Thinkpads Forum

So, as has been discussed ad nauseum, the palmrest of my X220 is creaky around the Expresscard slot. I didn't worry too much about it, handled the notebook at other parts of the chassis, but invariably today the corner chipped off.

Has anyone successfully gotten Lenovo to ship out a replacement or replace it? I've read that (obviously) Lenovo will fault you for being too rough with it. I need to get the screen replaced, and I'm afraid if they see the chip they'll deny the rest of the claim for rough handling.

Four years ago I asked for a replacement for a creaky palmrest on my R61 and they cross-shipped me one. Normally I'd call, but my current work/school situation has me out of the house at weird hours. Thanks.

Looking at the Hardware Maintenance Manual for the X220, there are 3 different palmrests offered. None are offered as a CRU "customer replaceable unit" by Lenovo. Nevertheless, you should be able to replace it yourself if you reference the Hardware Maintenance Manual.

1) Palm rest assembly with fingerprint reader - 04W1410
2) Palm rest assembly without fingerprint reader - 04W1411
3) Palm rest assembly with fingerprint reader and mSATA - 04W1770

Google the appropriate number and you should be able to find it for sale somewhere (from Lenovo or otherwise).

One quick search turned up item #1 for $213 from one vendor! Ouch!

chubbyfatazn wrote: Four years ago I asked for a replacement for a creaky palmrest on my R61 and they cross-shipped me one. Normally I'd call, but my current work/school situation has me out of the house at weird hours. Thanks.

If you're still under warranty, you might want to try to order a replacement via IBM's ESC+ since that will at least allow you to open a ticket without talking to a human. I used ESC+ to order an X61s palmrest a while back, and it worked great.

GomJabbar wrote:Looking at the Hardware Maintenance Manual for the X220, there are 3 different palmrests offered. None are offered as a CRU "customer replaceable unit" by Lenovo. Nevertheless, you should be able to replace it yourself if you reference the Hardware Maintenance Manual.

1) Palm rest assembly with fingerprint reader - 04W1410
2) Palm rest assembly without fingerprint reader - 04W1411
3) Palm rest assembly with fingerprint reader and mSATA - 04W1770

Google the appropriate number and you should be able to find it for sale somewhere (from Lenovo or otherwise).

One quick search turned up item #1 for $213 from one vendor! Ouch!

Yeah, I have no qualms about taking stuff apart. I've replaced plenty of LCDs across my TPs. I just don't want to pay for something that Lenovo should've acknowledged was a build quality issue (judging by how widespread this seems to be). Thanks for taking the time to dig out those FRUs.

ThinkRob wrote:If you're still under warranty, you might want to try to order a replacement via IBM's ESC+ since that will at least allow you to open a ticket without talking to a human. I used ESC+ to order an X61s palmrest a while back, and it worked great.

Great, I'll have to check that out. Thanks for the heads up!

GomJabbar wrote: 1) Palm rest assembly with fingerprint reader - 04W1410
2) Palm rest assembly without fingerprint reader - 04W1411
3) Palm rest assembly with fingerprint reader and mSATA - 04W1770

Is there any explanation for #3?

I got a new x220 few days ago and noticed that this empty expresscard slot must be filled with something instantly, or something like this will happen. Lenovo saved 0.20 usd by shipping this without plastic filler/dummy card in the slot?

AJN wrote:I got a new x220 few days ago and noticed that this empty expresscard slot must be filled with something instantly, or something like this will happen. Lenovo saved 0.20 usd by shipping this without plastic filler/dummy card in the slot?

Yeah... bane of my existence. You could populate it with another USB 3.0 slot, but I've read either here or elsewhere that even adding a card doesn't do much. I don't think a dummy card would've done much anyway.

Anyway, I used the ESC+ service that ThinkRob mentioned, I got a replacement shipped out. They gave me FRU 04W0632, though; I have no clue what part that is. Google doesn't return any results for it. As long as it fits, I don't care. I'm glad IBM still has great, no-questions-asked service.

chubbyfatazn wrote:Anyway, I used the ESC+ service that ThinkRob mentioned, I got a replacement shipped out. They gave me FRU 04W0632, though; I have no clue what part that is. Google doesn't return any results for it. As long as it fits, I don't care. I'm glad IBM still has great, no-questions-asked service.

Decrement by 1.

04W0632 is probably the part number. FRU 04W0631 is a "Palm rest assembly with fingerprint reader"

ThinkRob wrote:Decrement by 1.

04W0632 is probably the part number. FRU 04W0631 is a "Palm rest assembly with fingerprint reader"

Interesting. Is that general IBM naming policy? Do IBM and Lenovo keep different sets of part numbers for the same parts (I'd understand if they did)?

Thanks for the heads up. I put in a request for a palmrest without a fingerprint reader (04W1411)... hope nothing goes wrong when I ship the old one back.

Edit: should I ship back the palmrest with the chipped-off corner? Seems petty, but just want to keep my rear end safe. They didn't really ask anything when they called and I forgot to ask.

chubbyfatazn wrote: Interesting. Is that general IBM naming policy? Do IBM and Lenovo keep different sets of part numbers for the same parts (I'd understand if they did)?

Part numbers and FRUs aren't the same thing.

I'm not sure why there are two different ones (perhaps George or erik or somebody more knowledgable can chim in?), but yeah... there are. And in my experience, the FRU and the part number are usually one apart -- although I don't think they always have to be.

should I ship back the palmrest with the chipped-off corner? Seems petty, but just want to keep my rear end safe. They didn't really ask anything when they called and I forgot to ask.

If they sent you a return box and a return label I would. But I also don't think they're going to send a top team of trained ninjas to break into your house and steal it back if you don't...

I bought two x220 in March, 2012. One of them the left palm rest cracked shortly. It was a poor design. I've contacted Thinkpad authorized service shop in Redmond, WA - Sound Microsystems. They inspected the unit and got it repaired under warranty. I am happy now. But I definitely need to find a dummy card or something to stick in there to prevent this happen again.

John
Product Specialist
Gadgets-N-Gizmos.com

crazyjava wrote:I bought two x220 in March, 2012. One of them the left palm rest cracked shortly. It was a poor design. I've contacted Thinkpad authorized service shop in Redmond, WA - Sound Microsystems. They inspected the unit and got it repaired under warranty. I am happy now. But I definitely need to find a dummy card or something to stick in there to prevent this happen again.

John
Product Specialist
Gadgets-N-Gizmos.com

Late reply, but...

You can still go through the ESC+ service mentioned above. No need to ship the entire unit out.

I ended up filling the expresscard slot with a 3-port USB 3.0 card from ebay. $13.69. My intentions were for a dummy card, but having an extra three ports is actually pretty handy.

Hey, what is the difference between 04W1410 and 04W1770?
I obviously have fingerprint but not quite sure about the mSata
I see these parts come without the reader and the touchpad - are they easy to replace?

quote="chubbyfatazn"]Anyway, I used the ESC+ service that ThinkRob mentioned, I got a replacement shipped out. They gave me FRU 04W0632, though; I have no clue what part that is. Google doesn't return any results for it. As long as it fits, I don't care. I'm glad IBM still has great, no-questions-asked service.[/quote]

I can second (third?) going through ESC+ for this replacement. I just went here: https://www-930.ibm.com/support/esc/signin.jsp, created an account, put in all my machine details, and waited (and waited, and waited - took about a week to finally get a call today). I mentioned it was in a Dock 95% of the time, and that I'd replace it myself (surprised operator, but agreed no problem). Checked stock, said it'd be here Thursday this week.

Man that was way better than calling into regular tech support!!

-Dan

Hey,

i think that's what you need.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=109650 (english)

In Germany many user are suffered of cracked palmrests and stuff like this.

best regards
Type_f