#steelseries keyboard

[msbarrows]

Well... the big keyboard is plugged in again after another 24 hours of drying and, so far, everything is working again! Think it may indeed have just been a little moisture still trapped in the case that had it acting up yesterday.

*Crosses fingers that it continues working fine*

So glad to have it working properly again. I missed the numerical pad and the 10 directional keys and the media keys and even the `~ key beside the 1 that my mini keyboard doesn't have, because that's the key used to pause when playing TS4 (and The Sims is extremely irritating to play when you can't pause it near-instantly).

For a keyboard that cost me about $90 over six years ago, I am very happy with how robust it appears to be. It has survived being coated in pasta with meat sauce and rinsed off with hot tap water, plus being powered back on while there was (probably) still moisture in the case, and I don't think that that's something many of my previous keyboards could have survived. At whatever point it does finally die, I will be happily replacing it with another Steelseries, because so far I'm very happy with the durability of their mice and keyboards.

[msbarrows]

Still not sure if the keyboard survived its pasta bath or not. On pulling keycaps and checking, the top surface is pretty solidly built; the keycaps aren't in cutouts in the top surface, but instead in molded-in indents with their bases rising from them, so the only places moisture could potentially get inside the case is mostly filled by the keycaps when they're in place. Did some spot checking at the end that got drenched in pasta and the tray and caps were all clean (yay!). Gave it a good vacuuming to remove any loose material.

It's dry winter weather and a day and a half since I rinsed off the pasta, so I risked plugging it in and turning it on. All the lights came on, and in initial testing all the keys were responding correctly, but then after a few minutes of use a few individual keys stopped working (checked those specific keycaps, they're clean). My guess is that there is some moisture inside the keyboard, and it (hopefully only temporarily) is interfering. (Hopefully I have not ruined it by powering it back on too soon.)

Going to check again tomorrow and Monday, and then if it's still not working, well, time to hit the Boxing Day sales the next day.

Should find a fan I can stick it in front of, to encourage dry air to circulate into the case. Or perhaps stick it behind a fan, to have the moist air inside it drawn out. Some sort of arrangement to encourage further drying, anyway.

[msbarrows]

GDI...

...well that f-ing sucked. Managed to drop a bowl of pasta on my keyboard (the perils of eating while computing).

Not sure if it'll survive the experience. I powered down immediately, rushed it upstairs, dumped the mound of pasta into the composting bin, and then for lack of any better ideas gave it a thorough rinsing with hot tap water to get the meat sauce out from between the keys (ack!). It's currently drip-drying face down on a towel, after which I'll be placing it by the basement dehumidifier and running that for 2-3 days, before blasting it with canned air to remove any particulate remains, and seeing if it still works once plugged in. I have my fingers crossed but my expectations low.

In the meantime I have the mini bluetooth gaming keyboard I bought to use when playing Steam games (via their app) on my tablet, which I've paired to my laptop for now. It's MUCH smaller than my regular keyboard but the actual keyboarding portion is only slightly smaller than full sized; it's just missing things like a separate numbers keypad or any of the cursor positioning keys like home, end, pgup, and a lot of blank space. In other words rather a PITA to use when you're used to a full extended keyboard with macro keys and suchlike, but at least it works.

Oh well, if my real keyboard has just met it's doom, at least it's good timing to buy a replacement in Boxing Day sales. :\