Did my underwater keyboard submerge my PC?

November 22, 2006 3:15 PM

Did my keyboard try to kill my computer?

Last night, some idiot I left a glass of water next to my keyboard, where the spawn of satan my kitty of course thought it was a toy and knocked it over, into the keyboard.

The keyboard is fried (it's an old piece of crap, so I care not, I got a replacement), but when I attempted to boot up the computer this morning to verify that, the computer wouldn't boot up. It froze on the XP splash screen that appears when the machine is first booted, and didn't move. I had to shut down and unplug the machine, let it sit for a while, and then replug and start again.

Once I got it to start, it then ran through a big ol' diagnostic check, because, I assume, it didn't end or start normally. Once the check was completed, the computer booted fine, and now appears to be 100% ok.

Is this all due to the fried keyboard, or is something else going on? I'm running XP on a 2 year old Dell desktop PC that has shown no signs of decay, if that makes a difference.

posted by pdb to technology (11 comments total)

Is this a USB keyboard?

If so, try leaving it unplugged during the boot sequence and plug it in when Windows is back up.
posted by converge at 3:29 PM on November 22, 2006

Is this a USB keyboard?

No, it's...uh....er....the other kind. And I didn't unplug it during the boot sequence, and it did eventually boot OK. Took a couple tries and an unplug of the power, though.
posted by pdb at 3:33 PM on November 22, 2006

if your xp expects to see a working keyboard and doesn't, yes, this can lock it up when booting ... in fact, some bioses won't even let you get as far as the splash screen, they'll just beep at you

but if it's working with a replacement, there's nothing to worry about now ... except of course, your computer hating cat ...
posted by pyramid termite at 3:45 PM on November 22, 2006

Probably has nothing to do with the keyboard. Like Pyramid said, if you don't have a working keyboard the BIOS will most likely beep an error code and hang before you get the splash screen.
posted by reformedjerk at 4:06 PM on November 22, 2006

Since you already bought a new keyboard, just toss the old one and forget it. They cost almost nothing and you have little attachment to it. If you still have a water short in the keyboard, theoretically you could damage the computer. Just... not worth it. Let the keyboard go to keyboard heaven. :)
posted by Malor at 4:08 PM on November 22, 2006

(I was, btw, reading that the machine was failing with the old keyboard when you tried to test to see if it was really dead... if I misread that, my apologies.)
posted by Malor at 4:09 PM on November 22, 2006

Yeah, the replacing of the keyboard wasn't really the issue, I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't something else going on...thanks all!
posted by pdb at 5:31 PM on November 22, 2006

"No, it's...uh....er....the other kind"

PS/2.
posted by Freaky at 7:49 PM on November 22, 2006

See, that must have been why my cat dumped water on it. He wanted a PS3.

Thanks, I'm here all week.
posted by pdb at 8:30 PM on November 22, 2006 [1 favorite]

Your arms must be tired.
posted by Dunwitty at 8:54 PM on November 22, 2006

PS/2 ports (I have read in enough trustworthy places that I believe this to be non-apocryphal) are not hot-pluggable (unlike USB ports, which you can swap at will), and plugging-in or unplugging keyboards or mice with that connector can damage your motherboard if the power is on. Turn your PC off before plugging things in to PS/2 ports, is the advice I have always heard.

I've never had a problem, though.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:54 PM on November 22, 2006