Holy shit.

Yep, that probably summed up the article in two words. Generally, I'm the type who likes to be able to fix things on my own. I don't like the idea of spending huge amounts of money for someone else to do what I can learn, with a bit of effort how to do myself. 

My current laptop has been dutiful standby for a good two years after I replaced the HP laptop that came before it. The prior one was good, but the physical mechanics simply weren't up to demand. So, instead of just getting another office-type portable computer, I opted for a gaming laptop with the assumption that it would be built for abuse and keep on going. The MSI GE76 Raider was that choice.

For the most part, the GE76 has done extremely well. I've been able to do a crazy amount of work on it, cryptomine, game and generally set up a fully capable office wherever I have power and an Internet connection. But, like all things physical, the GE76 has shown its vulnerability. In my case, it was the keyboard again. This was the same problem with the HP; they keys started to fail. The first warning sign was  the wear burns I was making on the three most critical keys: the A, S, and space bar keys. D was a runner up and everything else has been just fine. 

The A key really began to suffer, and at first I thought it was some dirt stuck under the key or similar. So, with a good air can blast, I worked it from every angle hoping to clear the debris and get it back into working order. For a little while that worked, but the intermittent non-responsiveness started to come back. Eventually, I had to get under the key and see what was going on. Sure enough, the little rubber cup that provides the "boing" to the key popping back up after pressing it had torn and completely separated. It was just sort of bouncing around underneath, and it was an essential design piece in making the key assembly work with a specific, tiny pressure point. 

So, after a few attempts to jury-rig it into place, including glue, I came to the realization, I need to replace parts. However, the rubber cup base was glued to the keyboard mat underneath. It wasn't replaceable. I looked up the cost of a full keyboard sheet and found it very affordable, $30 from Amazon. No problem, this should be an easy fix having already been inside my laptop adding upgrades.

Once I had the replacement keyboard sheet, I was ready to go. However, the smart part of me said, "No, wait, watch a video on how to actually do this repair." Oh yeah. Okay, on to YouTube for a crash-course in keyboard sheet repair. Woah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40gFgoRiV3Y

The above video is actually for a GE66 model, but it's pretty close to my laptop in build. It turns out, the keyboard sheet is the very last thing you would remove after entirely disassembling every component of the laptop. Now, I've been inside by GE76 Raider. Everything else right now is working great. There is no way in hell I'm pulling out all the guts to fix basically one or two bad keys on a keyboard. That said, this was a problem; as a writer I need a fully functional keyboard, and as a gamer try playing anything without your W-A-S-D keys. So, the next step was to find a way to keep my laptop functional but also be able to use a fully capable keyboard. Time to plug a USB socket keyboard in. I've always wanted one of those mechanical fancy keyboards, so now here's my chance to get one. 

For being on the go, I still had a foldable keyboard I wasn't doing anything with, so now it has a purpose and I can type without carrying a boat-load of more crap in my backpack beyond my laptop. So, my keyboard problem is sort of solved, my old A key is wonky but staying in place, and I can squeeze out another year or two from my laptop before retiring it to a cryptomining farm in the garage in lieu of another GE76+ in the future.

Boy, what a week it's been, and I'm not even to Wednesday yet.