Thinkpads Forum

Hello everyone,

Having used a number of Thinkpads over the years, I've fallen in love with my T420s, and don't want to part with it anytime soon...overheating and all! It's a very nice machine.

Current problem is my keyboard, which suddenly went on the fritz last week. The symptoms were that the apostrophe key stopped working, and every time I used the h key, a long line of apostophes would type (automatically)....without touching the key. To anticipate comments, "Yes - I ran and reran antivirus - nothing indicated there."

I pulled off both keys, (h and the apostrophe), blew them out with compressed air, and then swabbed them with alchohol with a Q-tip. Only temporarily solved the problem (it stopped, then came back after a week).

Finally took it to my local computer guy, who said, "It sounds like a short in the keyboard," and offered to get a replacement in and swap it out. Price was reasonable, so i said, "SURE!"

Just got the unit back yesterday, repaired with a supposedly NEW keyboard unit (aftermarket).

My observations:

1.) the left click button, just below the pointer stick, does not work.
2.) The pointer stick (red thing) does NOT have the feel of the old ones...it has some slippery feel to it, which makes it much worse than the originals (I've used Thinkpads for a LONG time). This is clearly different from the old ones, as my old replacement pointer stick heads will not fit on this unit (too big).
3.) The keys feel cheap, do not have the same feel as the old ones.

I'm wondering if the NEW one is a better route, or if I should go find a refurbed one on EBAY?

Another thought - if I can use a T410 keyboard, I probably have a couple old ones at the office.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance...you guys are WONDERFUL!

PS hard to believe such a little item could make your life so miserable so quickly!!!

What you would've got is a "refurbished" keyboard where they can just hastily spray a matte clear coat on top of the entire keyboard to make the keycaps look "new", but it feels pretty bad and if the spray gets under the keys, it can kill traces, which is what might have happened to your pointing stick button.
The pointing stick itself can be easily pulled out and swapped, and so can the keycaps, but if your new keyboard is still defective that's gonna be an issue.
It seems like these keyboards are quite well known to have defective traces as I bought 6 in a row with defective traces and fixed one myself (not easy!).
Maybe ask around on this forum and see if someone can offer you a replacement keyboard?

Thank you!!!

So it's NOT my imagination!

Will do.

Sorry - E-bay is your best bet. Just make sure you ask the seller if ii is an OEM Lenovo and not a knock-off. The difference is that the knock-offs won't have the Lenovo FRU labels, and the printing around the "ThinkVantage" button will be off-color or too narrow.

If that is the case, and you've been told it is an OEM Lenovo, file an E-bay complaint for "fraudulent" goods.

BTW, the OEM keyboards came with a whole variety of FRU numbers, not just the ones in the Hardware Manual Parts list.