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Yesterday I spilled ice tea all over my Razer Blackwidow keyboard. Now when I try to use it, it either doesn't work at all, or some of the keys don't work. I read all the legal stuff, and insurance doesn't cover spills.

I may have just ruined a very expensive keyboard. If anyone knows any way to fix it, please post, it will be much appreciated. It's currently laying upside down in my bed (all in one piece).

rip

Works for when you spill water over a phone/drop it in water, so it might be helpful:

Try leaving the keyboard in a tub of rice overnight.
The rice absorbs the moisture.

Hope you get it fixed anyway!

Off-Off-Topic-Topic: Why do people buy expensive keyboards, anyways? Does it not do the exact same thing as a normal keyboard?

Thank you safira. Also, I bought it because it's got a lovely feeling and sounds great. The keyboard I'm using now is much worse compared to it. The downside is mechanical keyboards are more vulnerable to spills and messes.

Also, update: I've taken it all apart and cleaned it throuroughly with alcohol, and I've taken a blowdryer to everything. I'm gonna leave it to dry on the couch for now. At the moment it's all exposed, and the parts are laid out on my bed and on the living room table.

I had the same episode but with Coke instead. The keys were very sticky and a lot didn't respond like it should.

I figured that the keyboard was broken and thought "hell, I might as well try something drastic to fix this".

I gave my keyboard a good rinse in the shower. I made sure that I washed out all the coke and everything so there wouldn't be any sugar-residue left. I drowned the hell out of my keyboard to make sure I got out all the Coke (Soda, not cocaine mind you)

I cleaned the hell out of my keyboard and I then started to dry it. I was shaking my keyboard like mad to try and get as much water to run out of my keyboard before I stored it in a warm place. The water had evaporated and my keyboard worked like if it was new. This was over two years ago and I'm still using the same keyboard.

I prefer water over alcohol (This is the only case where I'd ever say that sentence ) that you used just because I find it to work better as long as you use a lot of it. Trust me.

Corsair is love. Corsair is life.


TLDR: Give it a GOOD RINSE, preferably soak it properly under water. Let it dry FOR LONGER THAN NEEDED and then plug in and beg to whoever you believe in.

Make sure that there isn't any water or humidity before plugging it in.

(Sep 16, 2015, 01:11 PM)Enzyme link Wrote:I had the same episode but with Coke instead. The keys were very sticky and a lot didn't respond like it should.

I figured that the keyboard was broken and thought "hell, I might as well try something drastic to fix this".

I gave my keyboard a good rinse in the shower. I made sure that I washed out all the coke and everything so there wouldn't be any sugar-residue left. I drowned the hell out of my keyboard to make sure I got out all the Coke (Soda, not cocaine mind you)

I cleaned the hell out of my keyboard and I then started to dry it. I was shaking my keyboard like mad to try and get as much water to run out of my keyboard before I stored it in a warm place. The water had evaporated and my keyboard worked like if it was new. This was over two years ago and I'm still using the same keyboard.

I prefer water over alcohol (This is the only case where I'd ever say that sentence ) that you used just because I find it to work better as long as you use a lot of it. Trust me.

Corsair is love. Corsair is life.


TLDR: Give it a GOOD RINSE, preferably soak it properly under water. Let it dry FOR LONGER THAN NEEDED and then plug in and beg to whoever you believe in.

Make sure that there isn't any water or humidity before plugging it in.

Do the dry sugary remnants from the ice tea pose any threat to the keyboard itself? The keys won't get sticky because I've cleaned them quite well.

There's more sugar in ice-tea than you might know. Ice-tea from stores can  From my experiences it's better to get it cleaned out instead of having a small quantity of it remain inside. It really depends if you made homemade ice-tea or you bought it at a store as ice-tea is sadly packed with a lot of artificial sweetening and sugar.
https://www.sugarstacks.com/beverages.htm

My tip would be to give it a proper rinse, but if you've already started the drying process then you could just see if it's needed or not. If it's working like normal then you're good, but if you experience that quite a few buttons aren't registering properly then it could be the sugar or whatever that is messing with the keyboard. It really depends how and where you cleaned the keyboard. If you only cleaned the surface of the keys themselves then that won't do a lot as you need to get under the cover.

What I did was to take a picture of my keyboard, take off all the keys, give it a proper rinse, let it dry and then assemble it again. Doing this makes it easier to clean the keys themselves as it's easier for the keyboard to dry up faster.
I can't stress how important it is that you make sure that all the water has evaporated before you plug it in though. If possible, open up your keyboard or take off whatever that can make it easier for it to evaporate faster.

This is very similar to how it looked for me:


What you want to clean up is the surface under the "plastic-floor" as that's where all the sensitive electronic part-surfaces (aka circuit board or whatever) and shit is. Cleaning the plastic parts itself is needed as the keys can just get "glued" into position by the ice-tea but it's also very important to make sure that you don't have any ice-tea residue on the circuit boards.

I have a mechanical keyboard myself (Corsair K60 Keyboard) and mine was apparently really sensitive to that.



NOTE: You follow my advice on your own risk. I'm merely talking from experience here and basic knowledge of how keyboards are set-up and how they work.

Pro tip, use demi-water.

(Sep 16, 2015, 08:57 PM)Enzyme link Wrote:-snip-

One problem, he said the keys barely worked, he may have bricked his keyboard by plugging it in and trying it.

Regardless; Linus Tech Tips videos on drying out components (He got water all over an XPS12 and XPS13 but the procedeure should be the same):
https://youtu.be/E8211HNs4eY
https://youtu.be/tASvbnODtq4

The reason Enzyme tells you to give it a good rinse is because all chemicals or other stuff will create an electronic bridge between the lanes on the circuit boards (and in the worst case short some wires on the keys themself), by rinsing this out with water you remove this gap, preventing a short circuit. (Yes, sugar is conductive when the distances are so small)

Disclaimer: These are not guarantess that your keyboard will work, its merely a suggestion when all else fails.

oh noes

Did the same thing but with Vanilla Coke and it f*cked my keyboard too. Calling Mr Tremin for help wasn't very easy to say the least.

Thanks to everyone (esp. enzyme) for your responses.

I will rinse it thouroughly with water if it doesn't work properly, even after completely drying.
If it doesn't work after that, I will take a cold shower in the fetal position while crying.

I spilt Milkshake on mine, I just clicked the key a few 100' times and it was no longer sticky

RIP

Put the keyboard in some rice over night
The rice will attract asians
The asians will then come and fix it for you during night