keyboard problems

[shlitiouse]

Alright, this is deffinitely not a very high tech question here... But recently the N key on my keyboard has been a little harder to press than the rest of the keys, and this REALLY affects my typing. I'm reluctant because it's a really cool keyboard (with lights and everything). It's not significantly harder to press, but just enough that I'll tap it and it wont press and I'll end up having to go back and fix a typo, anyone have any idea how I might be able to fix this?

[1of42]

Cleaning might work.... Compressed air normally does the trick.

[Mazer]

Yes, you could have some gunk or something stuck in or under there.
Keeping your keyboard clean is always a good idea: last year I popped off each individual key and cleaned them in the sink with soapy water one by one, then went at the rest of the keyboard with clean cloth. If you don't want to go to all that trouble and it's just the one key causing trouble,
I guess you'd just want to take that one off and see what's going on underneath. A (broad and thin) screwdriver should do the trick. Just be sure not to force it if you feel like it doesn't want to come off.

Any idea when this happened? Ie, what else can you remember doing around the time this started?

[brenn]

If you don't want to take the key off (or if it won't come off) you could try using a toothpick and carefully running it between the keys to get rid of hair that's stuck between them (.__.;;;; unless this is just a problem that girls with long hair get). Shaking the keyboard gently upside-down can clear out a lot of dust, too.

If nothing fixes it, as a last resort you could return it to the manufacturer/place you bought it from and demand a refund/replacement ^^;;;;;;;

[shlitiouse]

already checked underneath, wasn't particularily anything that I could see going on, I might try running a shop vac over it, just to get out some dust and what not. Last time I took all the keys off my keyboard I lost one

As for the hair thing, I know what you're talking about, I'm not a girl, but I have longer hair, and yes, it does get stuck under the keys.

This all reminds me of when I got my first computer. After about a month I spilled coke all over the keyboard, eventualy it dried and the keys started sticking, so, knowing absolutely nothing about how keyboards worked, started pouring glass after glass of water onto the keyboard, luckily it didn't destroy the keyboard, and helped clean it out a bit, really not willing to experiment with that "method" again.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't be a very smart idea to be sending it back to the manufacturer, since I ordered it online, and would have to pay taxes, etc, all over again. Do you think the local computer store might be able to take a look at it? (though they'd think I was insane, it's hardly noticeable).

As for what I was doing when it started, I was typing out a long e-mail, when I started to notice that my right index was feeling really exhausted in comparison to my other fingers, and that I was mispelling a lot of words with "N" in them, I then noticed that although I was hitting the N key, it wasn't pushing down fully, sad but true

[Mazer]

That's weird... my hair never gets stuck under the keys. My hairs won't even fit under there!

As for cleaning: you probably won't want to do this either but you could open up the keyboard from the back and carefully take things apart (do NOT lose one of those rubbery things) and get a better view of the problem. But that would depend on how willing you are to try this, how much it would cost for you to ship the keyboard back for a replacement, how willing you are to live with this sticking key, etc.

One more thing. Try taking off the key again, and also another key from the keyboard (that you know is working perfectly fine). Compare the parts of the keys that actually go into the keyboard. Is your N key too wide/bent?
Also, compare the holes in the keyboard. If I were to look into my keyboard without the keys, there should be a square hole, with a rubber circular shape inside. If that rubber piece somehow moved and is now off-center, it could cause you to require more work to press the key. I've actually got a similar problem to that with my "[" key, if I don't press firmly on it (pretty hard compared to my other keys), the key press won't always register. Makes programming and BBCode tags a bitch sometimes.