Some problems with Vengeance K70

[kayahr]

Hello,

 

I just received my Corsair Vengeance K70 (MX Brown) and I'm a little bit disappointed because I already found several problems. Maybe someone knows a solution? Maybe it can be fixed with a firmware upgrade? Or maybe someone can at least try to reproduce it so I know if this is a general problem or if it just happens with my keyboard?

 

1. The caps-lock/num-lock/scroll-lock LEDs are not working when in mode 1, 2, 4 or 8. When switching to BIOS-Mode then caps-lock/num-lock is working but scroll-lock flashes all the time which is quite annoying. Unfortunately I haven't found an understandable documentation of this BIOS switch up to now. So what is going on here? A feature which I don't understand? A firmware bug? Doesn't look like a hardware bug because the LEDs are physically working.

 

2. I have the german layout keyboard and I have strange problems with the #-key (The one left of the Return-key an above the right-shift key). The secondary function (With shift) of this key is the quote-character (') which I use quite often during programming. When I do the timing wrong and I release the shift-key before I release the #-key then the keyboard prints this sequence: '##

This is 100% reproducable. Just press Shift, then then #-key and then release Shift key before releasing the #-key. This is really annoying. Happens in all five modes (1, 2, 4, 8 and BIOS). I couldn't reproduce this behaviour with any other key, just with the #-key (Which may be a different key in other keyboard layouts). Software bug? Can it be repaired? I hope so.

 

3. The buttons for setting the LED-mode and -brightness are generating actual key codes. This is not really a problem but unfortunately one of these key codes is a well-known keycode. So when I toggle the LED brightnesses then my computer opens the calculator because one of the generated key strokes is the calculator-keycode. Why are these keys generating key-codes at all? They are just meant to configure the keyboard and are not to be used by the computer.

 

I wasn't able to look for a firmware upgrade yet because the corsair.com website is broken currently (No stylesheets are loaded...) Are there firmware upgrades available? Is Corsair usually fixing problems like the above ones in firmware upgrades or will these problems remain forever? Because I'm considering returning the keyboard and switch to another manufacturer when there is no hope for a solution for at least problem number 2.

 

EDIT: I just noticed that these problems are only present when using the keyboard with Linux. On Windows these problems can't be reproduced. This is really a shame that the manufacturer hasn't tested a device in this price-class on other operating systems. It's absolutely ok when special macro stuff or something like that is only working on Windows but the keyboard LEDs and the key pressing behaviors are standard keyboard features and it is absolutely not acceptable when these standard features are only working correctly on Windows. I think I will try opening some support tickets for these problems and when they are not resulting in a promised firmware upgrade then I guess this was the first and last Corsair keyboard for me.