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[Fixed] Spilled Chocolate Milk Keyboard


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DISCLAIMER

Disassembly of your keyboard will in fact void your Corsair warranty so proceed at your own risk with this knowledge. The only reason I decided to do this is because SPILL DAMAGE also voids your Corsair warranty!!! I do not recommend this for anyone experiencing any issues that are not tied to accidental damage and an already voided warranty!!!

 

TL:DR, TL:DR

Keyboard spill, bathed disassembled keyboard in 70% Isoprop Alcohol tub, keyboard works again.

 

TL:DR

* The italicized text in my list are steps that I took that did not contribute to repairing the keyboard, skip these! They're mostly an FYI, for the curious.

* The bolded text in my list are steps that contributed to repairing the keyboard!

 

The title says it all, my son was watching me play Mass Effect Andromeda. Mommy decided to give him, a 6 year old child, an adult cup filled to the brim with Chocolate Milk...you know the rest. Sadly, it wasn't a slight spill, the ENTIRE cup of chocolate milk spilled straight on to my 1 month old $200 K95 RGB Platinum. Well I am currently typing this with above mentioned keyboard and currently the only issues I note with it is that the "0" on the top number row and the "i" require a bit more pressure than usual to operate. I will detail below what didn't work and what did work for me! I hope this helps someone else out there!

 

1) After the initial spill in less that 2 seconds I unplugged my keyboard. This is key because you want to cut power IMMEDIATELY to the board. Any continued use of the keyboard while "shorting" is happening can result in permanent damage!

 

2) At this point, I turned my keyboard upside down and asked my wife for some help while I dried myself off. (Luckily humans do not suffer the same fate as keyboards from spilled milk :laughing:)

 

3)My initial goal was to get the board as dry as possible so I took all the keys off and let sit until dry.

 

4) After the board was dry I plugged it back in and everything was going haywire! After some online research this is due to the sugars inside of the spilled drink (chocolate milk). If the liquid had been water or something with less contaminants this may have been enough (difficult to say with certainty).

 

5) During my online research, I found someone that had a similar issue, they used High Percentage Isopropyl Alcohol in a spray bottle and doused the keyboard, after letting it dry they claimed this work. So I did this and let it dry on a fan over night. In the morning I grabbed the board and it had extremely sticky keys, meaning the milk inside the mx switches was still present. This would not suffice for me...since my warranty was voided I decided to go all out.

 

6) I completely disassembled the board down to the front plate with all of the Cherry MX switches and the PCB. (see below for some pointers for disassembly) I think I would of been able to pop the PCB off the switches but I was scared to damage the board so I left them connected together.

 

7) I grabbed the box the keyboard was shipped to me in and lined it with a trash bag using tape to hold it down. Then I placed the PCB/MX switch plate inside and poured the entire 16fl oz of 70% Isopropyl Alcohol inside and "bathed" the board. I did not scrub it with anything other than friction by "swooshing" all the liquid around like a washing machine.

 

8) After about 10 minutes of this I took the PCB/MX switch plate out, shook it, placed it on an old shirt face down and pointed a fan at it. I stood it up in different positions and angles throughout the drying time so the fan can hit as much of it as possible.

 

9) After only about 4 hours of drying I plugged it in and to my surprise it worked! (This is because alcohol dries a lot faster than water) The best part is even the RGB background lighting works which was my biggest worry!

 

Dissassembly Pointers

-There is a hidden screw on the top right of your board, this prevents the full removal of the back plate. It is under the cap to the right of the volume cylinder, be gentle I broke mine taking it off but had a spare from an old K95 version.

 

-There aren't that many types of screws so it is very difficult to mix them up.

 

-There is two small PCBs on top of the keyboard, one for your macros/profiles and one for the multimedia buttons, I fully removed both of these.

 

I didn't take any pictures but if enough people ask I can do this entire process on my old K95 which also had spill damage. I can take pictures throughout the disassembly/cleaning process.

 

/thread

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Thank you!

 

As a quick update, the "i" key and the "0" key stopped working all together. I gave it some time hoping it was a drying issue and the "0" key started working by itself. The "i" key continued to be down so I ended up force flashing the firmware and that didn't work...lastly I took it back to the old Super Nintendo days and I blew into the "i" MX switch LOL, it's working fine now.

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  • 1 year later...
DISCLAIMER

Disassembly of your keyboard will in fact void your Corsair warranty so proceed at your own risk with this knowledge. The only reason I decided to do this is because SPILL DAMAGE also voids your Corsair warranty!!! I do not recommend this for anyone experiencing any issues that are not tied to accidental damage and an already voided warranty!!!

 

TL:DR, TL:DR

Keyboard spill, bathed disassembled keyboard in 70% Isoprop Alcohol tub, keyboard works again.

 

TL:DR

* The italicized text in my list are steps that I took that did not contribute to repairing the keyboard, skip these! They're mostly an FYI, for the curious.

* The bolded text in my list are steps that contributed to repairing the keyboard!

 

The title says it all, my son was watching me play Mass Effect Andromeda. Mommy decided to give him, a 6 year old child, an adult cup filled to the brim with Chocolate Milk...you know the rest. Sadly, it wasn't a slight spill, the ENTIRE cup of chocolate milk spilled straight on to my 1 month old $200 K95 RGB Platinum. Well I am currently typing this with above mentioned keyboard and currently the only issues I note with it is that the "0" on the top number row and the "i" require a bit more pressure than usual to operate. I will detail below what didn't work and what did work for me! I hope this helps someone else out there!

 

1) After the initial spill in less that 2 seconds I unplugged my keyboard. This is key because you want to cut power IMMEDIATELY to the board. Any continued use of the keyboard while "shorting" is happening can result in permanent damage!

 

2) At this point, I turned my keyboard upside down and asked my wife for some help while I dried myself off. (Luckily humans do not suffer the same fate as keyboards from spilled milk :laughing:)

 

3)My initial goal was to get the board as dry as possible so I took all the keys off and let sit until dry.

 

4) After the board was dry I plugged it back in and everything was going haywire! After some online research this is due to the sugars inside of the spilled drink (chocolate milk). If the liquid had been water or something with less contaminants this may have been enough (difficult to say with certainty).

 

5) During my online research, I found someone that had a similar issue, they used High Percentage Isopropyl Alcohol in a spray bottle and doused the keyboard, after letting it dry they claimed this work. So I did this and let it dry on a fan over night. In the morning I grabbed the board and it had extremely sticky keys, meaning the milk inside the mx switches was still present. This would not suffice for me...since my warranty was voided I decided to go all out.

 

6) I completely disassembled the board down to the front plate with all of the Cherry MX switches and the PCB. (see below for some pointers for disassembly) I think I would of been able to pop the PCB off the switches but I was scared to damage the board so I left them connected together.

 

7) I grabbed the box the keyboard was shipped to me in and lined it with a trash bag using tape to hold it down. Then I placed the PCB/MX switch plate inside and poured the entire 16fl oz of 70% Isopropyl Alcohol inside and "bathed" the board. I did not scrub it with anything other than friction by "swooshing" all the liquid around like a washing machine.

 

8) After about 10 minutes of this I took the PCB/MX switch plate out, shook it, placed it on an old shirt face down and pointed a fan at it. I stood it up in different positions and angles throughout the drying time so the fan can hit as much of it as possible.

 

9) After only about 4 hours of drying I plugged it in and to my surprise it worked! (This is because alcohol dries a lot faster than water) The best part is even the RGB background lighting works which was my biggest worry!

 

Dissassembly Pointers

-There is a hidden screw on the top right of your board, this prevents the full removal of the back plate. It is under the cap to the right of the volume cylinder, be gentle I broke mine taking it off but had a spare from an old K95 version.

 

-There aren't that many types of screws so it is very difficult to mix them up.

 

-There is two small PCBs on top of the keyboard, one for your macros/profiles and one for the multimedia buttons, I fully removed both of these.

 

I didn't take any pictures but if enough people ask I can do this entire process on my old K95 which also had spill damage. I can take pictures throughout the disassembly/cleaning process.

 

/thread

 

Thank you so much, you just spared me 200$ <3333

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  • 1 year later...

Thank you for this post, including the disassembly pointers. I spilled about 350ml of sodastream water (with the syrup flavouring) on my K95. I didn't realize how much had gotten into it as I didn't realize it wasn't sealed and thought I had got all the water off with paper towel. Until, that is, some of the keys stopped working and a chunk of the keyboard RGB turned a different colour than the rest. I figured it was the syrupy water, and also that the keyboard was toast, until I saw this post.

 

Long story short, I used the isopropyl alcohol bath suggestion (using the box as well!) for 10 minutes and could see the pinkish color of the water in the alcohol after. I then used compressed air on the switches to try to get as much liquid out and evaporated. I then let the whole board drip back into the container with alcohol. Then placed it in front of a fan for two hours, occasionally again using compressed air into the switches to get any liquid out. After 2 hours (it appeared dry, I should've waited longer), I put it all back together and it worked. All keys work, and RGB is back to working normally. I would note that initially some of the function keys and escape key didn't work, but I pressed them all repeatedly for a few seconds and they started working as normal.

 

I used Aqua Key Test to test the keyboard.

 

I admit I was skeptical and debating the use of the isopropyl alcohol bath. But at the point I was at there was nothing to lose (well out of warranty, and not completely functional.)

 

Thanks again. Another saved keyboard.

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