Sticky Keys

Hi, I own a Toshiba NB100, and while I'm forever impressed with how competent my little machine is running XP (1.6gigahertz processor, and I upgraded it to 2 gigabytes of memory), one of the first things I noticed about it when i took it out of the box was that the S key was slightly depressed - it sat lower than all the other keys.

I tested the key while typing, and decided I could live with it, and it's served me well for a number of weeks now, but yesterday that S key started squeaking and... my world began to implode. lol

I frantically searched the internet for terms like "how to fix squeaky notebook key" and what have you, and I came across a pile of threads from people that have the same problem and no solutions. Scouring the non-bulletin board websites wasn't much more help... but I did find this:

http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2007/03/20/key-fell-off-keyboard/

There are some good illustrations there, keep them handy.

Now, I don't know if what I'm about to suggest is going to void your warranty. If "lubricating the keyboard" is on your manufacturer's list of no-no's I tend to think that they literally mean you should not spray wd-40 all over your keyboard and dab it off with some sham-wow. That would be stupid...

What I do suggest - this is what I did earlier this evening - is that you pop the key off the key retainer, remove the retainer, lubricate the retainer with your choice of household lubricants... let it sit on a piece of paper towel, and lightly dab it so there's no excess of liquid that will drip into your laptop's bowels... and voila... depending on how stuck your retainer is, you might have to massage the oil into the hinges by opening and closing the retainer repeatedly before remounting onto your keyboard.

My S key had a nasty, vicious squeak to it... when I took the retainer off i found that it was really gummed up. the hinges could barely move... after the above mentioned treatment it's better than new (remember, my S key always sat low compared to the rest of the keyboard, and is now back to normal) - perfectly, actually.

Let me know if you decide to try this method, and be sure to keep me updated if problems recur. I'd like to hear if other people have success with this technique... I know I'll sleep easier

 

take it to get repair at at ASP since u just bought it, its better someone that knows the Note book takes a good look at it, also if they say its physical damage u can always buy a little insurance of it that covers physical damage so the repair does not cost u anything, however you have 24-48 hours to buy this insurance from http://warranty.toshiba.com/ or http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/wsku.to?coid=-29885&seg=HHO

the one you are looking for is called SystemGuard you are allowed 1 accident a year

 

That would be fine if I had 8 weeks to spare while the retailer where I bought the computer sends it off to the manufacturer only to have the whole keyboard, most likely, come back to me with some other sticky key.

This solution took me about 3 or maybe as much as 5 minutes...

... you did read my post all the way through, right?

 

I got the same netbook and problems possibly arising from the same root. When I press most of the keys in the "qwerty" row, I get two characters typed on the screen at the same time. Those two characters are generally the figure placed immediately at left on the row above the depressed key (the numbers row), followed by the character actually shown on the depressed key.

Since I'd really love to avoid lenghty repairs, do you think the procedure you linked could help me?

Thank you,
Mika