Wednesday 5 February 2014

Simple fix for Sticky keys on wired Apple Keyboard

Having recently been given an old iMac to refurbish, I have ended up with a nice wide wired Apple keyboard. (excuse the stock photo)



I've always wanted those extra function keys and page up and page down, since I do a lot of work with other OS's via remote control or VMware. (and the two handy USB ports don't go astray)

Anyway, the problem was sticky keys. Some over them felt quite squishy, some of them crackled and some of them just didn't want to move..

A bit of research on this model revealed a number really well documented but unsuccessful disassemblies and having recently disassembled an older MacBook Air attempting to fix dead keys, I wasn't jumping at the opportunity to start potentially a destructive operation with screwdrivers and heat guns:

Anyway after a few experiments it turns out these older keyboards are quite open in terms of liquid flow through.  (Probably a bad thing when coffee hits it, but a good thing if you are going to try flushing it with solvent)

The solution was as simple as spraying around each bad key with an excess of Isopropyl Alcohol, letting it trickle inside the keyboard and then repeatedly pushing the offending key until it came good..

Now the keyboard works perfectly.. No doubt the coffee or whatever has just moved further into the works, but hey, who am I to complain.

Hero for the day