Something stuck under a keyboard key

Hey People,

So there's clearly something stuck under one of the keys on my p150hm's keyboard. It still 'clicks' but its quite stiff.

I was just going to wedge a flat head screwdriver between the key and the keyboard base and pluck the key off so i can sweep out whatever is under there, but i just wanted to check if this is the right way to go about it?

I did a similar thing to a previous hp laptop once and ended up breaking the clicking mechanism under the key, rendering the key all but useless (i would have to push the little rubber node down to activate the key.. not really ideal if you're talking about the left ctrl key)

Cheers

 

Before taking a key off I would try blowing it out with a can of compressed air. You can lift the key slightly all around without plucking it off and you should able to just blow whatever is under there out.

Safer than removing the key.

 

My laptop had several keys like that which I eventually replaced the whole keyboard.

There isn't anything under if it's indeed the same case as mine. Rather the keyboard plastic retention has some kind of sticky oil on it. The only solution for me to get rid of stiffness was to take the key out as well as the plastic mechanism out (google for high res screenshots so that you can carefully take them out.) and clean the whole thing with pure medical alcohol. It was the only way for me to get rid of stiffness and get the key back to normal.

The reason I replaced the keyboard in the end was due to having 6 stiff keys including space bar and I had broken space bar while taking it off.