HP Forum Archive 13

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HP97 keyboard Message #1 Posted by Chan Tran on 5 Sept 2003, 8:52 a.m. I have a 97 and it's very nice. The main keyboard kind of losing the click and I have to press them pretty hard to make sure they registed. I hope someone would suggest a cleaning and or repairing technique.

Re: HP97 keyboard Message #2 Posted by Katie on 5 Sept 2003, 11:15 a.m., in response to message #1 by Chan Tran The 97 keyboard doesn't "click" so I assume that you mean that the key press isn't making good contact. Anyway, it's pretty easy to disassemble the 97 keyboard and clean it. Once you open the 97 case (6 screws) there are another few screws to remove the keyboard from the top of the case and then a bunch more screws to remove the contact PCB from the keyboard itself. But you don't have to worry about any pieces falling out, all the keys and springs are kept in place by caps on the end of the key stalks. Just clean the gold plated contacts and the gold plated contact matrix with isopropyl alcohol and that should fix your problems.

Re: HP97 keyboard Message #3 Posted by David Smith on 5 Sept 2003, 5:37 p.m., in response to message #1 by Chan Tran The HP97 service manual is on the HPMUSEUM CDROM set. When taking apart the HP97 keyboard, note the relative positions of the gold keyboard contact sheet and the two white plastic spacer sheets. Different machines have them in different orders.

Re: HP97 keyboard Message #4 Posted by Chan Tran on 8 Sept 2003, 8:48 a.m., in response to message #3 by David Smith Thanks all for the posts. I will try to clean the keyboard. I also have an offer for a keyboard. I think it would be just fine. Thanks.

Re: HP97 keyboard Message #5 Posted by Gordon Dyer on 8 Sept 2003, 3:23 p.m., in response to message #3 by David Smith My HP-97 had the white spacer sheets together on the smaller keys and either side of the gold contact sheet on the larger keys. The manual shows a white sheet either side of the contacts. I reassembled it with white spacer sheets either side of the contacts for both sets and it now feels better and seems very reliable. I wonder if the assembly line used the spacer sheets to better position the contacts, or was it just poor quality assembly???

Re: HP97 keyboard Message #6 Posted by David Smith on 8 Sept 2003, 3:32 p.m., in response to message #5 by Gordon Dyer Almost all the HP97 machines that I have seen have had the two sheets together. I had a machine with lots of flakey keys and a spacer sheet on each side of the contacts. I reassembled the keyboard with the spacer sheets together and all the problems went away.

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