Blackwidow X Chroma - Top Cover Rusting Issue

I have gone through a keyboard replacement already, sending the keyboard in for a second replacement today (8th Aug 2017) due to the same rusting issue. My 1 year warranty will be up on 15th Aug 2017... I had purchased this keyboard on 15th Aug 2016 for NT$6590 (~US$220 with current exchange rates). It's actually quite an expensive piece of gear. What am I gonna do when the same problem crops up again???

Although I do love the tactile feel of the keyboard, the seemingly sturdy construction and the fancy LED lighting of this particular piece of gear, I also have a particularly annoying issue with it. Not once, but twice.

About 2 months later, I noticed the left-hand side of my keyboard's top cover (metal cover plate) started rusting/oxidizing underneath the black paint. I am not sure what kind of process were used or kind of paint/powder were used to color these plates, but for some bizzare reason it had began rusting. So I took it back to the store (authorized reseller on 15th Oct 2016) and they agreed to send it to the regional distributing agent of Razer (Taiwan) to have a look. A week and a bit later I received a phone call from the store telling me that a new replacement keyboard will be given and that it was indeed a product issue. Kudos to Razer and their regional distributing agent for this.

These are photographs of the rusting situation on the first keyboard:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4j1vk5v30n3fftn/1st_01.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vdly6sqgo4alywi/1st_02.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1fntgj99kuvyuqn/1st_03.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4p9u0gg19ueoqad/1st_04.jpg?dl=0

These are photographs of the rusting situation on the second keyboard (replacement):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3g8fzhdovh0owxr/2nd_01.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a4nihglulorau0q/2nd_02.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/16s6o72qiqoty0x/2nd_03.jpg?dl=0

 

While I can't say what exactly caused the rusting (could be sweat, condensation or something else), what I can say is that the warranty should be good for 2 years based on Razer's Warranty Policy. The threads I've seen about this issue has been with the BlackWidow X Chroma so it could be that the problem is limited to that line. I've been using the BlackWidow X Tournament Edition Chroma since release and I haven't encountered any rusting so far.

I'd suggest you contact Razer Support about this and explain what has happened so far. Maybe they could provide you better options than the reseller.

 

Blackwidow X TE Chroma is just a 10-keyless version of the same build. Unless they addressed and made improvements in the build (material or paint), I would think it still runs the same risk. It's not just sweat (probably a combination of factors), or else it would be uniform across the whole keyboard (both my hands are just the same when it comes to sweating). The weird thing is that both incidents of rust originate from/in the same region of the keyboard : \

P.S. I did find another cases with the same problem online

1. https://insider.razerzone.com/index.php?threads/razer-chroma-x-rusting.18323/
2. https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/comments/549lzc/razer_blackwidow_x_chroma_is_getting_rusty/