Thinkpads Forum

Is it possible to swap motherboards between X220 and X230? What gotcha's should I be aware of?

The motherboards are very similar, but check out the displayport (X220) vs mini displayport (x230). So X220 mobos won't fit inside X230 cases, and X230 mobos will fit in X220 cases, but will have a big gap that can potentially be a source for system-damaging electrical shocks (i.e. because the mobo is no longer properly shielded).

I just bought my mom an X230 i5 with 8GB of RAM off of eBay for $380. You might just want to go that route.

Nickolai wrote:What gotcha's should I be aware of?

The X220 keyboard doesn't work properly in the X230 and vice versa.

I just bought my mom an X230 i5 with 8GB of RAM off of eBay for $380. You might just want to go that route.

That's nice to know. Where did you buy it and what model/spec? Is it only available with i5-3320M CPU, as Lenovo shop states?

I'm entertaining this idea specifically because I don't like the changes they introduced in X230, to begin with. That's why I hoped that I would be able to use an X220 with X230 motherboard or X230 with X220's keyboard.

Where would the gap be, again?

Nickolai wrote: I hoped that I would be able to use an X220 with X230 motherboard or X230 with X220's keyboard.

Where would the gap be, again?

Since the keyboards are not compatible the gap would seem to be irrelevant. If someone manages to find a workaround for that you could just put an X220 keyboard into an X230 rather than trying to use an X220 body.

See http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=104889 and http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=105490 for info regarding the keyboards.