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What Is the Best Way To Disinfect Your Laptop?
akutz writes "I've had the flu since Tuesday afternoon. My wife picked me up from work with a temperature of 103.6 and it finally broke at 98.7 around 3am this morning. Yay. The problem is that I used my laptop during my periods of feverish deliriousness, contaminating my shiny 15" MacBook Pro with the icky influenza virus. I am asking my fellow Slashdotters if they have ever sought out a good way of disinfecting their lucky laptops after an illness. Do you use soap? A light acid bath? Just get the family dog to lick it until it looks clean?"
Just spray some Lysol on a rag and wipe it down. If you are really worried, you could spray the machine directly, but I'd be concerned of damage.
Keyboard + Mouse + Sunlight. 30 minutes later it's clean.
I could be wrong, but I doubt that germs live very long on plastic.
I don't respond to AC's.
Set it out in the sunshine for about ten minutes. Sunlight is a great disinfectant
Enjoy Every Sandwich
Use the gentlest cleanser you can (the cleaner they sell for lcd televisions works pretty well), a microfiber cloth (not wet, just damp), and go over it once, let it dry, go over it again, let it dry, then a little bit of sunshine really does help kill germs.
Get some cotton balls wet with rubbing alcohol, something with a high concentration (e.g. > 70%). Rub it all over your laptop. Wait about 2 minutes and all of it will evaporate, and your laptop will be clean. I use this on my keyboard/mice/macbook all the time.
Now that you have survived, and, correct me if I am wrong - but aren't you immune now to that virus?
That said, I'd say damp (as in no drips possible) cloth made damp by some soapy water to wipe it down ought to do the trick. The mantra in my EMT class (and a number of test questions) was "The best way to avoid spreading disease is to wash your hands often".
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i use lysol wipes to clean my keyboard because unlike the spray i can make sure its not dripping inside on the motherboard. either way make sure its dry before you turn it back on just in case although i've never had a problem.
If you can wait about 2 days you are pretty safe.
Clorox (Sodium Hypochlorite) is a pretty good general disinfectant. About 3/4 cup in a gallon of water makes a good antiviral wash solution.
Isopropanol works fairly well too.
First, turn off the laptop. The aluminum casing of the MacBook Pro can withstand wiping with Lysol, the active ingredient of which is benzalkonium chloride in a low concentration. Do not saturate the surface, but do leave it damp for a few minutes--then go back and wipe down with water. For the screen, simply wipe with distilled water. Use the black cleaning cloth that came with your computer--it is included in the same package as the installation disks.
Under no circumstances should you use anything other than water to clean the display.
If you are *really* paranoid, leave the computer out in bright sun for 30 minutes. While this is not really an "official" way of disinfecting things, the UVB rays could have enough energy to disrupt the activity of bacteria and viruses. If you were really serious about this approach, you'd get a dedicated UVC disinfection unit which would irradiate your laptop. But I don't know what that might do to the hardware. *shrug*
The point is, if you've been coughing as a result of your illness, you've already spread live viral particles all over the place. It's not all that useful to think about sterilization when your living environment is teeming with all kind of infectious organisms--not just viruses, but bacteria and fungi.
Actually, recent studies have found that higher humidity speeds up decay of influenza virus particles. Here's one article at the CDC. Quote: In all these studies, the decay of virus infectivity increased rapidly at relative humidity >40%. The increased survival of influenza virus in aerosols at low relative humidity has been suggested as a factor that accounts for the seasonality of influenza
Let's assume you share this laptop with coworkers or some friends are coming over, or there's some other reason why people who might not have been exposed while you were sick will be exposed to virus particles protected by little blobs of snot on your laptop.
Take a cotton ball, soak it in isopropyl rubbing alcohol 70% concentration (commonly available at drugstore), squeeze some of the alcohol out so you aren't just dribbling it all over, and then rub down the keyboard, mousepad, screen, case etc with the cotton ball.
let it dry for a minute or two. Repeat.
Wipe off the excess with a dry cotton ball.
You're good to go. Do the same to your phone and any other gadget you might share with a friend or coworker.
It also does a good job of getting grime off your keyboard.
((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x))) http://www.endpointcomputing.com a scientific approach to custom computing.
The majority of illnesses you are going to catch in everyday life (e.g. influenza, the cold, etc.) are viral. Viruses (with very few exceptions) cannot survive outside of the human body (or some other organism they can infect) for any extended period of time. Unless if you plan on sneezing on your laptop and then having someone immediately lick it, you're probably not going to infect anyone via the computer. Airborne transmission is far more likely. If you really want to disinfect it, though, I'd recommend 70% alcohol (ethanol or isopropanol) on a paper towel. It kills just about everything and generally cleans well. You can also use a 50-50 mixture of alcohol and water. I usually use ethanol to clean my Thinkpad keyboard and screen.
And for the record, IAAB (...biologist).
Fear the penguin.
Assuming it's really influenza, and not some other virus, time will kill it. Influenza can't survive for extended periods of time on dry surfaces. Most influenza viruses only last a several hours on a hard dry surface. Under the right conditions they may last up to 72 hours, but they'll still die off over time.
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/reprint/73/6/1687.pdf
Of course, 3 days is a long time to not have a laptop, but you can safely handle it. You won't get re-infected now that your body is surging with antibodies targeting that specific strain. Just wash your hands afterward so you don't spread it to the non-immune.
If that's not good enough, you could try wiping the case with a cloth *very* lightly dampened with some kind of benzalkonium chloride based disinfectant (i.e.: well squeezed out lysol wipes or something similar). I don't know if that will damage the plastics or not (ie: the screen), it shouldn't but I've never tried it, so be careful here. And of course you have to be careful not to get any liquid into any of the vents.
-Matt
Please take a look
The primary issue is that of the severity of the virus or bacteria, not keeping it clean. At best, you can disinfect the surfaces, not the interior. And although it sounds gross, you probably sneezed on, or near, the unit. Perhaps there was some moisture on your fingers when you touched the drive bay, or maybe you got your sickly hands on a CD before you inserted it, spraying fine droplets of moisture through out the unit.
As long as it is something normalish like the Flu, Cold, Chicken Pox, etc . . . just give it time. Most of that stuff dies in 24-36 hours without a host.
If its something horrifying, like Ebola? Stick your electronic item in the oven, put it on "Self-Clean", and get a new one. Discard the ash in a biohazard box ;-)
You'll never, ever, ever, ever succeed at "disinfecting" consumer electronics, because they are never sealed well enough. About the best you can do is those Virtually Indestructible Keyboard&Mice. Anything else just isn't cleanable, and you should do your best to maintain good hygiene (wipe the keyboard and unit every now and then with a good alcohol wipe (or spray alcohol on a paper towel)), and get over the "scariness" of illness.
Furthermore, if its your family your worried about, you've already given them ample opportunity to get infected, if you shared utensils, a bed, skin contact (Hugs and Kisses, anyone?) or even an indoor environment.
Disease isn't that scary unless you or someone you know immune system's compromised, and in that case you should turn to a health care professional to figure out how to make your environment safe. Otherwise, get over it ;-)
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
I taught computers in a high school- after all of the joking, etc., here is the serious reply... the Clorox wipes are great and what the school nurse recommended. Wide down the keyboard and all other "hard surfaces"... for the screen, just a rag dampened with some distilled water. That should do it. You really should do this periodically if the computer is shared at all.
it's a macbook.. so the keyboard isnt coming off.. not even like a compaq laptop..
So anyway, damp rag with isopropyl alchohol will kill the bugs.. really consider it once a week, as keyboards are nasty..
Storm.. Molecular Viologist.. um Biolifist... I have a degree in skience
How the hell did this get modded up? A keyboard can survive a trip through the dishwasher if the temp isnt too high, but if you stick a LAPTOP in the dishwasher you will destroy it.
Sure the circuit board may survive, but say goodbye to the LCD screen, hard drives, lens of the optical drive, power supply...
Use a little bit of Ethanol. I used to work in a lab where we had to handle Staphylococcus Aureus. We continously sprayed Ethanol on the counters and lab equipment. It kills the vast majority of bacteria, evaporates quickly, and leaves no residue. The more serious disinfecting required heating the equipment in an autoclave. But, we were dealing with large quantities of live, mutant strains. A little bit of Ethnol should be more than adequate.
Your notebook is safe - influenza and common cold viruses die quickly when exposed to open air.
It's not the case with bacteria, of course. Especially with sporulating bacteria. Endospores can survive almost anything.
Before you quite reach the loony extremes of disinfecting your light switches, may I recommend one of the many delicious drugs available for OCD?
You are a pussy.
I'm a doctor, and we use laptops in our office, instead of paper charts. So I carry a laptop around all day long while I see patients.
Personally, I tend to wipe my laptop down every once in a while (maybe twice a week) with some disinfectant wipes, though I only do this when some sort of liquid gets on it.
As for your question, onces your laptop has had a few hours to air out, it's probably safe. Most viruses don't live for very long out in the open, although live isn't really the right term. Once they are dry, they are pretty much going to be inactivated. They are usually spread through little droplets that get on your hands, objects, etc. Those droplets then have to get into you (your mouth, eyes, nose etc) in order to infect you. If there are little virus-containing droplets on your laptop, they will pretty quickly dry out and become inactive.
Frequent handwashing is the best thing that you can do to avoid transmitting diseases. It reduces the chances that you will spread something from you to objects around you, and also reduce the chances that you will infect yourself after touching contaminated objects.
Just to address a couple other issues in the replies to this post:
A previous infetion usually protects you from a repeat infection. For instance, you are probably not going to get chicken pox twice. On the other hand, there are several strains of influenza, and those strains mutate each season. So you can get infected year after year, which is why there are annual flu shots. Or in the example of common colds, there are many different viruses which cause cold symptoms, and each of them may have several strains. So you can get lots of colds over the course of your life, even if you are immune to some of the viruses you have been exposed to in the past.
And one last thing - I'm just going to repeat how important it is to wash your hands a lot if you don't want to get sick. In the winter, I might see 25-30 patients a day, most of whom have colds of some sort. I probably wash my hands 50 or so times a day (before and efter each patient) and I don't get sick any more than anyone else.
I also like using isopropyl alcohol (the stuff they sell at the drugstore as rubbing alcohol) for cleaning keyboards and telephones, but not just for its disinfectant properties... it quickly gets rid of the grime that makes white and gray keys look disgusting.
:-).
The only downside is that I've run across a couple brands of keyboard where it will take off the lettering, so you might want to test it on the "pause/break" key (or your own least favorite key) first to make sure it won't do that. Some people think blank keyboards are great for forcing you to touch-type, but others don't want to be challenged that way
My truck is like a series of tubes.
Shingles can be more painful than childbirth, according to an article I read when I had it 4 years ago. When the rash develops, you have to get the antiviral within a day or you will want to die during the worse part. I had to take the drug for about 8 weeks due to lingering pain.
Wow. Talk about a posting delay. I submitted this on Friday January 25, @03:25PM. I got the flu the previous Tuesday, the day Heath Ledger passed away.
-- -a
Windex + Paper Towels on keyboard, screen, outside, and power cord. Then a bit of water on another towel to get rid of any residue from the windex. I don't do it because of germs, I do it because I don't like the feeling of an oily keyboard from sweaty, greasy hands.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Funny.
If you're over the virus, you can't get it again unless it manifests or whatever they do. You never get the same virus twice. You may have the flu several times, but it's a different strain of the virus.
Will get rid of all viruses, and makes it immune against new infections
Comment removed based on user account deletion
+1 insightful gives a karma bonus, whereas +1 funny doesn't. And in any event it WAS insightful.
'Flu viruses don't live very long outside the host. From the BMA:
A study by Bean et al [see reference 21] has reported that the influenza virus can survive on a hard non-porous surface such as plastic or stainless steel for 24-48 hours and on materials such as clothes, paper and tissues for 8-12 hours. [a] On hands, it is reported that the influenza virus can only survive for approximately 10 minutes, although this is more than enough time to allow transfer to other surfaces, such as cutlery, door handles, ATMs, hand rails and keyboards, to facilitate the spread of infection.
Its UV sensitive -- just leave it in some sunlight! Plus it doesn't survive well outside the body anyway.
Quit disinfecting everything and you're less likely to get sick in the first place!! It's just my theory, I'm sure we could all find studies that agree and disagree with this, but... I've always figured the best way to prevent being sick is to maintain a strong immune system. Instead of disinfecting every surface under the sun, trying to abolish bacteria (impossible!!) I just deal with them! I have no qualms against eating with (relatively) dirty hands. Food falls one floor? 5-second rule is too short! Let the bacteria in and you will develop your own immunities. Now I know, you were infected with a virus... and there's not much we can do to prevent them. But having a stronger immune system will still make getting over it easier, or you may never get sick in the first place. Seriously, this whole fad of disinfecting everything is part of the cause of nasty strains of bacteria like MRSA. I seriously believe if this continues, it could easily lead to a. the downfall of the human race, b. all humans having to live in bubbles with no physical contact with ANYTHING EVER, or c BOTH.
Odd? C'mon - your parents have been doin' it penguin-style for about 10 years now.
from Advantages in linux on mainframe wiki overiview:
Linux...can take advantage of mainframe qualities of service, especially their reliability and security features, to support continuous business operations. For example, transparent use of redundant processor execution steps and integrity checking. Many industries, including financial services, need this unique capability for their Linux applications.
Also, mainframes support "hot" processor replacement. Linux and its applications continue to run, undisturbed, while adding or replacing processors, allowing business-friendly scaling according to demand.
So while I don't do the mainframe thing myself, it is a pleasant surprise to see Linux getting around.