How do you clean dirty charging cables and keyboard?

antspants said:

One thing is for certain, newmann is going to need a desk first.

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Why? He can put the tower on the floor the monitor on top, the keyboard on his lap and move the mouse on his hip... Just kidding of course

newmann said:

I'm a germaphobe

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Then why is your floor dirty?

newmann said:

Someone suggested tablet wipes. So any would work? I use those on monitor screen. Can you use that on an iPhone screen?

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Serious question? I think the key word here is “screen”

newmann said:

When another poster mentioned baby wipes, can you give me the name of it

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Open Google, starts with “Baby” ends with “wipes”

newmann said:

Now if you take a Clorox or Lysol wipe and just wipe clean your iPhone charging cables, is that more than good enough disinfecting it?

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No amount of cleaning is enough for a germaphobe, if you were one, you would know this and would probably wear some type of glove.

newmann said:

Like imagine your iPhone charging cable has been dropped on the floor and the floor is really dirty and say it even had poop on the floor

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WTH? Why do you have poop on the floor, you’re apparently a germaphobe, WHY DO YOU HAVE POOP ON THE FLOOR?

There is no way I am taking you seriously after you stringing people along with questions that you’re obviously conjuring up (here & in the “other thread”) to take the *** out of people. This thread reeks of the “Folding Table and External Monitor Setup Questions?” thread.
I am just intrigued and quite seriously wonder why you do it?

newmann said:

... lot of food crumbs as well since I eat while I use it.

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That's probably a bad habit you should endeavor parting with!

newmann said:

I'm a germaphobe...

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Don't be such a germophobic, you'll never build a proper immune system!

House mice will love those little crumbs of food, especially in the wintertime. Wherever there are crumbs look for mouse poop which looks like little kernels of rice and are black or dark brown.

Rollback_Jockey said:

Use baby wipes or disinfectant wipes.

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Basic Baby Wipes are made of a mixture of cotton, rayon, polyester, polythylene, and/or polypropylene. Their main ingredient is water and a mild detergent containing amphoteric surfactants. Some wipes contain chemicals to give them a fresh scent, preservatives are added.
Wet wipes can be effective on non-electronic surfaces. You can clean exterior and interior surfaces of your case, fan blades, the shells of power supplies, hard drives, and optical drives, and other similar surfaces with them.
Keep them away from electronic components.
In no way would use baby wipes on a monitor. You’d have streaks everywhere. Cables yes, not the contacts though. Disinfectant wipes I don’t know, also with many chemicals that could possibly be detrimental to plastics?

Someone mentioned 90% isopropyl alcohol. I only used 70% before so that would still be fine? It seems all isopropyl alcohol is 70% at the store.


I'm a germaphobe but the reason why my floors and everything is dirty is because I tried cleaning and do it wrong so I stopped. I do wear gloves almost always when cleaning.


Any thoughts on walfort wipes? What about clorox wipes or lysol wipes? I heard lysol is actually better than clorox? I did notice clorox wipes seem to be very irritating when you use it without gloves.


But most agree 70% alcohol is the ideal thing to use on the charging cables? Also no issue with bounty or toilet paper on alcohol and using it right? I really don't want to use a microfiber cloth because if I use it, I hate reusing it. Yes I know that is what it is meant for.


But those wipes I'm talking about.... walfort wipes, wet ones, clorox and lysol wipes... are these good for dirty keyboards and charging cables for iphone including the usb head part of the charging cable? Once I disinfect the charging cables that I have, then I would feel comfortable touching the cable without always using a bounty towel to grab it to connect it to my UPS and my iphone.

Enough of the bu!!$h!t Alcohol should be enough to kill all germs. If you still are in doubt, then throw away the dirty cables and replace them with new. We have better things to do than repeat the same replies over and over like we are talking to a wall.

newmann said:

Also... you should not ever wipe or put any alcohol on the charging cable USB connector head ever right?

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Actually, you should as you would be cleaning the contacts which will help the connection should there be something including oxidation just like you clean the terminals on batteries.

newmann said:

Someone mentioned 90% isopropyl alcohol. I only used 70% before so that would still be fine? It seems all isopropyl alcohol is 70% at the store.

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99% if you want it to dry faster, otherwise 90% and 70% is fine as the remaining % is just water so the higher %, the faster it dries on it's own for anything you couldn't completely dry. I use 99% when cleaning the core of CPUs to be on the safe side and it's stronger.

As for anything else, just because something is reusable like cloth doesn't mean it will have germs. Put it in Clorox Bleach or any other disinfectant.

spapakons said:

Enough of the bu!!$h!t Alcohol should be enough to kill all germs. If you still are in doubt, then throw away the dirty cables and replace them with new. We have better things to do than repeat the same replies over and over like we are talking to a wall.

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I was looking at both threads and wondering if this person isn’t using us as crash test dummies for a ChatGPT exercise.

mackie said:

House mice will love those little crumbs of food, especially in the wintertime. Wherever there are crumbs look for mouse poop which looks like little kernels of rice and are black or dark brown.

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Mouse rice

There are special wipes for phone and monitor screens that work great with keyboard, mouse, cables, and all the stuff you have. You can order them on Amazon for around $5 for a pack. I ruined a few mouses and keyboards because I used a sponge with too much water to clean them, but I never broke anything with these wipes. I learned this from a guy from Going Green Commercial Cleaning. They are cleaning my company's office in Lafayette and they never ruined anything. Lots of cleaning companies skip cables, keyboards, and other small stuff, but these guys clean everything.

Buddy Males said:

There are special wipes for phone and monitor screens that work great with keyboard, mouse, cables, and all the stuff you have. You can order them on Amazon for around $5 for a pack. I ruined a few mouses and keyboards because I used a sponge with too much water to clean them, but I never broke anything with these wipes. I learned this from a guy from Going Green Commercial Cleaning. They are cleaning my company's office in Lafayette and they never ruined anything. Lots of cleaning companies skip cables, keyboards, and other small stuff, but these guys clean everything.

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You do realise this thread is from 2023 right?

No need to spend any money on special products. As said in an older post use a cotton cloth with window cleaner liquid or alcohol or similar. Rub the cable slowly around the wet cloth to remove dirt.

If you also wish to sanitise the surfaces you need a liquid with an alcohol content of at least 60%, so vodka won't do. Personally, I would just use a rag wrung out in soapy water ( to use my father's term).

I said about alcohol, at least 90 degrees, not spirits like vodka. This is strong enough to also sanitize the cable.

spapakons said:

I said about alcohol, at least 90 degrees, not spirits like vodka. This is strong enough to also sanitize the cable.

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You never mentioned '90 degrees'. If that's US Proof, it's only 45% ABV which won't sanitise anything!

I make my own cleaner. It's a 50/50 mix of distilled water and 70-90% isopropyl alcohol. ( I simply use whatever percentage I have in the house). I clean tons of my electronics stuff with this mixture. Keyboards, Mice, monitor screens, laptops, cell phones, etc. It's cheap and easy to make. Has served me well for years. I typically keep a spray bottle of it at work and we have been using it on everything for about 15 years and no damage of any kind, to anything.

I don't know if you have this in your area, but here in Greece we have pure alcohol, for medical use and blue alcohol. The latter has a blue dye in it to prevent using it for illegal spirits production, the pure is more expensive to make illegal spirit production impractical. You can use this blue alcohol for cleaning the cables or window cleaner (Ajax or Azax and similar brands).

99% anhydrous isopropyl alcohol and a microfiber cloth are all you need. Don't use it on your screen, and wipe your keyboard off with a damp microfiber cloth dampened with just water to get the white residue from the alcohol off, if there is any.

I have also been known to pull off my keycaps and use an electronics safe anti-static vacuum to clean under them. I throw the keycaps in the sink with a little dishwashing detergent, like Dawn or something. Just make sure they are fully dry before you put them back on. Never use water underneath your keycaps, or alcohol for that matter, especially if you have mechanical switches. Just use an electronics safe vacuum to clean the switches, maybe also with an electronics safe (anti-static) brush to get any serious grime.

Since I don't eat at my PC, I can get away with a wipe down of my keyboard once a month with a damp cloth. I deep clean it once a year just to get the dust out of the mechanical switches. No serious problems ever.