Thinkpads Forum

Hello all,
Some cup of water felt into the x200 keyboard of my wife. Now lot of keys dont work anymore, between them the power-on key. But I know the thinkpad is fully functional apart from the keyboard. I wonder if there is a way to turn it on without that key or do some trick, and use an external USB keyboard. Or what else do you suggest ? I live in Brazil, and a new keyboard will take more than 5 weeks to arrive, so we just cant wait that long.
Thank you,

Generally, the only other way I know of turning on a Thinkpad laptop that has the power button built into the keyboard is to place the laptop into a port replicator or docking station. Those two pieces of hardware have a separate power button. External USB keyboards will not work as the USB port does not have the independent wiring for the power button. However, with the case of the X200, I don't believe there's anything other than the Ultrabase that the system fits into. One thing I can think of would be to find an owner of a similar X200 system near you and convince him/her to swap out the keyboard. The other would be to dry out your existing keyboard for a few days and then see if it starts working again.

If you can borrow keyboard, open BIOS and select "power on with AC attach" (or something like this...I don't remember exactly). This will power on your laptop every time you connect power (or at least it supposed to...)