Reviving my favorite mechanical keyboard - DIY Keyboard Repair
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,914 words · ~9 min read
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this is my keyboard there are many like it but this one specifically is mine I
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love this keyboard I've customized the key caps I have specific ones that I
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like in specific areas it's signed by people on the back including Day N husky
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guys from Team Liquid day n's mom which
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is probably the favorite signature that I've ever gotten on anything um it has
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custom PBT key caps which I love in ninja printing which is my favorite it's
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click is perfect perfect there's a
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little bit of inconsistency between Cherry switches and I love this
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generation of cherry switches the Clack is great the Plastics and the structure
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and the keyboard is awesome this is a DK 908 G2 it's a little old and it's
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technically broken and I really want it back so let's fix it
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Intel brings ddr4 to the mainstream with their new core i76700 K and core i5
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6600k processors check out the link in the video description to learn more so I
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love my keyboard and for many reasons I think it's just spiffy but to see if
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it's worth really fixing and not just sentimental reasons I'm going to take it
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around see what people think about typing on it okay John try typing on the
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keyboard let me know what you think they travel really easily but they
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make a lot of noise oh this is
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I like the cing feeling but they are too tight I like it cuz it's like feel like
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you're breaking little glass things yeah I only type with two fingers
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whatever is it going to do something to me no it's not I am not sure what you
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are talking about seems fine okay so far
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people aren't quite as enthralled with it as I am
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I like it I like it I like it a lot Nick
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try typ me on my keyboard let me know what you
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think okay so people aren't quite as
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enthralled with it as I am except for maybe Colton but I'm going to try to fix
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it anyways now I have a few broken keyboards having a broken keyboard is
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not odd for me this one unfortunately however had its USB receiver cuz it's a
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USB detachable keyboard fall inside of
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the casing now I haven't actually taken it apart yet so I don't know if it's as
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simple as some hot glue or if I'm going to have to resolder the connection on
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the inside or if I'm going to have to take like a USB extension and chop it
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and solder the wires in I have no
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idea let's go so first things first I'm
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just going to try to take apart the keyboard I've taken three three screws
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out and that's all I can see in terms of screws now from there on it's probably
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prying the plastic so yeah that looks about right uh you
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can find every once in a while there I just hit one there's Clips so there are
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clips and I do need to get those off and then get a card down in
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there that can hold it open I'm going to
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try to find the next one
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here we go it's holding on on the sides but I
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don't see any Clips
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there ah there we go there's one more
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then does that mean there's one more on this side
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yep okay now the top is off the bottom
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must have additional Clips as
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well not completely bare as you can see but that top bezel is off and that did
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reveal more screws so we can keep on
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working okay I think I have the oh as
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you can see this is now in two
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parts so that tray is disgusting I will clean that out okay
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here's the back of the keyboard and here is the culprit and it
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actually looks like it straight up broke these two plastic things right here are
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anchors that are supposed to be scre screwed on and holding it on and they
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actually broke right off of the plastic on the inside so I'm not sure what
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happened to the keyboard as I expected hot glue might actually be able to save
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it so I'm going to clean this disgusting thing out and maybe do some other
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cleaning around the board and then we're going to move on now that we're done
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cleaning these things a good idea would be to do some maintenance on your key
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caps in terms of cleaning it and cleaning the board and doing all that kind of stuff if you want to check out
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maintenance and lubing techniques click up here for a previous video that we've
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done it's called the ultimate mechanical keyboard key cap guide and there's a
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table of contents thing you can jump to maintenance or lubing now would be a
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good time to check that out but I'm going to move on and start trying to fix
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things so the problem isn't that the hot glue cracked and broke off the problem
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isn't that the solder contacts broke the problem is that the plastic bits in here
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actually snapped right off in the mount gave way there were two screws
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going through it so I'm just going to
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move where those are oh so there's big screw holes here
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and here not in all four corners even though there's these two stands nothing
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screws into them this is probably a standard backboard for more than just
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this keyboards and I think we're back to the hot glue method um I could do this
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with other types of adhesives but hot glue is easy to take back off so if this
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happens to not work I won't cause any permanent damage anything it's going to
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be fine I'm going to put a little dab
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right over top of where it was supposed to be screwed in I'm also going to put
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some along this line here which should
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in theory help keep it against the
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plastic and have it not fall back in
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okay so it actually seems to be somewhat okay I can try to oh I'm
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bleeding um that's probably fine
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everything's okay um anyways we can try
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to pull it up a little bit nothing really seems to happen and yeah seems
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pretty solid so I'm going to try to make sure that I've lined it up properly I'm
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just going to try to plug this Cable in
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it seems to be fine plug the connection in PCB didn't move at
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all I think we're good to go I'm going to plug this into the PCB and try to
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type something on it before putting it all back together properly if it works
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we're good to go I'll close up the case success if
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not we'll have to figure something
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out why did my screen go black what the
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hell does that make any sense to you no
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it doesn't
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oh I think there's some problems keyboard tester.com
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oh my
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goodness I think it works there's some weird things going
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on okay the weird things that were going on are no longer going on there was some
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crazy lag when I first typed it in or plugged it in after the driver was
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installed so I'm not sure what that was about but it does seem to work that's
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really exciting this keyboard got me through all of my postsecondary
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education um and was there for the
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almost the entire time that I had my mineral rig and all that kind of stuff
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so I'm really happy to have it
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back okay let's put it back
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together this is going to be so annoying I have to pry all four Clips up and then
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flip them over because they're stuck on a Ledge come
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on okay so after more effort that I would like to admit and Brandon's help
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we finally got the bezel thing on the trick was there was a guide rail on the
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inside so you had to slot it within the confines of the guide rail time to put
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the last final three screws inside one
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little Easter egg that I noticed you can see just barely the voided warranty
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sticker that I pounded right through in order to get that screw off uh nice
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little tidbit I like voting warranties it's
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fun okay so it works due to the hot glue
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it kind of turned into more of a like home arts and crafts project than a
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hardcore soldering job that I thought it was going to be oh well I'm happy my
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keyboard Works hopefully you guys found that interesting moral of the story even
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if this wasn't all that complicated is if your stuff breaks and your far
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outside of your warranty like I was with this just fix it if you can it might not
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be that complicated as we saw today not that bad at all the thing just came
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loose and fell backwards take your stuff apart check it out if you can't fix it
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you gained experience from taking it apart if you try to fix it and you fail
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well it was broken anyways yeah simple
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immediately but don't forget to use offer code Linus for 10% off of your
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first purchase thank you to Squarespace for supporting this Squarespace build it
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beautiful thanks for watching if you want a cool
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t-shirt like this check out the description down below we have a bunch of them there I don't know if you can
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get this one anymore nice uh limited edition but you know whatever consider
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using our Amazon affiliate code to buy things like keyboards just in case your
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favorite one in the whole entire world happens to die um I don't know what else
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is here cuz all I really care about is unplugged by keyboard uh go to our Forum
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there's new Forum software and it's awesome check it out consider becoming a
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contributor it helps us do things like roll out new Forum software and yeah
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subscribe watch this video which is the Ultimate key cap replacement guide that
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I referenced earlier in the video and I'll see you next time