Need Your Computer Help!

[Mofokubik]

So here's the story. Last night I spilled water on my laptop (and pandora GASP! but the 'dora is fine). The laptop is still working, but several buttons on the keyboard are ruined. They don't stick, they're either completely unresponsive or it's like i'm holding them down. So if I push "R" I get nothing, but 10 seconds later I get "RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR" and this causes all sorts of problems because of keyboard shortcuts.

I uninstalled the keyboard in the device manager and restart the computer, and when the computer boots back up it's autodetected and installed again and even wants me to reboot again to save changes. I checked in the bios but there are no options for input devices.

Is there a way I can just disable the onboard keyboard and use a usb one instead? I'm using an acer aspire one with windows xp pro.

 

[Mr B]

Not to sure about what the laptop is going to say about it, but tearing it open, the keyboard is connected through a similar cable to the one the Panda has for the screen. Unhook it, and screw the laptop back together, and the keyboard will be gone. It may very well end up not detecting your USB keyboard for BIOS purposes, and complain, but it's perhaps worth a shot?
(Imagine the problems with "press F1 to boot, F2 for setup" or similar, with no keyboard present to the system...)
B!

 

[___]

I wouldn't think your keyboard is completely broken just yet. Let it dry for a day or two and see if it is still behaving weird. Maybe you don't even have to detach the ribbon cable or anything and the keys will work fine again.

 

[Orion4874]

The best thing to do in situations like that is take a hair dryer to it as soon as possible, as long as it's just water mind you. Letting it sit for a while to air dry is worth a shot but I doubt it will make a difference. Open it up and clean the contacts with a cotton swab and some alcohol. When water dries it does leave some residue so you want to get that off. Plus it also depends on how bad the water is in your area, you don't have water softeners hooked up by any chance?

Oh, it's best to use denatured or anhydrous alcohol but it's not as easy to find. Craft stores and such should sell it. Or you could just use contact cleaner but imo doesn't work as good.