Filco Majestouch's keys not working right away after long AFK period

[Dergeick]

Hi,

My name is Dergeick, and I've owned a Filco Majestouch Tenkeyless with French layout for now a year and I'm overall very satisfied with it, it's a great keyboard. I've had one problem though these last couple of months. When I'm not at my desk using my keyboard, for like a minimum of 6-7 hours, typically when I sleep, it seems that certain keys fall asleep in the meantime as well
What I mean is, when I just start using it again after a rather long period of idle time, certain keys (mainly 3,4,E,B and now 1) don't work at all, until I press them hard enough and enough times that they seem to wake up and start working again. After that time to "warm them up", they're working perfectly, but it still worries me that more and more keys are getting affected by this weird behavior : at first it was just E, then B, now number keys.
I have to say that I play Starcraft 2 and 1,3,4,B,E are actually keys that I hit a lot while playing. Others that I use even more are not affected however (like A, Shift or Ctrl), so I don't know how relevant that is. I have a hard time believing that the keyboard is already failing, after all, I'm no pro-gamer and I've heard mechanical keyboards are well adapted to their heavy practice needs

Could it be simply dust or whatever under the keys, is that frequent and easy to solve, or is it actually an issue that others have had in the past? I searched quite a bit on geekhack and google but I couldn't find good enough queries to get answers. Also, I don't have something to remove the keycaps right now so I can't tell you how dusty it is under there, sorry about that, but I would assume it's disgusting

Any help appreciated, thanks in advance guys.

Dergeick.

[stingrae]

Does the problem correct itself after replugging in the keyboard?

Are you using PS/2 or USB?

Are you running any key changing software?

[rowdy]

Welcome to Geekhack!

Your keyboard probably has some sort of Cherry MX switches, which are supposed to last for 50 million key strokes each.  It is very doubtful that you would have come close to this on any single key.

The culprit could be dust, or a hair, that has made its way into the switch.

Or something like a fozzilised crumb stuck under the key cap preventing the key from pressing all the way down.

The best idea is to try to remove a few key caps around the problem keys, and see just how dirty it is.

You can make a key cap puller from a couple of paper clips, as I understand it.

[Dergeick]

@stingrae

It doesn't correct itself after unplug/plugging, it's plugged in USB, and I'm running no key changing software. So I assume it's a hardware problem.

@rowdy

I forgot to mention, but it's the MX Brown switches version, yes.
But you're right, it's probably just dirt under the keys, I'll check that out.

Thanks to you both.

[fnx]

Hi guys, I've had the exact same problem with my M all of a sudden. It usually needs 1-2 strokes to "wake up" after some idle time which annoys the hell out of me. It also affects combinations like shift+M.
I've a Majestouch-1, blue, tenkeyless.
Does anyone have an idea what could cause this or how to fix it?

[rowdy]

Can you try the keyboard on a different computer - might be something weird on the operating system.

Or how about unplugging it and plugging it back in - do the keys suddenly start working?

[fnx]

Can you try the keyboard on a different computer - might be something weird on the operating system.

Or how about unplugging it and plugging it back in - do the keys suddenly start working?

So far I tried switching USB-ports and to PS/2, which both didn't fix it. The problem is it's so rare its difficult to replicate, yet frequent enough to really mess up writing if I use the keyboard for a couple of hours.

[suprsmo]

To both OP and poster above me.

Try your keyboards on another PC, to eliminate the "local" issue.