removing it and it's probably better to just rip and replace (again checking for any moisture elsewhere in the chassis).

The replacement is only around £15 so not a problem, and yes it was definitely water! I sucked some up through a straw to double check the morning i found it, slightly relieved it wasn't white spirit or something else, otherwise the keyboard would have been the least of my worries! :p

Just be aware that if it went under the keyboard it could easily get into the motherboard and if that rusts and corrodes then you're looking at £70 to buy a new one as well as the complicated job of replacing the board.