Safe to use external keyboard with possible moisture in the built-in one?

Question

I might have gotten some liquid in my laptop's built-in keyboard a few months ago. Although it dried out and was fine for some time, now that's the weather has gotten humid, it acted up again--glitching out, thinking keys are being held when they're not, etc. The heat and humidity died down, and now it's been fine again.

I got an external USB keyboard because I thought mine was going to have to be pulled out. The tech I'm taking it to hasn't responded to me for a few days (I know him personally and I know he's busy) so I would like to know: IF there is some kind of residual moisture in the built-in keyboard, is it safe for me to use the external one? I don't know much about electronics; is it even possible to short out other components of the laptop (harddrive, motherboard, etc.) if there's moisture in the keyboard even though I'm not physically pressing any keys?

I don't have a comfortable level of experience to pull the keyboard myself and manually disconnect the power ribbon or anything. I've tried disabling it as well, but device manager has the disable option greyed out and I don't have a manual on/off switch for the keyboard. I would assume something like that would make it so that there was no current in the keyboard and nothing else would short out, but if I can't turn it off, is it safer for me to just -not- use the laptop rather than hooking up the external keyboard?

Another thing that I thought of, is that there may be a loose connection in the keyboard instead of the tea (plain, unsweetened--just tea bags and water) I almost spilled on it in December. When it first started acting up, pressing in the upper-righthand corner of the keyboard made a "click" noise, and it worked ok for a few minutes after that. About five minutes later, though, it was back to the same symptoms. Could that be relevant?

I hope this made sense.
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

No need to disable the existing one, just don't use it. Keep in mind, if there is moisture in your keyboard, it could also be in the computer itself. I'd recommend backing up your data in case it crashes, but using an external keyboard is no problem.



On a side note, replacing keyboards is actually pretty simple, but understandably a bit intimidating. You may save some money by buying a new keyboard online (Amazon usually has them for around $10), and getting a tech-savvy friend or local computer shop to replace it.



The whole job should take less than 30 minutes if the repair tech is even a little savvy.

Answer 2

Yes you can use the external keyboard and you can use that if you spilt a sugary drink on the keyboard it isn't going to be good. If it was a sugary drink the sugar messes it up and it happened to my brother once and it was fine for a bit afterwards but then individual keys started cutting out so we went to get it fixed and that is what the guy said. It didn't cost that much to get it fixed it was like £20-£30 and it is fine now.

Answer 3

Yes you can use a external keyboard with the laptop but disable the built in keyboard to keep it from interfering with the external since the built in keyboard is either shorting out or bad.

Answer 4

placed them down, consistently. in case you supply as much as think of roughly it the those that love you would be making your funeral arrangements. the moral majority ought to no longer placed the crime on carry and take a examine out to cajole the criminal to resign and you do not have the alternative of employing under deadly rigidity while they're hell bent on killing and raping. they have made themselves completely clean. Day or evening, in or out of yank, God almighty gives you the properly suited to kill in protection of your self or others. Why? simply by fact they're attempting homicide it relatively is a sin, killing to ward off homicide is justified by ability of the choose of all. Bust a cap in his ***.