Asus T100 keyboard dock is messed up

One of the reasons for choosing the Asus T100 tablet when I was switching from the Dell Latitude 10 Essentials tablet which gave me all sorts of trouble was the bundled keyboard dock. It is difficult to use the desktop portion of the Windows 8 operating system without a hardware keyboard. While the keyboard dock of the Asus t100 tablet wasn't perfect, it was adequate for the job was job.

And now it's broken!

How broken is it?

There are two problems.

• A large portion of the keys are not registering a keystroke. The reason for this I believe is a water spill. Just like the Logitech g15 keyboard that I had with my desktop PC, water has taken out another keyboard and this keyboard is very important because it is difficult to replace.

The keys with the green dot are currently functioning and the ones with the red dot are not functioning anymore.

• The key that is under the Escape key pops off easily. The culprit in this case is my son. He loves to pull keys out of keyboards and he has even done that with the MacBook Air. Luckily the key on the MacBook Air did not break but the key on the Asus T100 tablet wasn't that lucky. This is a very important key because it is the key that is used to convert from input mode Japanese input mode and vice versa (yes, I have the Japanese model, but you can install US version of the OS no problem). But this is not really a big issue because most of the keys are not functioning at all and I cannot use the hardware keyboard at all.

So what can I do about this?

I asked Asus if they sell the Keyboard Dock separately. First I chatted with a support staff and the I asked me to directly contact the Technical Support Division. The Technical Support Division then asked me to contact the Asus Online Shop. I asked them yesterday and I haven't received a response yet. I don't feel so enthusiastic about this option because I don't think they'll be selling it for cheap even if they sell them separately. But I think it was worth a shot. Let’s see what their response would be.

In the mean time, I searched eBay for any listing for the Keyboard Dock and I managed to find only one. One guy was selling a used T100 keyboard dock for $80. I felt it was too steep for a used to keyboard dock and I probably have to pay for shipping as well. I can keep on looking though.

Perhaps I can open up the keyboard and see if I can fix it. But I doubt I can do much about it. Water must have short circuited some keys (or some circuit paths leading to the control circuit). In that case, I think the only thing I can do is to replace the control circuit of the keyboard, but I doubt I will be able to find an exact one anywhere. But I still think it is a good idea to take a look inside. Finding a couple of hours without the kid’s intervention is the hardest part.