He's dead Jim

[Kustom Kid]

After 11 years of dutiful service, my beloved Logitech G15 keyboard (version 1) has given up the ghost. The backlight works, but nothing else does. It is a sad day. Maybe it's time I drop the money for a mechanical keyboard.

[tthurman]

I'm still working on my Microsoft natural keyboard elite that I bought at at launch

Parts of it are yellow now, and a few years ago the keyboard started doing weird things, like no typing, or typing the same letter over and over. 

Previous to this I had given one to my dad, who was not a fan, so he sold it to a buddy of mine for 10 bucks.  I figure no biggy, so I go looking for one, WTH

Well I stumbled across this page that is now gone, but you can see references to it here.  I'm happy to report that it worked without a hitch, and I'm typing this on it right now.  Moral of the story....don't give up just yet, it may be possible on yours, although the bells and whistles seemingly rule it out.

A friend of mine told me the G105's are on closeout at Office Depot for $39, and that although it's the bottom feeder, he loves them.  This was about three weeks ago, so it may be over, but Wally world has them.  I considered one, but I need the curved design.

[Kustom Kid]

I had a similar experience, both with the keyboard acting weird, and looking online for a replacement. 

The only thing bells and whistle wise I really used anymore were the volume dial, and the mute key andhose are on quite a few keyboards. It was just really, really comfortable. Like type for hours with zero pain or soreness in my hands and wrists.

I'll check out the 105. Thanks for the heads up. 

[hansolo77]

I don't know what it is.  Maybe I need to buy a NEW keyboard that is NAMEBRAND.  I keep buying these cheap, barely used things from a used computer consignment store.  They're $1.  They have a large bin just full of them with different kinds of connectors (the old fat 5-pin, the tiny PS2, and USB).  I typically pull out the whitest looking ones.  The first thing I do when I get it home though is take it apart and clean the $#!t out of it.  They work great for a few years then stop working.  My latest one was from HP.  If I remember right the guy said it was bought brand new at his store as part of a prebuilt system that the guy had, completely unopened.  But the purchaser needed to reduce cost so he removed the keyboard/mouse/printer/monitor from the box (yea, they were all included in this particular "kit") and just sold him the computer.  Somebody had already bought the other bits afterwards, but the keyboard was still inside it's plastic bag in his spare keyboard parts bin.  I remember because I had to ask the guy if it was included in the $1 sales since it looked brand new.  It was an awesome deal.  It had worked for YEARS, even post-fire, so that's going on 8 years ago now, and I know I had it at least 2-3 years before that.  It just died 2-3 days ago.  It had been acting weird though, like the cable was getting unplugged or something.  The LEDs would go out, or I'd be pressing keys and nothing would happen, or keys like the SHIFT and CTRL were sticking even if I hadn't even pressed them.  Then suddenly the whole thing went dark, no keypresses worked.  I'd typically jiggle the wire in the back of the keyboard to get a better connection, but no good.  I'm going to take it apart and see if I can fix it, I suspect it's maybe a loose wire inside.  But now I'm on another cheap previously used keyboard.  This one is a Dell Smart Card Reader keyboard.  It looks like the picture, only it doesn't have the attached wrist pad.  It's a hand-me-down from my stepmom's computer.  I don't know where she got it from, though I suspect it was given to her when she got her job as a CSR.  They gave her a headset and mouse of her own as well, probably to help prevent cross contamination of germs from multiple users.  She just brought it home when she lost her job.  Not a bad idea, I just wish more places did that sort of thing, because they CSR job I had only had a crappy plastic film like overlay on the keyboard, which SUCKED.  The computer recognizes the keyboard and has to install special drivers before it works because of the Smart Card reader.  I have know idea what good that's for, but the keyboard doesn't work unless the drivers are completely installed.  It doesn't register as a standard keyboard input device, but as removable hardware like a drive.  Who cares, at least it works right?

[hansolo77]

36 minutes ago, tthurman said:

I'm still working on my Microsoft natural keyboard elite that I bought at at launch

Parts of it are yellow now, and a few years ago the keyboard started doing weird things, like no typing, or typing the same letter over and over. 

Previous to this I had given one to my dad, who was not a fan, so he sold it to a buddy of mine for 10 bucks.  I figure no biggy, so I go looking for one, WTH

Well I stumbled across this page that is now gone, but you can see references to it here.  I'm happy to report that it worked without a hitch, and I'm typing this on it right now.  Moral of the story....don't give up just yet, it may be possible on yours, although the bells and whistles seemingly rule it out.

A friend of mine told me the G105's are on closeout at Office Depot for $39, and that although it's the bottom feeder, he loves them.  This was about three weeks ago, so it may be over, but Wally world has them.  I considered one, but I need the curved design.

Make yourself up some Retr0Brite and get that yellow fixed up.  Crazy the cost on those keyboards (Microsoft's).  Heh, you could probably deep clean that thing and sell it as "slightly used" and nobody would know.  When I was looking to buy an NES case for my NintendoPi project, I came across this link in case I needed to de-yellow it.

http://www.retr0bright.com/

[RIP-Felix]

For me it's the Logitech MX5000.

I've had it since 2006 ish, and although it still uses bluetooth 2.1 instead of the new unifying Reciever (RF I think) The damn thing is still better than anything I've looked at since. The mouse started giving me the double click contact bounce problem, so I had to get a M705 (sever downgrade from the accuracy of the laser in the MX1000). I'm probably going to give up and get a new combo one of these days, but I got it for less than $100 originally (great deal) and never looked back.

[tthurman]

On 11/21/2016 at 8:43 PM, hansolo77 said:

Make yourself up some Retr0Brite and get that yellow fixed up.

Nice!

Thanks, I had no idea!

 

[RIP-Felix]

You can get 35% H2O2 (Hydrogen Peroxide) Gel for teeth whiting, mix that with some Oxy-clean, and UV lamps aren't that expensive. I might try this with some old plastic controllers I have. If it can be carefully applied to the parts I want, I wont have to worry about the laminated sticker portions of NES or SNES controllers being ruined. Good to know.