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?"

Bring it to the airport

[xstonedogx (814876)]

Then you won't have to worry about it.

Re:Bring it to the airport

[Opportunist (166417)]

I'd be wary. In the current terror craze, you might get arrested for trying to wipe out the airport personnel with biological weapons.

Re:Bring it to the airport

[by Anonymous Coward]

It's kind of a sad day and age when this gets modded insightful. Don't you agree? Nothing against the poster - its a reflection of society these days.

Re:Bring it to the airport

[montyzooooma (853414)]

+1 insightful gives a karma bonus, whereas +1 funny doesn't. And in any event it WAS insightful.

Don't worry about it.

[camperdave (969942)]

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

Don't worry about it. There isn't a virus yet that can make the leap from biological to technological infection. Your laptop is perfectly safe.

Re:Don't worry about it.

[shermo (1284310)]

They said that about bird flu

Re:Don't worry about it.

[Hognoxious (631665)]

I'm OK, I run linux. Odd, because bothe my parents are mainframes. Maybe I'm adopted or something.

Re:Don't worry about it.

[by Anonymous Coward]

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.

Obligatory...

[Sensible Clod (771142)]

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...

Windex

[ModernGeek (601932)]

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.

Apple should issue a security patch...

[NoobixCube (1133473)]

for the crippling virus infecting their machines.

Re:Apple should issue a security patch...

[by Anonymous Coward]

I have mod points, and I am not afraid to use them.

Then maybe you shouldn't have posted?

Lysol

[maz2331 (1104901)]

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.

Re:Lysol

[kesuki (321456)]

Well, the good news is influenza and norovirus are both weak, short living virus strains easily killed by detergents. so no matter what you got sick with, basic soap will kill it.

there are some spore based viruses and even, organisms that are virtually impossible to destroy.

but you didn't get sick with any of those, so you don't have to worry about really decontaminating it.

Re:Lysol

[crasher35 (787091)]

A good ol' alcohol wipe will do the trick! You know, like the alcohol prep pads doctors use to disinfect your skin before sticking you with a needle. We use them all of the time at work to disinfect our cameras after daily use.

Re:Lysol

[Darkk (1296127)]

A good ol' alcohol wipe will do the trick! You know, like the alcohol prep pads doctors use to disinfect your skin before sticking you with a needle. We use them all of the time at work to disinfect our cameras after daily use.

Disinfect your cameras after daily use? Do I wanna know?

Re:Lysol

[dreamchaser (49529)]

Exactly. Drink some vodka and stop worrying about a virus that's already been spread all around you. By the time you sober up the virus will probably be dead anyways.

Re:Lysol

[pionzypher (886253)]

Seconded. linkie [mayoclinic.com] indicates 48 hours or so for the virus to die. Soap and water on a soft cloth. Just like any other electronic device if you're truly worried about it.

Re:Lysol

[ceoyoyo (59147)]

Agreed. The virus isn't a concern, he's immune to it anyway, and I suspect his family is well exposed. Soap and water to wipe off any obvious snot globs.

Re:Lysol

[by Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, there's something about this ask slashdot that doesn't quite ring true.

He's the kind of guy that:

• keeps a thermometer in his desk
• uses his laptop when he's too sick to work
• gets up at 3am to take his temperature
• asks slashdot how to disinfect his laptop

and yet... he has a wife?

Re:Lysol

[snowraver1 (1052510)]

Honestly, this is the best suggestion. Your body JUST fought off the infection, which involved destroying billions of individual pathogens. Your helper T cells have the pathogen stored in thier memory so that if the pathogen is detected again, the proper antibody will be deployed and the pathogen will be distroyed.

Congratulations! You are IMMUNE to that particular pathogen.

I would recommend you Lysol your cubemates and tell them to keep thier grubby hands to themselves!

Re:Lysol

[lpontiac (173839)]

Be careful not to take this point too generally.. some virora (such as Hep A) can survive for months outside of the human body.

UV light

[chocho99 (552877)]

Keyboard + Mouse + Sunlight. 30 minutes later it's clean.

Re:UV light

[Original Replica (908688)]

Second that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection [slashdot.org]>UV light is a good disinfectant. The sun is the easiest source of UV.

Re:UV light

[by Anonymous Coward]

You borked the link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection [wikipedia.org]

Re:UV light

[Walt Dismal (534799)]

"UV light damages virii so that they cannot reproduce."

Unfortunately, this does not work on illegal aliens, spammers, trolls, and people who listen to Amy Winehouse.

Re:UV light

[Ihlosi (895663)]

Unfortunately, this does not work on illegal aliens, spammers, trolls, and people who listen to Amy Winehouse.

You're just not using enough UV.

Re:UV light

[Guru2Newbie (536637)]

If I recall correctly, thinkgeek has a UV light they sell that will do the trick. Using it is also more cool than using the sun, in more ways than one.

And the link is...UV Disinfectant Wand [thinkgeek.com].

Re:UV light

[linzeal (197905)]

Yeah it is night and day for my girlfriend and my laptops. I love sunlight and often go out and use my laptop outside and she has taken to using her laptop mostly as a 1000 dollar radio inside her dark writers loft. Her laptop is simply something I will not touch as it has been on top of a messy food strewn desk or kept at her side while we eat at the kitchen table more often than ever been taken to school or work or play in the wide expanse of the outside world. The last time I cleaned out her laptop in march I wore latex gloves and taking it completely apart discovered that there were graham cracker crumbs inside the fan housing for the CPU and 1000's of particles of food and detritus; some of which had mold appearing to grow on it, ewww. My solution was compressed air than wiping it down with Lysol as others have suggested but it is pretty disgusting again after only 4 months. If you want to stop worrying about germs I would suggest washing your hands more with good old soap and water as well as to STOP EATING at the damn keyboard. God, I hope the GF doesn't read this.

Re:UV light

[phantomlord (38815)]

Not all viruses die in a dry environment. When my dad was in the hospital for 5 months back in 1998, he was colonized by VRE [wikipedia.org]. When Infectious Disease came to talk to us about it, they said that it will stay alive on virtually any surface for an indefinite amount of time. I've also heard that MRSA acts the same way. The only way to kill it is by sterilization.

Set it out in the Sun

[fishyfool (854019)]

Set it out in the sunshine for about ten minutes. Sunlight is a great disinfectant

Re:Set it out in the Sun

[markov_chain (202465)]

I'd think twice about doing this. You will end up killing 99% of the bugs, but the 1% that survive will be sunlight resistant! You'll kill us all!

Re:Set it out in the Sun

[Squalish (542159)]

Speaking very, very generally, the broader spectrum and the higher dose the poison (whatever the poison - animal, vegetable, or mineral), the more difficult it is for a population to evolve resistance against it. Bleach kills almost everything - it's a broad-spectrum disinfectant precisely because organisms have found such difficulty in evolving defenses against a bleachy environment. A very narrow-spectrum poison, perhaps a bioengineered virus which targets a single strand of DNA present in 20% of the population for its high lethality, quickly finds itself going up against organisms which are resistant to its spread. In a generation or two, most of those organisms are dead or have developed antibodies against it, or, in many creatures, have inherited antibodies against it from their mothers. The population routes around the problem, because avoiding that strand of DNA is necessary for survival. Against a wider spectrum poison like high temperatures, a hugely unlikely, very complicated system of heat disposal might be required for any of the population to survive. UV tolerance is relatively easy in human beings (it's been estimated that a thousand years in a different environment is enough to change a population's skin color entirely, from opposing evolutionary pressures involving essential nutrients dark skin can't make, and essential nutrients sunburnt, dead skin can't make), but only because we as large multicellular animals have evolved multiple redundant structures to deal with it - fur/hair, thick layers of dead skin on back and shoulders, variable melanin production adjustable by multiple genes, external means like clothes, houses, hats, and forest canopies, and even short-term adaptations like temporary melanin production during tanning.

Re:Set it out in the Sun

[CastrTroy (595695)]

This is Slashdot. I think you need to go into more explanation about this whole sunlight thing.

a gentle cleaning

[verin (74429)]

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.

possible secondary infection

[fred fleenblat (463628)]

Sounds like you might have been exposed to hypochondria as well. You should go to a specialist and have that checked out right away.

Re:possible secondary infection

[VGPowerlord (621254)]

I told my doctor that, but he said I didn't have anything!

I told him I wanted a second opinion; he told me I was an idiot!

Use a condom?

[Maestro485 (1166937)]

Use a condom?

I kid, I kid.
Bye bye karma ;)

Trust your immune system

[isomeme (177414)]

If you've already had a given strain of the flu, you generally won't catch it again; your immune system is primed against that virus. So the laptop is little danger to you. Your immediate family probably got exposed through a thousand other shared items, so the laptop isn't making things noticeably worse for them, either. In short, I wouldn't worry about it.

Easy.

[Gothic_Walrus (692125)]

Just wait a day or two. The germs will die, you shouldn't get sick again since you just got done fighting it, and if your wife's going to get sick, I don't think the MacBook is going to be the reason why.

Your body already knows that strain...

[nick_davison (217681)]

I'm no biologist but, casting my mind back to riveting documentaries on the BBC...

Your body comes in contact with a new strain of a virus that it has no defense against. The virus moves in. The virus multiplies. Your body figures out how to fight it. Much of your feeling like crap is the process of your body fighting it.

If you get re-exposed in any kind of a short time frame, your body already knows how to produce the antibodies and doesn't get reinfected.

The reason you'll pick up multiple colds during a winter is because you're getting hit by multiple strains.

If re-exposure to the exact same strain was an issue, you'd have to burn your house down every time you got sick. Instead, the things you've come in to contact with are no risk to you, just to others who may not have immunity to that strain yet.

That being the case... Get over yourself, stop being a germophobe, use your laptop just fine.

If other people are using your laptop, they may have something to worry about. You're totally fine.

As for you using other people's stuff and being a raging germophobe, you can use sterilizing hand lotions after every usage... and you too can become one of the idiotic generation that try so hard to avoid any exposure that all they really achieve is having no built up immunity when things do get through.

Man up, get over your phobia, accept that getting sick is a normal part of building a tougher immune system, and get on with living.

Nuke it from orbit...

[suss (158993)]

It's the only way to be sure.

Have you tried

[srjh (1316705)]

Updating your virus definitions?

Water.

[wickerprints (1094741)]

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.

It's hopeless, get over it.

[WhiteWolf666 (145211)]

Please take a look [infectionc...ltoday.com]

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 ;-)

OCD much?

[Dieppe (668614)]

I say get a freakin' life and don't worry about germs so much. If you've already had it, the germs on your laptop aren't going to re-infect you. (You're immune to that strain.) Also, germs only live so long on surfaces...

For cripes sake you might want to look into getting your OCD and germ phobia looked into though. :)

Re:Germs on plastic?

[sessamoid (165542)]

Yes, you could be wrong.

Re:Germs on plastic?

[Daengbo (523424)]

Even if they live a while, Timothy has already had this strain and is likely immune, no?

When you feel sick, you're already non-contagious

[spineboy (22918)]

You are typically contagious before you feel sick. The feeling sick part usually happens AFTER your body has begun to mount an immune response, the sick feeling being all the cytokines and such, being released and their effect on the body.

Besides that - you've alreay "caught" it, and are no longer susceptible to that strain. Your other members of the household might still catch it though. And, yes, generally the bugs/viruses don't stay "live" that long outside the body. Most are dead within 72 hours or so.

Re:Germs on plastic?

[arth1 (260657)]

Viruses don't "live", as such. Some of them can persist for a very long time, and the influenza virus is one of them. The opening of some old graves from the Great Flu on Spitzbergen a couple of years ago was considered risky, because the virus would likely have survived.

However, you also become immune to a strain of the influenza virus once you've had it. So there will normally be no dangers in using a computer that has traces of influenza virus from when you yourself were ill.

That said, it's not really certain that the OP really had influenza. People tend to throw the word influenza around a lot, for all kinds of infections with flu-like symptoms, whether it's really the flu or not. If a bacterial infection, chances are greater that the bacteria will die, but there's also a greater risk of re-catching the same disease. If a virus, but not an influenza, the longevity of the virus might be way different.