I’ve not had much luck with the keyboard on my EliteBook 840 G8. My T key came off, and I tried to replace it with a key I rarely use (alt-gr) but the hinge turned out to be different for some reason (different hinges for the same key size on the same keyboard?!) then I tried the #/~ key, which I somehow managed to break. Then I ordered a new keyboard, only to find out the the delete key had broken, and my current keyboard was riveted in so I couldn’t even fit it anyway. So, I returned that and bought the whole bottom enclosure and keyboard as one, which I fitted, and only a few days later the A key’s paint peeled off. 🤦🏻‍♂️

In this, I’ve learnt some lessons about taking key-caps off EliteBook 840 G8 laptop’s.

If you need to remove a key-cap from an EliteBook 840 G8, don’t try to take the hinge off as well. I’ve had absolutely no success getting a hinge and key-cap to go back on and stay on (well I managed it once). On every try I just cannot get the hinge to go back on enough that pressing a corner of the key-cap doesn’t pop the hinge off. I’m sure there is a technique, but I haven’t figured it out.

However, I’ve had lots of success removing and replacing just the key-cap on it’s own, leaving the hinge in place. The trick is to use a very thin-tipped flat-head screwdriver to just pry the key-cap itself off from the right side of the key. This leaves the hinge intact. It’ll feel like you are going to break the key-cap and you should be careful, but I haven’t managed to break any after prying off dozens on my old broken EliteBook keyboard as practice. Most of the time they’ll just pop off.

What you will find however is, you can’t rely on the hinge always being the same, or even some keys on the same keyboard to use the same hinge. I’ve had two new keyboards, and both had different hinges to the one my EliteBook originally came with. That meant I couldn’t swap the peeled off A key-cap with my old keyboard’s A.