My One and Only Gripe About The New STRAFE RGB

Loving this thing a lot. Never thought I'd drop 160$ on a keyboard....but man this thing is sexy. And pretty quiet too. My only complaint is the key lock indicators. They are white LED's only which isn't the biggest deal(still would have been nice if they were changeable), but it's a BRIGHT white. Too bright. Granted I only have to worry about the num-lock stripe but it seriously outshines everything else. Adjusting the backlighting level does nothing to it. I was just gonna leave it off except for when I needed my number pad, but after just an hour or two of use, I've realized I use the number pad way more than I realized. So now I have to cut like a really thin piece of electrical tape to cover it up. That's a shame cause the last thing I want to do is put tape on this brand new sexy keyboard. Also, would have been nice if the light strip on the side of the keyboard was RGB but that doesn't really bother me because I can disable it. Oh well, not the biggest deal but I had hoped that for such a large chunk of change, I would have zero complaints. Still one complaint isn't terrible I guess. Great job on this keyboard Corsair. I give it a 99/100.

Update: 2nd issue found. The G key makes an obnoxious metallic springy noise on its way back up. It's really irking me. Think I'm going to exchange it. :(

2nd Update: Well I exchanged it....got this one home and hey!, the G key isn't making the noise. Unfortunately the Z key and the ?/ keys are! :( WTH Corsair? Are you guys checking these boards before you package them for retail? I'm disappointed. For a 160$ keyboard I shouldn't be feeling disappointed. Oh well I'm keeping this one because I feel like if I exchange it again, the keys affected by this noise might be more frequently used keys than the Z or ?/ keys. If anyone knows what I'm talking about with this metallic springy ping noise when the keys on it's way back up after being depressed, is there a fix? Or anything I can do to lessen it? I'll probably contact Corsair to see what they think about it. Still any suggestions will be appreciated.

Note that I originally posted this text below as a seperate post and decided to move it to OP...in that time Henry responded again and was more explanatory this time.

3rd Update: Henry from Corsair sent me a PM saying they'd like the keyboard back for testing purposes. That's it. No further explanation. I'm seriously annoyed by this message. And you know you would think given that I stated I've had two of these boards now and BOTH were affected by this issue, that there's a good chance they could go grab any one of these boards that they're selling and find the issue present. Why do they need mine? I doubt this is an isolated incident given that my 2 experienced it as well as the user Slim142 below. Here's a copy of my correspondence with Mr. Henry.

Hello Fernix840,

 

Do you have a Strafe MX silent? If you do, we would like this unit back for testing purposes.

yea it's the mx silent version. 1) don't you think Corsair should be testing such an expensive product BEFORE they send them to retail?

2) What on earth do you mean you would like the unit back? Uhh, you want to give me $160 dollars? How about an extra $20 for the gas I had to burn to go exchange the 1st one for a second one that has the EXACT SAME PROBLEM, just different keys affected. I don't know if you really work for Corsair but if you do, you should really try to be a bit more specific. You say you'd like the unit back.....so what, I'm just supposed to mail it to you and be out of a keyboard AND $160? Get real.

FINAL UPDATE: Ok Henry has proposed that Corsair will personally inspect every single key on the board that they intend to send me to replace the one I have with the two keys affected by this noise issue. This seems like a fair deal and some good customer service. I was close to feeling that this would be my last Corsair purchase, but have changed my mind. I'm glad to see Corsair seems to care about the customer experience and should state that I never contacted them about my issues. They contacted me which means they keep an eye on this forum so kudos to them. Lastly I will reiterate that while these issues have frustrated me, this is one hella sexy keyboard. I hope future strafe RGB silent users don't also have these issues.

Hey!

I came to the forums exactly for the same issue!

I thought I was the only one, but I noticed more than just one key makes that spring noise!.

It really irritates me because the whole point of having a "silent" keyboard was to reduce noise, not to add new ones.

VERY DISAPPOINTED! Especially when I got mine straight from the Corsair website.

Let me know what Corsair says please.

The keys are checked by Cherry before they are sent to Corsair. Corsair doesnt check the keys again. If you are having this issue please contact Corsair Support and request an RMA

You know what, I will go ahead and contact Corsair as well.

Hello Slim142,

 

Were you able to get in touch with our support team? what is the status of your RMA?

Hi Henry

Yes, I did contact Corsair and today my RMA was approved. My RMA # is 6685327.

However, I'm very concerned since I would not like to receive a keyboard with similar issues or even worse (noisier) than the one I have.

Is Corsair aware of this? Have they fixed this problem?

Hello Slim142,

 

Thank you for letting me know. Please check your inbox.

Will do, thanks!

Hello Fenix840,

 

My apologies for not being clear with you. We do test our products prior to releasing them to the public. Since you had mention that your Keyboard's "G" key is making an obnoxious metallic springy noise on its way back up, we would like this unit back for a failure analysis so we can investigate this issue. We will replace this keyboard with a brand new one and we will take care of shipping for you. If you are OK with replacing this unit and having your specific unit sent back to us, let me know and we will take care of you.

Like I said in my 2nd update to the OP....I exchanged the board that had the G key with this issue and the replacement I got has the same issue on the Z and ?/ keys. The board with the bad G key switch is back with BestBuy. I would be fine with replacing this board but what assurance would I have that this second replacement wouldn't also have this issue? And what if it's a key more frequently used than Z or?/ ? I decided to keep this board and deal with it(though I shouldn't have to) because I don't hit the Z key that often and ?/ key less frequently than other letter keys. I just wouldn't want to have to replace this replacement board your proposing sending to me. Do you guys cross-ship? How long would I be out of a keyboard?

We can have the replacement unit sent here to HQ and I can have our support team personally test out every single key to make sure it does not have the metallic springy noise. Once the keyboard is fully inspected, we can then contact you to have the keyboard swapped out to minimize the downtime.

This sounds pretty reasonable, and I appreciate you responding so quickly. I will update the OP of this thread one last time to reflect your desire to help me resolve this issue. What do I need to do on my end to start this process?

Also, for your support team to hear the noise in question, the key, after being depressed, must be released as fast as possible. If it is released slowly, the noise does not occur.

Same issue here. Couple of keys making a metallic ping sound. I thought the keyboard was making some sort of subtle beeping sound but listening closely it was something inside the switch... *sigh*

Edit: Oct 30th. Pinging sound has disappeared completely. Maybe we just have to workout the keys a bit. Probably just the plastic clicking a bit on the spring inside the switch which eventually wears off in in time. Hope others have the same luck or can report back if their pinging continues after some amount of days or no change?

aaaand... same issue here. already in a doa-process with the support and swapping my device and even though i have been told the the same problem could also occur (of course it could, but it should not) with the swapped hid, i'm crossing my fingers that corsair's / cherry's qa-process has advanced in the meantime and that this simply will not happen ;) naive-me, i guess...

Please keep us posted!

Please keep us posted!

received my replacement keyboard today, checked each and every key because i've been told that the same issue could also occur with this one but so far, i'm happy and haven't noticed any doa-keys on this one yet.

thank god, erm, corsair i guess ;)

received my replacement keyboard today, checked each and every key because i've been told that the same issue could also occur with this one but so far, i'm happy and haven't noticed any doa-keys on this one yet.

 

thank god, erm, corsair i guess ;)

Those are very good news!

Super ghetto fix, but I had a similar issue with the indicators on my old N52te. I took some masking tape, used a marker to make it a black, and tape it over them. They were so bright that even with the masking tape and marker, I could still clearly see them. You could probably get away with very small pieces.

It's the only way I can think of to mitigate their brightness.

I just did a quick test with a thin piece of cardboard, and I can see the light through it. Good grief, they really put little suns in those sockets.

Well same issue here, already told Corsair about this.. my first keyboard never had this annoying ping sound but the other replacement keyboards got that annoying ping sound..

As I wrote on other topic:

I bought Strafe rgb RED, it was scratched on the top front left side above the Corsair logo. The store replaced it for me 3 times and 2 of them had the same scratch issues and also this damn annoying ping sound when I type with the keyboard.. Really corsair??

Take back every keyboard you ever made and fix that problem.. I sent back the bad keyboard for money back. Waiting for Corsair to fix this problem and then I can buy Strafe again.. But I am thinking about K70 RGB instead, it's made of aluminum.

I wrote the same text in other topic, why edited it? I am afraid maybe K95 and K70 RGB got the same issue but I don't know for sure yet..

side note from me: it's an awesome keyboard if it behaves, as expected - i'm serious and i will try an mx-silent-brown one as soon as it can order it as a DE-edition only to find out how it feels compared to the red-silents in realy life.

minor annoyance: haven't found a way yet to make the keyboard automatically turn off the lighting in case no key has been pressed for an X amount of minutes but i guess, it's something that can either be hacked or easily added by corsair themself, or i've been just blind :D

oh, and yea, those bright "white status indicators" on the top right are at least somewhat of an annoyance since you don't seem to be able to at least disable them - or - i've been just blind again ;)

side note from me: it's an awesome keyboard if it behaves, as expected - i'm serious and i will try an mx-silent-brown one as soon as it can order it as a DE-edition only to find out how it feels compared to the red-silents in realy life.

 

minor annoyance: haven't found a way yet to make the keyboard automatically turn off the lighting in case no key has been pressed for an X amount of minutes but i guess, it's something that can either be hacked or easily added by corsair themself, or i've been just blind :D

 

oh, and yea, those bright "white status indicators" on the top right are at least somewhat of an annoyance since you don't seem to be able to at least disable them - or - i've been just blind again ;)

you cant disable the indicator but there is a way to make the keyboard dark after a period of time.

Make the keyboard all dark. Set the lighting to activate on press and deactivate after a period of time.

After our engineers have carefully evaluated the situation, we have concluded that there is no abnormality with the switch. The sound will vary to some degree but because it is a quieter switch type and due to tolerances, there may be a different frequency resonance per each switch.

What does it mean then? Is there any fix or? I had it on my Strafe RGB MX red.. If theres no fix/solutions for that ping sound, should I go for K70 RGB instead?

Is there any fix for that??