USB keyboard trackpoint physically hard to move - help(!)

[AMATX]

Hi all - I have a USB keyboard(p/n 55y9053) on which the trackpoint is very difficult to move. I'm talking hard to push the actual trackpoint stick, not anything to do with the Windows/Tpad sensitivity settings.

I've swapped out the red cap w/another USB keyboard that works and also tried the keyboard on other laptops and the problem definitely seems to be the stick itself.

I cleaned out some lint and crud, thinking that might fix it, but no change.

The keyboard is about 3 years old, so I'm wondering if there's some component part in the stick that may be hardening up, such as a tiny blob of rubber.

I may tear the keyboard apart some more to see if there's more cleaning to do, but that's all I can think of...

Only other possibility might be to add some length to the stick, so that the red cap sits up higher, so as to have a longer stick with more leverage. Of course, this will poke up more from the keyboard, but I may be able to live with it.

So, anyone out there in Tpad land ever run into this and have a solution(other than buying another keyboard)?