Thinkpads Forum

hello i just got a thinkpad t520 in lot with a t530 bottom with board kb ecc, strange thing is that the thinkpad t520 had the palmrest of the 530 and the kb of the 530,
well it has a strange issue with keyboard, at first i tought it was a t530 but seeing the dates and the core i5 2520m and the 2011 dates surely it wasnt a 30,
after a couple of tries i found out it was a 520 and i took my x220t keyboard and put it in the 520 but well also with a known working keyboard still has an issue where only the power button works, everything else not, the mute and capslock light up on bootup but the keyboard is not working, neither does the trackpoint
i tried those in the windows 7 install dvd (wich i will install once its fixed up) and only the touchpad worked so i think its something that has to do with the keyboard cause the trackpoint is on the kb wich dont work
i hope the guy who put the 530 kb in that didnt ruin the board, also the screen backlight is out but if is not the fuse it will be a simple thing to address

Are you sure it is T520 and not T530?
Have you opened it up to see the P/N or FRU of the motherboard?
Maybe the previous owner messed with Coreboot or thought it was a T530 and tried the EC-mod?
Have you tried an external/USB keyboard?

Just the fact that it has a sandy bridge CPU doesn't make it a T520 over a T530!
My ThinkPad T530i came with an i3-2328M sandy bridge CPU! Yes I ordered it like that new back then because the only other option for my budget was a Pentium dual core or a E530 that's gonna fall apart by now.
Also, T520 and T530 have completely non-interchangable components such as the heatsink because the mounting is ever so slightly different. The palmrest is different but I am sure you can Dremel and make it fit

RealBlackStuff wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 16, 2021 11:14 pm

Are you sure it is T520 and not T530?
Have you opened it up to see the P/N or FRU of the motherboard?
Maybe the previous owner messed with Coreboot or thought it was a T530 and tried the EC-mod?
Have you tried an external/USB keyboard?

yes from the bios it says 4243ap1 wich when looking it up comes up as a t520 also it has the big displayport wich is only up to t520 t530 dont have that, external keyboard works flawlessly but neither the t530 kb or the (from x220) t520 kb work on it, neither the thinkvantage button does work, striclty the power button only works

kfzhu1229 wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 17, 2021 1:30 am

Just the fact that it has a sandy bridge CPU doesn't make it a T520 over a T530!
My ThinkPad T530i came with an i3-2328M sandy bridge CPU! Yes I ordered it like that new back then because the only other option for my budget was a Pentium dual core or a E530 that's gonna fall apart by now.
Also, T520 and T530 have completely non-interchangable components such as the heatsink because the mounting is ever so slightly different. The palmrest is different but I am sure you can Dremel and make it fit

luckily i have both t530 and 520 palmrests, but only the 530 screen bezel
also looking at the bios model type its a 520

It seems possible something crazy was done to EC (embedded controller) firmware. Generally EC firmware is updated by the same flashing application that flashes official BIOS. So you could

- check the version of EC firmware in BIOS
- flash some official version of BIOS with a different version of EC firmware - ideally with an newer one
- observe if BIOS is showing you the version of EC firmware as changed

But before doing all that you need to establish beyond doubt if it is a T520 or T530. Does it boot under Ubuntu/some other Linux? I think - theoretically - it should be possible to check which motherboard it is by looking at which USB controller(s) you have. I don't have further details but I am running on a T520 and I'm seeing this
Looking at this it seems Series 7 is the first Intel USB controller to support USB 3.0. My guess is that on a T530 you will see "7 series" not "6 series". If you're booting under Windows you could probably try to find the relevant controller in Device Manager. Please let us know what you find, it's an interesting story!

Also, you have made sure the fuse for the keyboard is good right? Because if you plug in an unmodded T520 keyboard onto a T530, the keyboard will have one ground trace burning, as there's like one trace that's different between T520 and T530, and that could cause the fuse to burn too.

sorry for the delay,
im 99% sure is a t520, 2011 date codes all around even the fan (t530 didnt exist in 2011), looked up the tag in the bios and indeed is a t520, it came with a t530 keyboard, palmrest and screen bezel on it, it also came with a half t530 bottom with board everything and the t520 palmrest and that one is dead i cant get anything out of that board
should something bad happen if the t530 keyboard was plugged into a t520?

Any idea? Btw I may try to install w,7 and update bios

fiat682 wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:08 am

i cant get anything out of that board

so what works and what doesn't?

- machine overall works with external monitor and kbd
- screen backlight doesn't work
- keyboard doesn't work

is that correct?

In that case I'd think the following might be worth considering

- flashing BIOS such that it changes EC firmware
- looking for a blown fuse somewhere (not sure I'd be able to do it myself, but they say there should be a fuse somewhere near keyboard connection socket on the motherboard)