deskthority

Hello guys and girls,

my keyboard of ~3 years (Steelseries 7G) is behaving weird. So one day for no apperent reason my E-button started to not work when I simply press it the usual way, which is pretty much hitting the center. However if I press the left part of the button it works fine. When I put some pressure on the key from the right side pushing it to the left, everything works fine. I don't see any dirt when I remove the cap.

Does anybody know whether I could fix this myself?

Thanks
Aydo

Did your keyboard by any chance have an accident?

I own a Steelseries 6Gv2 and experienced the same issue, not that the brand necessarily had anything to do with it. My board had an accident, landing badly on the wrong side. This caused one or two of the copper traces, where the switch pins are soldered to the PCB, to snap off. The switch would only get contact if I applied force at a certain angle.

I fixed it by soldering a thin wire between the pin and the copper trace, bypassing the crack.

jip wrote: ↑Did your keyboard by any chance have an accident?

I own a Steelseries 6Gv2 and experienced the same issue, not that the brand necessarily had anything to do with it. My board had an accident, landing badly on the wrong side. This caused one or two of the copper traces, where the switch pins are soldered to the PCB, to snap off. The switch would only get contact if I applied force at a certain angle.

I fixed it by soldering a thin wire between the pin and the copper trace, bypassing the crack.

No I didn't. I dont really know how to get there. Is it between what you see on the first picture?

Aydo wrote: ↑No I didn't. I dont really know how to get there. Is it between what you see on the first picture?

Spoiler:

That'd be the 2nd picture. I took the liberty to use your image to demonstrate my awesome Paint skills. The yellow circle is where I assume that your E-switch is, the red circles are where my copper traces had cracked, the blue circles are where you can solder the other end of your wires, the purple represent the wires.

Wow thank you very much!
How can I tell whether my cooper traces cracked? I can't seem to find anything that indicates that.

The best way to check for broken traces is to use a multimeter with continuity check.

If you don't have one, check if the blob of solder that the switch is soldered with, moves when you wiggle the switch a little. If you can see it move, it means the trace is broken.

But I don't think this is a broken trace. More likely the contact inside the switch is dirty or slightly bent. My guess is it's dirty. In this case there are two things you can do. The first is to open the switch without desoldering it, remove the dirt, carefully clean the contacts (make sure you don't bend the contacts), and put everything back the way it was. There are guides on how to open cherry switches without desoldering. This one, for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HysRQnJiupQ

If that doesn't work, try to desolder the switch and swap it with another one you don't use much - Scroll Lock, for instance. Or you could buy a single switch and replace the broken one.