Edit ArticleHow to Clean a Laptop Are the keys on your laptop starting to stick? Is your new laptop starting to look like something you found in the trash? Here are some steps that you can take to clean it up yourself. Get the right cleaning supplies for your laptop. Turn off the laptop and remove the battery. Remove the mouse, any discs or CDs, USB keys and anything else that is connected or protruding from your laptop. If you want to clean the laptop with the keys still attached you will need to use the can of compressed air. If you want to clean the laptop without the keys connected, as well as the keys themselves, you will need to use a knife to remove them. Be careful when taking them out so that you do not damage the keys, the connectors, or yourself Before prying keys off, make sure you understand how to replace them. Some laptop keys are harder to reassemble than others. If you're not sure, try popping off one key and replacing it before you pop them all off.

Fill up a bowl with water and a few drops of regular dish soap. Fill another bowl with half lukewarm water and the other half isopropyl alcohol. Clean out the ports along the sides of the laptop. Leave your laptop out so that it can dry thoroughly. Pop your keyboard keys back on when you’re sure that your machine and the keys are both fully dry. Use a special screen cleaning solution to clean your screen. article about air duct cleaningSpray some onto a microfiber cloth and gently wipe it over the screen. best room air purifier moldShake out the cloth to get rid of dust and grit, then apply more cleaning solution to a clean part of the cloth and go over the screen gently. air purifier australia where to buy

Do not use a lot of pressure while cleaning the screen. Do this last, so that your screen is free of any debris you generated when cleaning the rest of the laptop. Do not use normal soap, as it can damage your screen or decrease its performance. Keep drinks and food away from your laptop. Make sure to wash your hands before using your laptop keyboard. If you remove the keys from the keyboard, make sure you know where they go afterwards. Use another keyboard as a guide, or print off a key map from the internet. Be aware that a can of compressed air does not simply contain air but contains a toxic chemical. Use it in a well-ventilated area and don't inhale the contents. Never plug in and turn on your machine until you are certain that is completely dry.No matter how clean a house you keep, your computers and gadgets are bound to get a little dirty here and there. Here's what you need to clean them, and how to do it without hurting them. Your gadgets aren't as resilient as they might seem, and just spraying Windex on everything and rubbing it down with a paper towel can cause all sorts of damage to a device.

However, they are remarkably easy to clean as long as you do it right—and you can do most of it with just a few simple household items (or at the very least, a trip to CVS). Here's how to do it.Blast from the past is a weekly feature at Lifehacker in which we revive old, but still relevant, posts for your reading and hacking pleasure. This week, Linus Tech Tips made this great video using some of our past posts as inspiration, so we're featuring it alongside many of our original cleaning tips for your gadgets. LCD screens are pretty delicate, and you don't want to press hard on them, because that can burn out the pixels. Instead, turn your monitor off (so you can better see the dirty spots), and grab a dry microfiber cloth. Many monitors and other gadgets come with one. From there, just gently wipe the screen. If you need to, add a little bit of water. In most cases, that should be all you need. If you have a more hearty build-up of spots or gunk, resist the urge to press hard and wet the cloth with a 50-50 mix of water and white vinegar.

You can use a special monitor cleaner if you desire, but the vinegar/water mix should work just fine. If you can, use distilled water instead of tap water, since tap water is likely to leave white spots on your screen from salt or other deposits.Remember, as you're doing this, that you want to use a soft cloth, preferably microfiber. Do not use anything paper-based, like paper towel, Kleenex, or toilet paper, since it can scratch up your monitor. If you don't have a microfiber cloth, coffee filters will do in a pinch. Also remember never to spray any liquid on the monitor itself—always spray it on your cloth first. Like your monitor, the best cleaner for a touch screen device is either plain old water or a 50/50 mix of distilled water and vinegar. That said, touch screens are a bit more resilient than LCD monitors, due to the fact that they're meant to be touched, so you can press a bit harder if you have a particularly stubborn spot (don't go overboard, though). Just like everything else, use a microfiber cloth and spray the cloth, not the screen, with a small amount of liquid before wiping it down.

The last thing you need is to get your phone wet, void your warranty, and break something important (like the charging socket).If you want to not only clean but disinfect your touch screen, you can use a bit of isopropyl alcohol on some devices (Apple, for example, does not recommend it). Check your manufacturer's warnings to see what they allow.Lastly, if your smartphone is filled with dust, dirt, and other disgusting sediment, you may have to open it up and give it a deeper clean, a process that our friends at the How-To Geek have gone through in detail. We've mentioned this before, but our friends over at the How-To Geek have a great rundown on how to deep clean your keyboard. If your keyboard is only mildly dirty, you should be able to get by with two things: blowing some compressed air in between the keys (to blow out dust) and cleaning dirty keys with a swab of rubbing alcohol to remove oil, grime, and germs. Alternatively, we've become very big fans of the Mr. Clean Magic eraser, and it'll do wonders for a grimy keyboard, especially if it's noticeably oily.

If your keyboard's rather disgusting, though, you might have to pop out the keys and really dig in with a toothbrush. Check out their full guide for more info on how to do that. Also, don't forget to turn your keyboard off (if it's wireless) or unplug it (if it's wired) before you start cleaning. If you're just giving it a quick wipe-down, though, and don't want to get behind your tower, you can use an app like previously mentioned ToddlerTrap (Windows) previously mentioned Keyboard Cleaner (Mac) to turn it off while you touch it up. With the exception of old-school mice or the Apple Mighty Mouse, most mice shouldn't need to be opened up to be cleaned. Generally, you can just turn it over and take a cotton swab to the rubber pads, wetting it with water or alcohol if necessary. For the mouse buttons, you should be able to clean it in much the same way you did the keyboard—use some alcohol on a cotton swab to rub away dirt and grime. If you absolutely have to, you can look up a guide to taking apart your mouse, but know that this probably voids your warranty and shouldn't be necessary in most cases.

Also, remember to turn off or unplug your mouse before cleaning. If you have some non-acetone nail polish remover around, it's been known to clean up laptops (especially lightly-colored ones, like the old white MacBooks) quite well, but nothing works quite as well as the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Get it wet, wring out as much water as you can, and lightly rub it over your trackpad, keyboard, and laptop body. It should clean them up, remove any grease from your fingers, and give it that new, fresh-from-the-store look. Don't press down too hard, since the Magic Eraser has a tendency to "shed" when rubbed hard, which will just dirty your computer up more. It's also an abrasive, which means it can rub off whatever coating is on your device if you press hard. If your computer's grimier than that, clean your keyboard with an alcohol-soaked swap as described above in the keyboard section. These are the most recommended products and methods on the net for cleaning your gadgets, but it's likely that your manufacturer has its own recommendations (Apple certainly does), so check their web site or instruction manuals for more detailed information.