Blowing air into dusty laptop keyboard or hoovering it?

[Ottavio Caruso]

My laptop keyboard is dusty AF. I have a powerful hair dryer but I have no hoover.

What could possibly happen if I blow [cold of course] air into my keyboard vs sucking it out with a hoover?

[The Natural Philosopher]

shitty gritty into the membranes or switches

Vaccuum it. If its still crap and a membrane, but a new one for a tenner,

If its mechanical, try a compressed air lance

[Colin Bignell]

I usually turn my upside down and bang on the desk a couple of times. Amazing what comes out. However, do recall there used to be a squeezy bulb that puffed air and was sold for the purpose of keyboard cleaning, so the principle seems to have been used before.

[jkn]

Worth taking one or more of:

- a 1/2" or so paint brush

- an old toothbrush

- the sticky part of some post-it notes

and running them around and under the keys, with the laptop upside down if possible.

Vacuuming is better than blowing - you don't know where the crud is getting blown to - but you do run a risk of sucking some of the keytops off...

J^n

[Robin]

seems to me bold and courageous for the OP's *laptop* keyboard

[Mike Clarke]

Prise the keycaps off and wipe up all the detritus. But take a photo first so you get all the caps back in the right places.

There's numerous YouTube videos showing how to do this.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Whatever turns you on.

[Colin Bignell]

The skill is in knowing how hard to hit it ;-)

[charles]

"Percussive maintainence" needs to be carefully callibrated

[R D S]

Do both.

[farter]

It can blow the breadcrumbs etc under the keytops and make the key intermittent.

[Rod Speed]

I do too, but don't bang it on the desk, I whack it with my hand on the back of the keyboard, now at the top. And I eat my breakfast toast where I compute while reading stuff like usenet or the text news, so do get a few breadcrumps on the keyboard at times.

Facebook is currently running ads for a small handheld battery powered vaccum cleaner spruiked as being perfect for keyboards. Haven't bothered to get on since my tapping of the inverted keyboard works fine for me.

[Brian Gaff]

In the onld days they used to say that it generated static and could destroy semiconductors, but most modern equipment is a lot hardier these days. I've never had an issue, but tell you what if ever you have cause to dismantle a laptop the spaace under the keys is often still disgustingly filthy. Are you asking this due to malfunction, or merely the look of it? Brian

[Andy Burns]

grit in the hinges/switches, buy some of the sticky snot cleaning gunge?