Thinkpads Forum

Or vice versa?

If I were to get my hands on a Thinkpad (Most likely T430/T430s), with a US keyboard layout, and I procured a keyboard from a UK/German/Nordic T430/T430s, would they be interchangable?

Could I just plug one out, the other in, and then change the keyboard layout in windows from US to UK? Or is the input interpreted before?

I am quite curious, as I can't really find a lot of info on this, and it would open a lot of possibilities, as I am still on the fence about changing from ISO to ANSI completely.

Thanks, Infernosaint

Welcome to the Forum.
Any T430/T430s keyboard will fit, from any language layout.
Like you already said, change the keyboard language in Windows/Linux and you're done!

Thank you

And that's awesome! I was thinking this was the case, as the only other thing I could see being different was the BIOS, but I'd never heard of region/language specific BIOS either.

This might finally make me replace my fully upgraded, faithful old T61

Thanks for the help, and the welcome!

Infernosaint

As RBS says, you can swap out the keyboard quite easily. Download a copy of the pertinent Hardware Maintenance Manual from here:

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... D=PD009602

Follow the instructions on removing/replacing the keyboard in the HMM, then tell Windows you have a new keyboard layout and you should be done. The HMM usually contains the different FRUs (part numbers) for the various keyboards, but they appear to be missing from the latest T430 and T430s HMMs. Instead, go here:

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/product ... ookup.page

and select the FRU/Build of Materials list for the system you are looking at. A quick look at the keyboard options and you see a bunch of TLA (Three Letter Acronyms). The first set describes the language (USE = US English; GER=German, etc.) and should be easily recognized. The second set may need further explanation as they have to do with the manufacturer of the keyboard:

CHY=Chicony LTN=LiteOn SRX=Shenzhen

Additionally, B/L appears on some of them and those are the backlit version.

It seems like the Chicony keyboards are considered the "primary" keyboard version as the other two are listed as "secondary".

ref: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=113540
ref: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-a ... d-p/840611

@rkawakami, thanks for all the resources.

I have no problem changing the keyboard, or finding the parts, I was just not sure it was interchangable like that. And when it comes to language, I would most likely just find the cheapest ISO keyboard I can find, German, UK, Scandinavian, doesn't really matter.

Thanks to both of you, I'm looking forward to finding a T430 or T420, depending on my opinion of the new chiclet keyboard. The performance/efficiency difference between the 3 latest generations don't really matter, as long as I get a good jump from the old T61

Just remember that T430 keyboards do NOT fit in a T420 or v.v.!