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Ressurecting a dell laptop board

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Fox:
Hi everyone,

I have a small dilemma with a Dell laptop that I want to set up for my mother to use with Remote Desktop to our downstairs (better) computer.

This is a ~600MHz Dell Latitude CPx. The other option is a Toshiba Satellite 480CDT. The only practical difference for use with remote desktop is the rendering speed (slightly faster on the dell) and the screen quality and resolution (significantly higher on the dell).

The laptop was previously my sister's, and she all but ruined it - the display hinge is floppy, the case is sticky and battered, but worst is the keyboard. She got all kinds of crap in it, and now it's impossible to use normally. It double-registers letters, the key presses are grungy, so you have to put deliberate force into each press for a very specific amount of time. It's pretty maddening.

Anyway, before I take the rest of the keys off, I thought I'd ask anyone if it's worth taking a toothbrush and some isopropyl to it to try and get it working smoothly again. It has a scissor type key with a rubber dome underneath. Seems like it would be a PITA to get apart completely.

I found a guide here on how to do this - is this about right? Does it really take that much, or could I get it usable with a faster method?

Thanks in advance :)

bhtooefr:
To be completely honest, I don't even try cleaning those keyboards, I just go ahead and replace them. That first step is by far the hardest to do without breaking anything, and it seems to be different for every keyboard. And, yes, you'd pretty much have to do it the way that's described in that article.

Knowing how much Dell keyboards typically cost, it'll probably be somewhere around $20-30 to replace it.

lowpoly:
Dish washer? Avoid the dry cycle.

May work depending on construction.

I disassemble the boards as far as possible but try to leave the keycaps on.

Also, I don't put pcbs and membranes in. I also wouldn't try this with closed structures that will dry slowly, like alps or cherry switches. Paint may come off.

Haven't tried rubber domes yet but will do tomorrow morning.

If there's a lot of dirt pressed under the keycap then the dish washer may not be able to remove that.

Fox:
Used replacements are running around 35 dollars on ebay, so that's unfortunate...

My mom says she's happy with the toshiba, but I don't know how that's possible considering that it has an 800x600 display and she refuses to use a real email client, preferring (beyond logic) AOL webmail.

I'll give the quick stuff a try tonight - last ditch effort will be the dishwasher - and see what happens. I'm really debating to myself whether it's worth it considering that the laptop will probably die relatively soon anyway.

Thanks for the advice.

bhtooefr:
Hmm... how well will Opera work with AOL webmail...

Opera has a fit to width option that makes the internet tolerable on small screens - basically, rescaling images, occasionally tweaking the layout of the page... sometimes it breaks pages, but that's rare.

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