Comments on: Clickety-Clack

Question: Clickety-Clack

rossination — Wed, 03 May 2006 15:53:15 -0800

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?

By: cellphone

cellphone — Wed, 03 May 2006 15:59:20 -0800

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.

By: cellphone

cellphone — Wed, 03 May 2006 15:59:50 -0800

If you can parse through my shitty grammar, that is.

By: dflemingdotorg

dflemingdotorg — Wed, 03 May 2006 17:00:35 -0800

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.

By: rossination

rossination — Wed, 03 May 2006 17:08:00 -0800

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.

By: cellphone

cellphone — Wed, 03 May 2006 17:16:48 -0800

You can disconnect your ibook keyboard, actually. I wouldn't recommend throwing it in the dishwasher though, personally.

By: makonan

makonan — Wed, 03 May 2006 19:12:11 -0800

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.