4 ms·

I think someone managed to stick a 220 keyboard onto a 230

• icey 6y ago
  There are quite a few people who have done this (myself included). The process is pretty straightforward since they have nearly identical chassis. r/Thinkpad has a lot of details on how to do it. The toughest part is covering the right connections on the ribbon cable for the 220 keyboard since the pinouts are slightly different. It is a fun little project and the keyboards can be found pretty cheaply on eBay.
  • rasz 6y ago
    dont you need a bios(smc) modded firmware flash to make all the keys work?
    • icey 6y ago
      Yes, you're right. I forgot about this step because I also corebooted my Thinkpad and replaced the NIC at the same time as keyboard. For the keyboard, I used these instructions: https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Install_Classic_Keyboard_on_xx30_Series_ThinkPads https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Install_Classic_Keyboard_on_x... (Corebooting was not needed to flash the bios, it just seemed fun at the time)
    • pinusc 6y ago
      Yes, however the process is very easy today and can be done entirely software-side, thanks to 1vyrain [1]. So you don't need to flash the BIOS using an external programmer, just run what amounts to an exploited/modified update. I recently did this on my T430, and could not be happier about the keyboard. [1]: https://github.com/n4ru/1vyrain https://github.com/n4ru/1vyrain