Cleaning a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000 keyboard

"I just put my Ergonomic 4000 keyboard through the dishwasher and I'm happy to report it works perfectly.

Here's what I recommend:

Use the top rack
Face the keys downward
Use little/no soap
Remove before drying cycle

After the washing, I shook it out as best as possible and then let it sit in a hot room for three days. After plugging it back in, everything worked great.

I did have a bit of white soap residue on the palm rest that I was easily able to remove with a wet sponge."

"Putting an electronic keyboard, especially this one, through a dishwasher is not a good idea, unless you want to sell more keyboards.
The inside of the keyboard is made up of three plastic layers sandwiched together. The top and bottom layers have metal wires laid out like a printed circuit board. The middle layer is an insulator, but with holes that line up with each of the keys on the keyboard. Metal traces on the top and bottom of each hole are separated by air in the thickness of the middle layer of plastic.
When a key is not pressed, these metal traces do not touch one another. When a key is pressed, the top layer is pressed down into the hole until the metal trace at the top touches the metal trace at the bottom and completes the circuit. When you let up on the key, the plastic returns to its original position with the metal traces not touching.

Now, what happens when you introduce water? The top and bottom layers of plastic do not have any exposed holes near these switches, so water can't enter there. However, the Achilles heal is the edge of the plastic and the alignment holes that go through all 3 layers. When a liquid hits an edge or one of these through-holes, the layers of plastic act like a capillary, and draw the liquid between the layers. Everything is still okay...until the liquid finds its way to one of the switch contacts. The liquid can short out a switch contact and it will act as if the key is permanently pressed. Other liquids, for example, the milk that my kids spilled on the keyboard, will wick into the plastic, turn to cheese, and could act as an insulator or a conductor.

I tried taking the keyboard apart, peeling apart the 3 layers, which are not fastened to each other, cleaning, drying, and re-assembling. It still didn't work, so my kids are splitting the cost of a new keyboard."

"Unless your keyboard was made in the 70s, its not a good idea.

In addition to what people suggested earlier

For very dirty conventional keyboards, i'd recommend a wipe with a damp cloth the get the surface dirt off, pop off the keytops (photographing it first if you can!), and putting it a delicates (steal one from the missus!) bag before putting JUST the keys in the washing machine for a quick, cold water cycle.

For between keys or places you can't scrub, or general dust removal, especially on non removable keytops . i tend to use something called cyberclean to clean between keyboards. Ars technica's review wasn't very positive, but the stuff works, just smush it on your keyboard and the crud stucks to it - a 9 dollar jar of the stuff lasts for 3-6 months for general keyboard cleaning, so its pretty worth it."