MS Natural Ergo Keyboard 4000 Sticky/Stiff Spacebar Fix

I bought a newer MS Natural Ergo Keyboard 4000 to replace my very old
white MS Natural Keyboard Elite.

I was very disappointed to find that the space bar was stiff or
sticky. So I searched the web for all the possible solutions.

Here's what I found and tried:
1. lubricate plastic posts on underside of key (didn't work)
2. twist metal sway bar away from each other slightly (acceptable)
3. remove metal sway bar completely (acceptable)

I took pictures of the procedures. Here's the gallery -
http://www.paulstravelpictures.com/M...-Spacebar-Fix/

Hopefully this will help some of you that have this keyboard.

Cheers,
Paul Michaels
Ft. Lauderdale, FL

[Thannhauser]

I had the same problem with the space bar, but I finally solved it once and for all.

In the picture "Keyboard Under Space Bar" in your link you will notice that there are two tiny triangle shaped plastic protuberances in the black area below the zxcvb and nm keys (marked with an asterisk in the lousy ASCII diagram below, ignore the dots).

Z X C V B ··············· N ···· M
---------- ············· -----------
| O · O · / ·············· \ ·· O········
______ / * ············ * \________

In my keyboard one of them (the right one) was broken. I couldn't add the missing one, so I tried (please notice that this is what I did, I am not responsible of the results if you try this and something goes wrong. Try this at your own risk.) removing the other one with a nail clipper. I also strategically placed a folded Post-it note under the left part of the space bar to solve the other problem I had with the space bar: it was too noisy. Now it works just fine.

[anodyne]

Originally Posted by Thannhauser

I had the same problem with the space bar, but I finally solved it once and for all.

In the picture "Keyboard Under Space Bar" in your link you will notice that there are two tiny triangle shaped plastic protuberances in the black area below the zxcvb and nm keys (marked with an asterisk in the lousy ASCII diagram below, ignore the dots).

Z X C V B ··············· N ···· M
---------- ············· -----------
| O · O · / ·············· \ ·· O········
______ / * ············ * \________

In my keyboard one of them (the right one) was broken. I couldn't add the missing one, so I tried (please notice that this is what I did, I am not responsible of the results if you try this and something goes wrong. Try this at your own risk.) removing the other one with a nail clipper. I also strategically placed a folded Post-it note under the left part of the space bar to solve the other problem I had with the space bar: it was too noisy. Now it works just fine.

I have tried the above solution and I can verify it significantly improves the stiff spacebar problem. I actually had same situation with the right 'protuberance' already broken as well...