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General discussion

USB keyboard / laptop contagion?

Dec 3, 2010 4:18PM PST

Odd thing happened yesterday. I was tapping away on my external USB keyboard on my desk, laptop up at eye level thanks to a makeshift stand (a couple of shoe boxes). I spilt my tea on the right side of the USB keyboard, but not on laptop, then all the keys on the right side of USB kb gave wrong output, e.g. I would hit "N" and get a "5".

So I disconnected the USB keyboard, and tried the laptop which hadnt been touched by my tea. Exact same problem on the laptop keyboard, as if it had caught or mirrored the injury to the USB board. Is that possible? Is it a Vista bug?

Restarts didnt help. AVG shows all clean. Only other unusual thing I did yesterday was install Chrome, which I love.

It was an old laptop anyway so I went out and bought a new one as I had to get on with my work.

But I'd love for someone to solve the keyboard mystery.

Discussion is locked

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Just one idea.
Dec 3, 2010 4:23PM PST

Did you system restore prior to the tea spill?

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um
Dec 3, 2010 7:36PM PST

dont think so..

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Worth a try
Dec 3, 2010 8:15PM PST

Keyboard spills are often difficult to fix. The best solution is to 'hang it out to dry', that is, let it dry naturally and hope that the keyboard circuit board is not damaged.

But since this was an external USB keyboard on a laptop hopefully the OS itself is not permanently damaged. A good attempt to try is, with the laptop's own keyboard only in use, load up Windows and use "System Restore" to revert back to a time and date before the spill happened, to see if that remaps the keyboard to what it should be.

It's not guaranteed of course, but it is a first step.

Mark