Mechanical Keyboard keys sound different

stuffandthings

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Apr 8, 2013
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So i bought my first mechanical keyboard (cm stormfire tk with cherry mx blues) about two weeks ago. My dog hit it with its paw hard yesterday, and now i'm all paranoid that somethigns wrong. I've noticed that a lot of the keys sound different, both in the click and the bottoming out. Is this something normal or did the banging ruin the feel of the keyboard?
 

bebop460

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Jun 25, 2011
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I agree.

I bought a CM Quickfire Pro, and I notice some keys feel slightly different across the board. It's not noticeable unless I am very conscious of it, as I would certainly be if my dog pawed it too.

They have a steel backplate and Cherry keys are tough as nails, so don't sweat it. The KB has a 2 yr warranty too. If you find the inconsistent noises bother you as you live with it, I'd RMA it with CM (and not mention the incident).
 

stuffandthings

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I don't care too much if its just the way mech keyboard are, and the sound isn't annoying. But does this mean the keys are waited differently? because my old rubber dome had been worn to the point where each key had a different actuation force, and this became a nuisance when tying because I would type some keys too lightly. Im fine as long as that didn't start happening.
 

bebop460

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The keys aren't weighted. I severely doubt that the dog damaged the keys and wearing it out so soon is nearly impossible, as the keys are rated for 50 million actuations each.

With my keyboard, I suspect that a few of the keycaps were not machined/formed evenly and my left CNTRL key sticks slightly on occasion.

I think (In my case at least) the main reason why key presses feel/sound inconsistent sometimes is because of the way I type; unintentionally pressing some keys at slightly different angles and using different amounts of force with different fingers.

I find that the key feel/noise is very sensitive to and greatly effected by the amount of force and angles applied to the keys. I think that these slight differences in sound/feel are a characteristic of mechanical keyboards.

At some point, I intend to install rubber o-ring switch dampeners (http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/cherry-mx-rubber-switch-dampeners.html) so that the keys have less of an actuation distance, are less noisy, and bottom out more softly and consistently. They could be of benefit to you as well, and improve the noise and feel of your keyboard.

Note that there is a video of a guy typing on a variety of Cherry keys on that URL, and that the sound is not 100% consistent. This could be a good rough reference of how your key presses should sound.