Thinkpads Forum

Alright, this is a bit of a strange mod. As many of you are aware, the xx20 series Thinkpads marked the beginning of the great status light purge. The xx30 series would go one step further by removing the bluetooth status light, leaving just the network and disk access status lights.

Well, being an aficionado for the older Thinkpads and their status lights, I wondered if I could at least get the bluetooth light back on the X230. So I bought the X220 LED board (part number 04W1422) and installed it into my X230. The X230 LCD bezel still has a 3rd spot cut out for the bluetooth light, so I also bought the X220 sticker strip that goes over top and cut it to fit. Sure enough, the board was compatible, but the bluetooth light does not seem to work regardless of whether or not the bluetooth radio is enabled. Something that I did notice was that enabling the bluetooth radio made the network indicator light remain lit constantly, instead of flickering periodically to show network traffic. This makes me think the bluetooth and network signal may have been merged into one as far as the status light is concerned, but I'm not entirely sure.

Has anyone else ever tried this before? I searched around online, but the closest thing I could find were people who had swapped an X230 motherboard into an X220 chassis. I'm not sure if any of those people ended up getting the bluetooth light working though.

Good effort. i did this too. the BT light just doesn't work in X230. same story if attempted in a *530 using the card from a *520 or *510, the BT light just doesn't work.

the only model where it does somehow still work is T430s if using parts from T420s, I know this because I've put T430s's motherboards in T420s's twice and it works there. this is the only model i'm aware of where the light can be brought back.



related to Status Light attrition is the fact that P50 and P70 models also brought back the spaces for BT and WLAN lights, but then only equpped the HDD light, and then brought back the WLAN light for P52/P72, but then deleted all of them again for P15/P17.