Worn keys

January 16, 2005 5:17 PM

I have a laptop I love; however, the letters on the keyboard are wearing off. It's not a huge problem for me right now, but whenever anyone else uses it (my spouse, my daughter), it's really frustrating for them to figure out where those missing letters are -- and I could see that down the road it could be a pain for me as well. Is there a safe way I could, say, paint the letters back on? Do I have to buy a new keyboard? Individual letter keys?
posted by mothershock to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

Old VHS label stickers perhaps? They'd wear out themselves every once in a while, but they're easy to replace.. Maybe you can get some clear stickers with white letters on them?

There's always Typer Shark which seems to have my kids quite enthralled.
posted by burhan at 5:24 PM on January 16, 2005

White-out correction fluid (US) --- Tippex (UK).
posted by dash_slot- at 5:36 PM on January 16, 2005

White-out wears off very quickly. Nail polish will last a bit longer. Or, even better, stickers as mentioned above, then protected by a layer of clear nail polish is probably your best bet.

The ideal solution though, is to contact your laptop vendor (Dell, IBM etc.) and they will probably be willing to sell you a new keyboard (sorry, I have no idea as to the cost). They're surprisingly easy to pull out/drop in a new one. It's usually only a screw or two and one data cable.
posted by defcom1 at 5:43 PM on January 16, 2005

Thanks -- will try the stickers or White-out + nail polish.
posted by mothershock at 5:54 PM on January 16, 2005

Keyboards are relatively cheap to replace. Just swapped out my Dell Inspiron keyboard for $34.
posted by sled at 6:17 PM on January 16, 2005

I found that the most effective solution was to buy a new one on eBay. I found one for $20, which was far less than buy the individual keys I needed and looks better. I didn't really want to have a nail polish-covered keyboard at work.
posted by Mo Nickels at 6:21 PM on January 16, 2005

Sled -- I have a Dell Inspiron, too. Wonder if it's something that would happen again with a replacement keyboard...
posted by mothershock at 6:35 PM on January 16, 2005

You can get white Sharpie markers, would that work?
posted by LarryC at 8:16 PM on January 16, 2005

Whatever "almost-as-tough-as-nails stuff" originally used wore off, so anything you put on is going to go twice as fast. lacquering would seem to be the only real bet.

That's kind of crummy.. I've never seen a standard keyboard fade, even when the plastic is polished smooth. I can only imagine that laptop keyboards aren't double-shot injection molded, to cut costs.
posted by Jack Karaoke at 8:51 PM on January 16, 2005

I have a vpr Matrix (Best Buy) laptop. I wore most of the letters on the keyboard off and almost wore a hole through my space bar. This was covered as "normal usage" by the warranty and subsequently repaired for free.
posted by fourstar at 9:14 PM on January 16, 2005

I had a keyboard for a regular PC that did this, Jack Karaoke, — but it was used for years and years. Because it was older, it had a really nice "solid" feeling, as opposed to the newer, looser, "rattling" keyboards, so I just kept using it until it turned into dust and wafted away. I've also had the character-disappearing problem with telephones. These days we always look to see if the characters are imbedded instead of applied to the surface.
posted by taz at 11:12 PM on January 16, 2005

sled - how do you go about getting a keyboard replacement?
posted by bkdelong at 3:49 PM on January 17, 2005

bkdelong: Call the Dell Spare Parts Number, it's 1-800-372-3355. I've found parts on phone that are unavailable on their website. The spare part guys seem to be pretty good, not as bad as the usual Dell fellows.

mothershock: I'm pretty sure it will happen again, but not for a while. I intensively use my keyboard and the old one lasted three years with only the n and m keys going.
posted by sled at 4:57 PM on January 17, 2005