Repairing Apple Wireless Keyboard Power Button

Written By: Peter Alt
  • Comments: 26
Repairing Apple Wireless Keyboard Power Button

Difficulty

Moderate

Steps

2

Time Required

No estimate

Introduction

If you drop your keyboard at the upper right corner, your power button might get stuck and the keyboard will not work any longer.

This is a short guide which will show you an easy way to get it working again!

  1. OdUJi2Qw54hQFcwM

    • Cut away the dented aluminum with your cutting knife. It's a little bit tricky and you have to use some force to cut it, but it will work.

    • Please be carefull with the knife! You can cut into your thumb very easily!

    Using cutting knife is too dangerous. I did cut my finger. But I find an alternate method. Using a fingernail cut with polish function is better. You can polish the edge. And it worked!

    Qiang Zhong -

  2. quJwiwUCu3j5BnWB

    • Carefully pull out the power button if needed and correct the dent

    • Push the power button back in once the dent is smoothed out from inside.

    i love you your a genuse

    DamianTheBlueDiamond -

Conclusion

Once the aluminum that was holding the button in is cut away, your device is repaired. No reassembly is necessary.

Author

Peter Alt

Member since: 11/06/10

833 Reputation

24 comments

This worked for me. Be Careful. I made it worse initially because the inside edge became rough with my hacking away. I ended up smoothing the edge with a stainless steel cuticle pusher. Also: Constantly blow the scrapings away so they don't get caught between the button and the edge.

joan roco -

Thanks for this idea. It worked great for me and saved the keyboard. My first idea was to try to fully disassemble the keyboard so I could bend the piece back out with pliers after removing the button. I probably would've destroyed the keyboard without fixing it without this simple idea.

Wesley Womack -

Bullshit nothing can go between the button and the Keyboard, i just break my keyboard... thx

ruedifly -

It worked for me. Took an hour or so to carefully cut the alumunium around the button. It took quite long because I have a crappy cutter that will easily snapped its sharp point.

Eventually the click was starting to work. Didn't manage to cut deeper so the whole assembly is still stuck.

Indramin Darmadi -

It worked! The dent is pressing the power button making it unmovable. Its was on that state until I changed batteries. Now scratched and dented but working. Apple design flaw.

adelacuesta2972 -

It worked for me! I purchased an Apple Wireless Keyboard off eBay for 5.04 (!) that was missing the Z key. It was listed as being in excellent condition, a few scuffs, in working order. I figured, no problem, replacement keys are also sold on eBay for a few bucks.

Found out that the back tube had been bent over the (right side) power button. Saw this guide, and put in about a half hour GENTLY scraping away at it.

Keyboard works like a charm now! Thanks a bunch!!!

Joel -

It works like a charm. It takes a lot of patience to remove the dent and smoothing the edge with a nail file, but it's worth it.

Carlos Teran -

Worked beautifully! Bought a keyboard together with the trackpad and Thunderbolt display at Goodwill, only sign of usage on the set was a dent on the button, haha. I had to dig quite deep to get the button unstuck, but no issue at all! Even the cheapest knifes are able to cut the aluminium away.

DefinitelyNot AShark -

Thanks for this! The knives didn't make it nice so I mainly used a double cut flat file, and went a bit deeper until some white plastic appeared , that I was able to pull out to original position and make the button clickable again, I'm happy.

.. Maybe Apple could solve it by make the eject key work as power button..

MadWurmz from Planet Verbs -

Worked !!!, My problem was that the keyboard had a dent right at the button side corner, then the button kept always pushed and somehow the batteries didn´t last a week. 5 mins repair. Thank you so much!

smejia2001 -

Awesome fix, just under a minute to fix my keyboard

Millan Garcia -

Worked great for me. Was carrying around the keyboard and somehow the aluminum around the power button got banged up to the point that the power button was sticking. Used a razor blade to pry the button off and smoothed out the dent by shaving off some material with the aforementioned razor blade. Works much better now.

carlxjones -

5stars! Fixed my power button in 10 min! Thank you!

James Bohrer -

Great tutorial!!! Everything was ok...now I have to smooth the edges...because it seems bitten by a shark! ;-)

Renzo Spanu -

I have a broken power button. The plastic that holds it in is broken. Pieces fall out.

lbmsholly -

its works for me, but I didn't cut way the edge of the power. what I did was I just poke an sharp blade on the power and lift it out. it takes me only a minute to do this.

Thanks :)

rodel resurreccion -

Merci pour le conseil : ça a marché pour moi. Je n’arrivais pas à couper direct l’aluminium avec un cutter donc j’ai d’abord affiné le pourtour avec une lime. Ensuite, mon clavier ne marchait toujours pas (je pense qu’il est tombé vraiment fort) mais j’ai résolu le problème en rajoutant une petite boule d’aluminium en dessous des piles, et maintenant il est comme neuf !

Hannah -

It worked for me, too. Quite simple and effective. Many thanks for the pics.

steven_21218_de -

It worked for me too. I sued the a cheese raydor (Rayador de queso) to file around the off-on bottom. It removed off the section of aluminum that allow me to remove the cap.

JORGE SANGUINO -

garcias genio

Ángel Salomon -

This worked for me. I had this old keyboard that I pretty much never got to use since it fell from my desk on the first week I bought it and it fell on its power button, folding in the aluminium edge. I’m glad I found this article, cause I was set on buying a new one. When I took the button out, the metal part of it detached from the plastic, but it’s only glued together, so I glued it back.

Mau Falcon -

To pry the button off, there is an indent on the top portion (where the power logo “points” to). If you push the button in on the bottom, you can get something under the upper portion to pry off.

I used a dremel sanding drum to remove the material to make the button move smoothly again, it was quick and easy.

Mike Schaus -

Ah man this really helped me out! Thank you. I scraped out the insides very carefully but still made it look terrible. I scraped until the button popped back into action and then left it like that. Now my batteries dont drain in a minute!

Awesome thanks a lot :]

Jani Van Den Berg -