Bevel and keyboard: please help me test a hypothesis

Dear all

My original bevel and two replacements rattle slightly when I give them a shake, though only when the covers - webcam, microphone - are open. Here is a video (with sound, obviously) that presents the rattle. Admittedly the video shows me shaking the bevel, unattached, fairly violently. However: even a gentler shaking of the bezel - when the bezel - is attached to the laptop, produces some rattle. I do accept that the problem is minor. Also: if you try to reproduce this problem then, obviously, be careful - do not shake your laptop too violently.

My keyboard (on the ā€˜input coverā€™) and two replacement input covers have the following problem with the up-arrow key. The key makes an off-putting scratchy sound when pressed. It does not do so on every press; I am unsure just what type of touch - for that does seem to be the immediate cause - triggers the noise. (The keyboard is British English.) Video here. Perhaps this too is only a minor problem. Yet, when combined with the fact that the key at issue is irritatingly small, it does irk. (There is also the matter of the horribly involved key combinations required to simulate the pressing of a dedicated ā€˜homeā€™ key and a dedicated ā€˜endā€™ key. All of this is rather grim if one uses the laptop to write code.)

My hypothesis: all Framework 13 laptops, at least of my batch (batch 3, 2024), have the two problems.

So: dear reader, does your Framework 13 have either problem, which is to say, a rattly bezel and/or a scratchy up-arrow key?

Soā€¦ apparently my bezel also rattles. I donā€™t really care. It will never rattle because my laptop never makes those movements.

If I push the up arrow from the bottom upwards I can also feel a scratch I guess. Again. Have never experienced this while using the machine. I always push the button from the top.

For home and end I use Fn+Left and Fn+Right. Wouldnā€™t call that involved. Is it different with a British English keyboard?

P.S. My FW13 AMD is about one month old. Not bought in a batch.

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Are you on Linux?
In case you havenā€™t seen, you can create whatever easier key combos youā€™d like. Such as Right-Ctrl+left / right = home / end. [SOLVED] Is there a way to remap the right Ctrl-key to be another Fn? - #3 by MJ1

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I am on Linux. I had not seen. Thanks for the pointer. Given that I have various keyboards shortcuts set up - shortcuts that involve the arrow keys - Iā€™d better be careful if I do any remapping. Hmm.

For the bezel, my camera switch stays firmly in place no matter if itā€™s open or closed. The microphone switch has the TINIEST bit of play in either position. By which I mean, I would not be able to fit a flathead screwdriver in the gap, but I would be able to get a razor knife in there if I wanted to. My Dell Latitude has a shutter over the webcam, and it has a similar amount of wiggle/rattle/play; I would consider that to be within a reasonable tolerance.

The arrows on my keyboard do not have that plastic on aluminum scratch from your video. But Iā€™m not using a UK layout keyboard. Iā€™m using the Japanese layout, which came out later and has the right shift key (immediately above the up arrow) broken up into the 悍 key and right shift. It was also only ever sold as an entire ā€œinput cover kitā€, and not as a standalone keyboard which struck me as odd. Maybe the assembly of the keyboard into the input cover was changed to a different part of the process; I donā€™t know. If youā€™re attempting to track batches, I replaced both the bezel (with the cute purple one) and the input cover kit (with a JIS layout) in July 2023. I have no idea how long either part may have sat in stock though.

Thank you for that detailed information. I appreciate it.

It seems that:

  • multiple people have the problem;
  • the problem is caused by the key scraping the metal of the keyboard cover;
  • the problem is solvable by removing and re-attaching the keyboard, a procedure that involves some twenty-five screws.