Spilled a bit of soda on my Razer BlackWidow Ultimate

[Teny]

Hello, last night, I was kind of stumbling over my desk and knocked over my soda (thought I drank it all as nothing would come out when I try to drink it), and it was spilled over my keyboard. So what I did was get some paper towels to clean/dry them (from gaps and the top). It was working fine for awhile, but now it kind of works.
The place where I spilled my soda was over "J", "K", "L", ";", "'", "M", ",", ".", "/" keys. Now the "," key doesn't work. However, when I press "J", "K", ";", ".", right control, and left arrow, it would register the "," key, and hold it. For example...

j,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,k,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,l,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,;,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,'

It stops when I press some other key that doesn't somehow register the "," key.

Is there anyway to fix this?
Thank you in advance.

 

[jmacavali]

Sounds like it's sticking. I'm not familiar with the keyboard, but I'm guessing since it has a name, it's expensive and/or very good. Is there a way to pop the keys off and clean up underneath them?

 

[Teny]

It seems like its possible to pop the keys out, but not quite sure on how to do it since its a mechanical keyboard.

The keyboard costs me about $150 after taxes.

 

[jmacavali]

I guess it's your call, but to me it would be worth a try because it's pretty useless right now as is. But it might dry out and work over time. Sometimes when I've run into a sticky keyboard, the best solution is just to use it....although in your case you can't even do that.



This is just me, but I'm not eating/drinking at my computer desk if my keyboard is $150....LOL

 

[Teny]

Lol, yeah I guess I shouldn't have done that. Though this was actually my first time spilling something on my keyboard.

Isn't stuck keys when keys don't work when its pressed? What about when other keys start registering other keys?

 

[cboucher]

I've had pretty good luck cleaning keyboards that someone spilled a drink on. Soda is particularly hard to clean since it's so sticky. What you have to do is flip the keyboard over and remove all the screws and take it completely apart. Inside, you'll find plastic sheets with the terminals for each of the keys printed on them. The sheets are two-ply and the way the keypress signal is sent is by pressing the first sheet contact so it touches the contact on the second sheet to complete the circuit. What you have to do is clean in between all the plastic sheets with anti-static glass cleaner. The best cleaner to use for this is called "Brillianize" (which is actually an anti-static plastics cleaner, but also works great on glass and most other non-porous surfaces). It is kind of hard to find this stuff in stores, though. So anyways, clean in between all the plastic sheets and also take out each physical key and clean where the key slides in and out of the housing. Then just put it all back together and it should work just like it did when it was new.

 

[Teny]

Does this apply to mechanical keyboards as well?

 

[cboucher]

I've never actually taken apart the exact model keyboard you have, but I've taken apart and cleaned a lot of keyboards, including laptop keyboards. Even if the inside of your keyboard isn't exactly like the ones I've dealt with, taking it apart and cleaning is still the way to go. Especially when you're dealing with soda... When you get it apart you're going to see all kinds of crap in there that needs to be cleaned out. Crumbs, hair, random filth....

 

[Teny]

I've decided to pop out the keys to see if I can clean anything. After using compressed air and paper towels, it seems like it works (only tried pressing a few keys, so I still have to fully try the keyboard). If this doesn't fully repair it, then I will take the screws out. Only bad thing now is that the "," key doesn't make that click clack sound.

Test.....

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog,
the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog,
the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Yep, seems like it works now. There was a bit of gunk left around the "'" key. After I wiped it, it seems to work now. Still a bit sad that the "," key doesn't make the click clack sound. Thanks for the help guys. Though I should take it apart and clean thoroughly.

 

[cboucher]

On some keyboards there are little metal or plastic lifting mechanisms that push the key back up after it has been pressed. The one for your "," key may be bent or loose or something. As long as you're careful, you should be able to put it back into the proper position providing it didn't actually break.