General maintenance tips and tricks

[Quardah]

Hi folks.

This thread is all about helping others about maintenance for your ThinkPads. Feel free to ask and answer questions and leave your maintenance tips and tricks.

First question i have is how do you keep a keyboard and trackpad from getting shiny? It's ABS plastic (i guess) and i really dislike that the new keyboard gets shiny really fast. Thanks!

Tips from me: Those wetnaps you get at rotisseries are very nice to clean your ThinkPad screen and outer shell.

Cheers!

[BigT0ny]

Keyboard and touchpad wear just comes with use, but I'm a firm believer that washing your hands before typing helps reduce wear due to all the oils that our bodies produce - these can add to the shiny effect on keys.

Software is a big part of maintenance and whenever I setup, diagnose or update TPs I always use my trusty Zalman Virtual Drive. This is an external SATA3 HDD enclosure that allows you to setup a 2.5-inch HDD/SSD as a storage drive that can also act as a virtual ISO mount at the same time! When in Dual Mode, Windows sees the regular storage drive and also the selected ISO that you have mounted! ISOs are stored in a dedicated folder on the drive and you can mount demount them anytime. I have all of my TP recovery ISOs, drivers and Windows software/tools on a single drive, it's like a software multi-tool. You can also encrypt the drive and password protect it.

[Cigarguy]

Laptops and Thinkpads are tools. Use it, abuse it, next. Enjoy it but don't stress over it.

[Puppy]

Laptops and Thinkpads are tools. Use it, abuse it, next. Enjoy it but don't stress over it.

[Thinkpad4by3]

Laptops and Thinkpads are tools. Use it, abuse it, next. Enjoy it but don't stress over it.

I mean if its a Tp700C or some insanely rare one than yes, preserve it. Otherwise, beat and repeat.