There is not many things more annoying than a sticky, slow, dirty laptop keyboard. Especially when you have spent $1000 on that laptop and changing the keypad is no easy - or cheap - task. The good news is that, although not particularly easy, it is more than possible to restore your laptop keyboard to it's original condition. You will need two hours of your time to dedicate to this task, but this probably doesn't need to be done any more than once a year. Follow this quick and simple guide for a very effective method of cleaning a laptop keyboard.

• Cotton Swabs
• Multi-Purpose Cleaning Spray
• Dry Film Lubricant
• Paper
• Masking Tape / Scotch Tape
• Kitchen Towels
• A Kitchen Drainer / Medium or Large Sieve.

The first thing that you MUST do is make a keyboard map, for those of you with decent cameras then just take a high resolution picture of your keyboard. Please, for your own sakes, make sure that this picture is legible. You know need to carefully remove each key with a small screwdriver, and place in a safe place (such as a container). Don't be scared to take them off, they just 'pop' off, just do not use excessive force. On some laptop models there may be a small piece of rubber under each key, if your laptop has these then just remove these and again; store in a safe place.

Now clean the keyless board with cotton swabs which have been very lightly dampened, be careful not to make these two wet as water can seep into the electrics, you should get through a lot of these by the time you have finished clearing your board of head hairs, dead skin and cookie crumbs. Make sure that you clean every single crevice, particularly the key spaces; these areas are in fact the most important. If you are having difficulty reaching some small areas of your laptop, try very small pieces of foam rubber held by tweezers, these may also be slightly dampened.

Keys will differ from laptop to laptop, some have wires attached to them, and most will have some sort of grease. You should each key one by one with cotton swabs and lighter fluid (Naptha). Remove all of the grease from these keys, now place them all in a bowl and spray with a cleaning spray (such as multi purpose kitchen and bathroom cleaner), let them stand for between 5-10 minutes before rinsing fully with warm water (a strainer/sieve is best for this). Place the fully rinsed keys on paper towels to dry, and wait until they are completely dry.

If your keyboard comes with detachable rubber bits, place these all in a kitchen strainer. Spray this with multi-purpose kitchen cleaner until completely covered and let it stand for 5-10 minutes. Just like you did with the keys, rinse thoroughly with warm water before placing them on kitchen towels. For the rubber components, you should fold this kitchen paper over and squeeze them until the rubber bits are completely dry.

Remember the grease that you removed earlier? You need to re-lubricate these now. Place all of the keys onto a piece of thick paper (such as parcel paper, or a brown paper bag), ensure that all keys are bottom up (letter/symbol down) and lightly coat the keys with lubricant, this needs to be a high quality Dry Film Lubricant, I have recommended two great brands to your right, you may know other brands..... but please please make sure you know what it is that your buying! Getting this part correct is essential. Spray the lubricant from all four sides, at each 45 degree angle, you must do this from each side to ensure that critical areas are covered. Let the keys dry, this should take just 30-45 seconds, just make sure that you don't go over the top with the lubricant as too many strong chemicals can affect the plastic keys.

Use masking tape or scotch tape to mask your laptop, with paper covering your laptop screen, before applying lubricant to your keyboard in exactly the same manner as described for the keys.

If your laptop had rubber bits, then place these directly back onto the keyboard. Now, install those keys with wires (e.g. enter, and space bar), these are the trickiest ones to put back in. You need to make sure that the wire is in place before snapping your key back on. If you feel frustrated, shaky, or clumsy at any stage..... then take a ten minute breather! Once you have aligned your wire based keys back into place, you can begin the rather easy and rather therapeutic job of re-installing the rest of your keys in order (using that drawing/photo that I told you to produce earlier!), this is done by simply aligning the key and pressing down firmly.

You shouldn't need to do this anymore than once per year for your keyboard to work like new. I know exactly how it feels to have my 70wpm typing speed reduced to 40wpm because of a dodgy 'A' and 'T' key; in fact it makes you feel like buying a new laptop. But there really is no need to, I guess that trying not to eat or drink whilst working would help, but now you know everything that there is to know about cleaning a laptop keyboard ;)