The W and R keys don’t work on my ASUS vivobook flip 14 and I would like to fix them so I can give the laptop to a friend. The reason they stopped working is because I spilled water on them a long time ago. Other than that, the laptop works perfectly fine.
I saw some teardown videos for an entire keyboard replacement for it, but it looks wayyyyyy too complicated and easy to mess up. I have expierence replacing stuff like batteries and SSDs in computers.
Is there a way to replace/fix those two keys without taking out the entire motherboard?
The keyboard is probably short-lived anyway, so a replacement is a good idea. Just take photos of every phase of disassembly and keep the parts and screws arranged on trays or something.
A repair is theoretically possible with silver paint applied to the damaged conductive paths in the switching film, https://lemmy.world/comment/14076165 , but all the other switches will remain old and unreliable.
You might check what AliExpress has to offer. My Lenovo Ideapad 530S’s film-switched keyboard started malfunctioning at three years age. I replaced it even though it was melt-studded (?) in - plastic rods poke through the keyboard, their ends melted flat and wide. Some instruction video told me to cut the stud ends off with a chisel, but I used a mini drill. The most difficult part was to hold the keyboard pressed in its place with weights on sticks while doing a temporary re-melt of the insufficient rod ends with a soldering iron (I could have skipped that). After that, I covered the re-melted ends with epoxy for near-original strength. The repair was successful.
Probably not a way to just fix those two keys. I’m a bit surprised by Asus - it’s not usual to have to replace the entire top cover just to replace the keyboard. The teardown and reassembly looks a bit time intensive but not difficult by many standards. Did you look at the teardown guide directly from Asus?
No, I haven’t been able to find the one directly from Asus. The ones I’ve seen are off of YouTube.
From what I understand you don’t have to replace the whole top cover, you just have to get under the motherboard and tear some things up.
Google for “[model number] teardown guide” for the official documentation.
I had looked that up previously, and now after reading this I realized that the official teardown guide was there but was reposted on unofficial sites so I had overlooked them. Thanks for the recommendation
Unfortunately not. The water messed up the keyboard membrane layer. There’s no fixing individual keys on water damaged laptop keyboards.
I once damaged a Microsoft desktop keyboard with water, and repaired the corroded membrane with silver paint designed to conduct electricity. I’m not sure if laptop membranes can be pulled apart like that.
Yeah, not usually. OP was hoping to avoid a full laptop disassembly anyways, so even if somehow that trick could work (very unlikely for a laptop keyboard), at that point they might as well go ahead and replace the keyboard anyways.
Side note, I could use some of that conductive paint to fix a cracked carbon trace on my game controller, but it’s no big deal really, it’s just for a mode button I never use anyways.
Dang, that’s a bummer.
