A1314 wireless keyboard: 'y' and 'u' keys activating when keys above and below are pressed

Question

As stated in the title, I have been recently been having problems with a A1314 wireless Apple keyboard.

The issue is that the 'y' and 'u' keys are activating themselves whenever I type any letters that are above them, or below them in the diagonal. For instance, letters h, n, space bar, 6, and F5 activate the y key; letters j, m, space bar, 7, and F6 activate the u key. Actually, for the case of letter u, whenever I press it, it stays pressed for random periods of time (also when I press the keys above or below it in the diagonal).

I have followed this YouTube tutorial in order to clean "stuck keys". However, this did not solve the problem. I have bought it second hand, so I do not know if there has been liquid damage before. Every other key works fine. Does this problem has a solution? Or is the keyboard dead?

Answer 1

I miraculously made it work after following this tutorial twice. The second time, since I did not have high hopes, I was a little more generous with the alcohol and I took off every key. So what worked for me was:

• took off all of the keys and the plastic mechanism for each key
• used a generous amount of alcohol to clean each spot (a little more than in the tutorial but without exaggerating either);
• used classic ethyl alcohol at 70%;
• submerge the keys and the mechanisms in soapy water (used dish soap) for one hour or so and rub with cloth afterwards;
• left it all to dry for 12 hours;
• placed the keyboard in front of a dehumidifier for about 15 minutes before putting the keys back in place.

For the last step, I am sure that direct sunlight for a fair amount of time would have worked as well, but the sky was cloudy that day in my case.

Additional notes: this keyboard was not particularly dirty or clogged with anything. There were eyelash/cat-like hair pieces in a "normal" amount and common dirt. What I did notice was some metallic glitter below the plastic mechanism in some keys, I do not know if these could be causing shorts or something similar... I took out as much as I could using tweezers at times.