Laptop keyboard squeaky spacebar noise

[Ramon284]

So since a couple of days I've had this squeaky noise pressing my spacebar key on my laptop. If I blow under it it goes away, so first I thought it was dirt, but every time after blowing under it it will come back after typing for about a minute.

I'm not comfortable with removing the key because I think with this particular laptop I think i'll break something ( MSI gt70 ).

Any ideas what the cause is, considering blowing helps but it returns anyways?

 

[BlueJays92-93]

my bet would be that it is dust or dirt of some kind (actually based of what you described it might be some hair caught under the spacebar)... probably caught where the key goes to contact the membrane of the keyboard... my guess would be that when you blow at it the air slightly moves the dirt (whatever it is) away from the membrane for a bit but as you keep typing the dirt works it's way back to the spot where it causes the squeak

the only way I can think of trying to fix it without removing the keys is maybe trying to spray a bit of condensed air under the key to see if that could dislodge whatever it is that's causing the squeak (condensed air will do a better job than you blowing at it and may be able to solve it for good)... otherwise I'm afraid taking out the keys is the only way (or maybe try a vacuum, couldn't hurt, god knows that's how I clean out my keyboard when I don't have any condensed air around)

hope this helps

 

[jaraldo]

^ agree with that, but I'd guess it's a hair wrapped around the key and not dirt.

I'd take some tweezers to it and see if you pull anything out. You can wrap some double sided tape to the end of them and that would certainly help find whatever is causing the problem.

Taking out a keyboard is not so hard either, can be time consuming though 😛

 

[BlueJays92-93]

^ agree with that, but I'd guess it's a hair wrapped around the key and not dirt.

I'd take some tweezers to it and see if you pull anything out. You can wrap some double sided tape to the end of them and that would certainly help find whatever is causing the problem.

Taking out a keyboard is not so hard either, can be time consuming though 😛

very true (I said hair caught under the keys but hair wrapped around the key makes more sense)... if the hair is wrapped around the key then blowing or condensed air will not do much... worth a try if you have some lying around but if you don't then try tweezers like jaraldo said... unfortunately though the gt70 has chicklet keys so they are not the easiest ones in the world to pull out

 

[Ramon284]

Hey !

At first the vacuum cleaner seemed to work, but eventually the sound came back. So as I had no compressed air available yet I decided to just vacuum it for about 5 minutes straight, and I think that actually solved it ( assuming it won't come back, again ).

Thanks !

 

[Ramon284]

Actually it stopped working, and then I bought some compressed air which didn't solve the issue either...

I also tried some tweezers but didn't seem to find anything after about 5-10 mins of trying, even while lifting up the key it looks completely clean so I have no idea what the problem is. Maybe it's the mechanism that's just sort of broken?