Cafe au laptop

A couple of days ago, Megan called me at work with an emergency. "My computer is typing random letters when I type!" At first, I suspected the worst–a virus or piece of mal-ware had been installed and was hijacking her keyboard. After a couple of troubleshooting questions, we eliminated that possibility. Then we recalled that Logan had accidently yanked the computer off a counter the day before. The laptop had not exhibited any problems after the fall, but I suspected it might be a cause.

I continued asking Megan questions about the situation: When did the symptoms begin? How long had she been using her computer before the trouble? Had she moved the computer? Had anything unusual occured? At that point, she mentioned that she had "splashed" a little coffee onto the keyboard earlier. I began to suspect we had isolated the cause. I had her turn off the computer and let it dry out.

When I got home, I removed the keyboard and found a sizeable portion of the keyboard was sticky with the remains of her sweet, caffeinated concoction. The dried coffee spread roughly from the left shift key to the F key. I made several attempts to clean up the keyboard including rinsing the keyboard with water (the keyboard was removed and I have seen this described before) but only succeeded in making the problem worse. Currently, a new keyboard for her laptop is on order from a seller on eBay.

The moral of the story: Wireless laptops and delicious lattes are good things best enjoyed separately.