How to disinfect and clean a laptop to eliminate viruses and bacteria

Like any other device you use every day, the laptop also needs regular cleaning, and is that these teams are magnets for dust, germs and dirt, something that is growing now in Spring and that is more important due to the situation we are living in relation to COVID-19.

So when was the last time you thoroughly disinfected your laptop? With this guide you will no longer have an excuse not to do it, since it is a basic process that will only take a few minutes and whose reward is worth it.

Necessary materials

The most important component you will need to clean and disinfect your laptop (and really almost any component or peripheral in a PC) is the isopropyl alcohol. It is important that it be of this type and not sanitary alcohol, because the latter can damage plastics and not isopropyl.

In addition to that, you will need a compressed air spray and a microfiber cloth, but a handful of ear buds for a more thorough cleaning.

How to clean and disinfect your laptop

Before you start cleaning, it's important to consider what type of cleaning you want to do. Obviously, a cleaning is done for hygiene, but you have to be very careful not to break or damage anything along the way.

Therefore, you have to be very careful and clean gently so as not to damage the screen or keyboard. The most important lesson to keep in mind is that never, never spray the laptop directly with any cleaning solution, and if any liquid leaks through any slit it can cause irreparable damage.

With that said, let's go there.

Start by cleaning the keyboard

Most likely, the keyboard is the part of the laptop that gets the dirtiest and most germs, since it is where we always have our hands and, therefore, it is best to start here.

For starters, we recommend turning the laptop over and shake it gently but with dry movements, so that the loose dirt falls (we recommend doing it on a table so as not to put it all lost). If you want you can hit it with a little compressed air (at a safe distance so that no key is skipped) beforehand, and then, clean the entire keyboard with the dry micro-fiber cloth, rubbing gently but repeatedly.

Once this is done and with the aim of disinfecting it as best as possible, we recommend taking a little isopropyl alcohol to ear buds and clean well between the keys, which is where the dirt accumulates the most. Do not pour too much alcohol, it is important that the cotton is wet but not bathed and that it oozes.

Clean the grilles and connection ports

After leaving the keyboard clean, you can give it with compressed air (always at a distance of at least 15-20 cm) to all the USB, HDMI and other ports on the sides of the laptop, so that the dirt in these areas, where it tends to accumulate, disappear. You can also impregnate swabs with alcohol again and finish off the cleaning with them.

Clean and disinfect the laptop screen

This is the most delicate element, and we return to stress the fact that under no circumstances should you put cleaning products directly on the screen. The best thing to do is, first, use the microfiber cloth dry and thoroughly clean all the dust and traces that you may have left on the screen to, ultimately, slightly moisten the cloth with isopropyl alcohol and give it a last soft pass to the screen. So it should be clean enough and, most importantly, disinfected.

Disinfect the rest of the laptop

So far we have already cleaned and disinfected the keyboard, the connection ports and grills and the laptop screen, so for a complete cleaning and disinfection we have to leave the rest of the body of the laptop clean, including the part behind the screen, the surroundings of the keyboard and the lower area of ​​the keyboard.

Again we must rely on the micro fiber cloth and isopropyl alcohol for this, only in this case we can be a little more generous with the amount of alcohol that we can put on the cloth, but always without going over it so that it does not ooze. It therefore impregnates the cloth and gently but firmly cleans the entire body of the notebook, being careful not to hit the screen this time.

In this way, you will have your laptop clean, disinfected and ready to use it again.