Clickety-Clack

May 3, 2006 3:53 PM

How do I make my noisy iBook keyboard quieter?

The keyboard on my 6 month old iBook is hella noisy, as opposed to near silent like it was when I first bought it. I'm assuming that this is due to dirt and lunch getting in the keys. I've cleaned it with canned air and a folded up tissue in the cracks, and this helped a little bit. I also tried using one of the iSkin keyboard protectors, but it doesn't fit well. I liked, however, the way that it made the keys feel, and that it made them a good deal quieter.

So what do I do now? Do I really have to take all the keys off and clean them myself? I did that on my Apple USB keyboard the other night and it was really easy, but it looks like it's a dangerous, scary pain in the ass on the iBooks and Powerbooks -- something about membranes and keycaps and other crazy stuff.

MeFites with iBooks and Powerbooks: have you had this problem? How did you fix it?

posted by rossination to computers & internet (6 comments total)

The keys are held on by clipping to a one to two metal hinge things. You can pop them off and clean them, I've done it.
posted by cellphone at 3:59 PM on May 3, 2006

If you can parse through my shitty grammar, that is.
posted by cellphone at 3:59 PM on May 3, 2006

Seconding doing it; I've done it a few times without success. I've also tossed it in the dishwasher and left it for 2 days to dry with success too.
posted by dflemingdotorg at 5:00 PM on May 3, 2006

Sorry, I should have made myself more clear. The problem is with the keyboard on my iBook -- not any sort of USB peripheral deal. I don't think that I'd want to toss the laptop into the dishwasher.
posted by rossination at 5:08 PM on May 3, 2006

You can disconnect your ibook keyboard, actually. I wouldn't recommend throwing it in the dishwasher though, personally.
posted by cellphone at 5:16 PM on May 3, 2006

I've bought replacement keyboards for my iBook at the Apple Store for around $50 or so. They might be more expensive for newer iBook models; mine's about three years old. I gave up trying to remedy the problem myself after i tried to remove the keys individually to clean them and broke three of them in the process.
posted by makonan at 7:12 PM on May 3, 2006