I have had two Dell Dimension Desktop keyboards with the letter dye coming off on several letters. I had an old keyboard for several years, also by Dell. But within a week of my new Dell Keyboard, the same letters are rubbing of or are gone. I am looking down as I type:
The white on the “Z” is completely gone, “C”, “V”, almost all of the 'B", “S”, “D” “F”, and “A”. The letters on the right side look new. I went on-line and discovered this is such a common problem with computers and keyboards in so many homes and businesses. What causes this? And how come, years ago when I had my Gateway, it had an off-white keyboard with black key dye, as opposed to Dell’s white keys and I cannot recall ONE key rubbing off in the six years I had that Gateway. I take very good care of my system.
And I really like the feel of this keyboard very much! It works very well and the letters and nice and responsive. Is the letter rubbing off more of a problem with Dell Computers than other companies? Is Dell doing anything to resolve this issue? Would a more expensive keyboard help from Dell, or would it make no difference?
It doesn’t really bother me too much. Dell probably puts these out at like $15 USA dollars a shot, making them for pennies on the dollar in their sleep. It just seems that with the great advances in computer technology that Dell can’t make a long-lasting dye-cast to keep the lettering looking good. Keyboards and typewriters before keyboards, go back 75 years and did not have this problem.
What I do is to wrap the keyboard with a good thin plastic food wrap. Just one layer, keep the bottom unwrap. That way not only you will protect the letter die, but the whole keyboard from dust, liquid, ashes ( if you smoke ), etc.
Ask Dell for a replacement for this cheap no name keyboard badged Dell cr4p.
Or cut your loss and buy a cheep no name keyboard, the delivery is likely to cost you more than the keyboard. But there are fine cheep keyboards out there and the lettering lasts for years on. This being typed on a cheap Benq X-Touch 800 my second one in a few years, the first I though had broken, but a good shake and clean and it still works and is my back-up. The lettering on that is fine and I also have another Cherry PS2 keyboard for a spare.
You can also use stick on letters. The numbers should not be wearing off that fast though unless you have contaminants on your hands. Many hand or skin lotions can cause things like that. I once found that the skin lotion I was using would cause the Lightscribe labeling on discs to fade out and disappear where I had touched it with lotion residue still on my fingers.
Lightscribe labeling is burned on the disk which has a special coating. The same burner that creates the disk in the first place , if it’s Lightscribe capable and you have the software installed, will burn the label. Paper stick on labels will eventually cause the disk not to work and magic markers can actually eat through the surface of the disk in time and also cause failure.
magic markers can actually eat through the surface of the disk in time and also cause failure.
I wonder how many years this takes since I've been doing this since first using and marking a CD ???
I'm sure you wear out the disk before the ink eats it up. ;D
As the link you posted mentions that you can use markers but they should be the proper dvd-cd markers, iv got one right in front of me actually - it’s a Bic Mark it CD - DVD Permanent marker.
Yes, they have to be special ones. You can’t just use a Sharpie. Well, you can, but you shouldn’t.
Anyway, back on topic, I still say that hand and skin lotions can cause problems with things like labels, keyboards, photographs, even some ink jet printed materials.
If the keyboard letters have been printed with a cheaper substance then even the oils off your skin will ware them away eventually, no idea about hand lotions as i dont use them, DcH48 maybe you need to speak to your peticurest about that ;D
It wasn’t a hand lotion per se that did it. It was a cocoa butter based skin treatment from Walmart that did it to the discs and I suspect was also a factor in losing the letters on a few keys on my older laptop. I don’t have a pedicurist, or even a regular doctor for that matter. I haven’t seen one in about ten years at least.
