from the lack of responses, it looks like I just had a one off. got my replacement today and its solid. no clicking or creaking noises. I think the issue was the screws were just not torqued enough but seeing how much these cost, I wasn't going to mess around with it. I also notice that my keyboard feels much tighter and there is zero light bleed when the kb is lit up. the defective one I had the kb was showing a lot of light especially under the "4" key.