Smiley or not, this is actually good advice. I have run many old keyboards through the dishwasher.
There are a few tricks to it, though, if you want to be successful.
Place the keyboard upside down on the top rack.
Make sure you wrap up the cord so that it can’t get caught in the moving parts inside the dishwasher.
Do not use soap.
Dishwashers have a heat drying cycle at the end which bakes the water off of your dishes. This will usually melt the plastic keyboard. To prevent damage to your keyboard, you need to turn the heat cycle off. This may be labeled somewhat confusingly, as in it might be labeled “energy saver dry” or something like that, in which case you need to turn it ON to turn the heat OFF.
Leave the keyboard unplugged for a day or two to make sure all of the water inside has evaporated.
It takes longer since you need to wait for the keyboard to dry, but it takes a lot less effort on your part than disassembling the keyboard.
I have resurrected many keyboards this way. YMMV. I personally have never had a problem, but some people have reported issues.
Not recommended for keyboards with fancy displays (especially LCDs) built into them.
If it’s a wireless keyboard, make sure to remove the batteries and don’t put them back in until the keyboard has had a chance to completely dry out. Some people have reported issues with running wireless keyboards through their dishwasher, but I don’t know if they turned the heat cycle off or remembered to take the battery out.
This is not something that you want to do often, but if your keyboard is gunked up and you’re going to toss it anyway, you don’t exactly have anything to lose and it will usually revive it.
