To X200 owners: how's you keyboard?

[syhead]

My keyboard feels great except for a problem on the upper left corner. That region below the ESC key seem to not be siting properly. When I hit the ESC and F1 key I get a loud sound of the plate hitting the chassis.

Anybody has the same issue and know how to fix it?

[zl0ca]

very solid, with no movement at all!!

[atlacatl]

Best keyboard around. I don't have any issues with mine.

[syhead]

I fixed it by myself... it feels great now.

Do your machines sit perfectly flat on your desks?
I have the impression that the right front corner of mine is slightly raised. Maybe that's because of the 6-cell battery.

[atlacatl]

I fixed it by myself... it feels great now.

Do your machines sit perfectly flat on your desks?
I have the impression that the right front corner of mine is slightly raised. Maybe that's because of the 6-cell battery.

Good to hear you fixed your keyboard.

As per the "sit perfectly flat on your desk" question, I have the 4-cell battery, so I can't speak for the 6-cell experience. In sum, it sits flat enough.

[tribhuz]

I fixed it by myself... it feels great now.

Do your machines sit perfectly flat on your desks?
I have the impression that the right front corner of mine is slightly raised. Maybe that's because of the 6-cell battery.

The back-portion of the laptop is slightly raised due 6-cell battery but there's no wobble - if that's what you mean - from uneven height. BTW, the keyboard is very firm; the only noticeable flex is in the 'panel strip' that houses volume, thinkvantage and power keys.

[Mal]

I just received my X200 this morning and its keyboard is noticeably better than the X40 it replaced. It's the best laptop keyboard I've used and there's absolutely no flex.

[andrzej]

is OK
BTW but after years (~14) with 10'-12' laptops
it seams that is too large for me hehehehehe

[poonsmjj]

I just received my replacement keyboard from Lenovo... the right ctrl key popped off one day by itself when I was opening the lid... weird

my take so far:

original keyboard FRU was 42T3671 .... I found that the top right keys (home, end, pgup, pgdwn) would exhibit some flex. sometimes the keys would sort of get stuck (like the backspace).

new replacement keyboard FRU: 042T3737. This thing has no flex whatsoever. Awesome Feels a little stiffer than the original keyboard but not as stiff as my X61T keyboards.

All-in-all though these keyboards are quite nice. I think they are a small step down from the X60/X61 series but they still beat most retail notebooks by a mile though!

[amo]

Hi,

I feel as the OP some flex in the upper left corner, with the ESC and F1 keys. How did you fix the problem? The keyboard was an upgrade done by the guy I purchased from.. maybe it's not well sitted?

As general feeling, apart from that slight flex, it feels very good. It is *a bit* noisy for my taste, especially the space bar. I think it's a Chicony, and my other laptops used NMB (with blue padding for each key). Has anyone a NMB keyboard on their X200? @ poonsmjj: can you tell how was the 42T3671? Did it have the blue pads under each keys? and the 042T3737? I'm hesitating ordering the other (not sure which I have, have to take it out) to try.. but if I could find out before hand, better!

[maciejs]

I got my X200s about two weeks ago and the keyboard is great. I am a touch typist and typing on this laptop is absolutely excellent. In all fairness there is a noticeable flex on the right side of the keyboard, around Enter key but it doesn't bother me at all. For a while I thought about buying another keyboard (like T61's NMB or something like that) but than I figured I don't really need it...

[macmob11]

I am very disapponted by my keyboard: I read in several reviews that the x200 keyboard was one of the best on the market and has absolutely no flex. my keyboard however has extrem flex on almost the complete right side. the closer you get to the upper right corner the worse it gets: delete/ Page up, down buttons are very noisy, feel loose and when pressed half of the keyboard caves in. the strange thing is that on the left side, especially the buttons around the A are perfect. very firm and silent. what do you thik i should do about this? warranty? order a new one?

An additional problem with the build quality I'm having is that the lid doesn't close very firmly on the right side and the 6cell battery has a bit of space, so if you shake the notebook a bit, you can hear it moving.

In the beginning i had another problem: when the cpu idling (around 0 to 10 % usage) it made a clearly audible high frequent noise. under load this didn't occur. i had to disable cpu power management in the bios, which affects the battery life, but i couldn't stand the constant noise.

So all in all i'm a bit disapponted with my first thinkpad...

[hnw]

I am using T61, and I am having the exact same problem as yours with the Esc & F1 key, and its really annoying.
Can you kindly guide me how to go about to fix it?
Thanks!

[AvalonXIII]

My keyboard is solid. Very silent too, I may add.

[tomh009]

I am using T61, and I am having the exact same problem as yours with the Esc & F1 key, and its really annoying.
Can you kindly guide me how to go about to fix it?
Thanks!

Maybe call Lenovo and ask for a replacement keyboard? It's really quite easy to swap, just follow the instructions in the HMM.

[hnw]

Yea, its fixed!

[raiaken]

Very solid. A bit of a noise on the pagedown key, but nothing to really complain about.

[Paul88]

Hi all,

Is X200/200s keyboard much better than X60s?

Thanks,

P

[dr_st]

Not better at all, except maybe that it's more full size (the keys on the right column are not trimmed down).

[maciejs]

hi,

i think i know why the keyboard (on x200s at least) is flexy on the right side - i took my laptop apart the other day only to discover that there's hardly anything under the keyboard on that side that it can actually rest on so it must flex...

on the right side around a hdd bay and battery there's a significant gap between the keyboard's backplate and the laptop's "cage" around and above the enter key; well, ok, the gap isn't that significant, i'd say it's about 2mm but that's enough for the keyboard to flex even if slightly, especially after lenovo decided to make all these holes in the backplate;

h'anyway, here's what i did - i took some tin foil and folded it several times to get a piece that's roughly 2mm thick, i wrapped it in isolation tape and taped it under the keyboard so it can rest on that; the best place is probably around the backspace key, so it rest against the battery bay; after that little operation the flex is virtually gone; it wasn't bothering me before but now it's significantly better

i know it's not very explanatory but if you take out the keybaord (which is dead easy, there are only 4 clearly marked screws on the bottom of the laptop holding it) and just look inside it becomes pretty clear

i'll see if i can make any pictures (i make no promises) to illustrate my point better

[Paul88]

Thanks dr_st. I was thinking to switch from X60s to X200s but I may stick with it for a-long-while.

[ThinkRob]

My keyboard... hmm..

Well put gently, it's crap.

There is substantial flex in a region defined by the 'O', '<', Shift, and backslash keys. Pressing any one of these keys causes what appears to be 2-3mm of flex in the surrounding 4 or so keys.

My 'Esc' key also had serious flex issues, but I shimmed it to at least make it tolerable. Unfortunately, I can't do the same for the right side of the keyboard without putting too much pressure on my drive.

This is just one of three major quality issues with my X200s. I'll make a separate thread about the rest later, but I'm quite seriously looking forward to getting rid of this machine -- IMHO the build quality is quite poor for the money.

[TheOfficefan]

My x200's keyboard is very good. Compared to my other Thinkpads (had or have), it's just below the quality of my T60 but above the quality of my x60 tablet. To me, all are good keyboards; some are just a bit better than others.

[LumberJack]

Hey...

My brand new x200 (9cell) is pretty good except for the ESC key and surrounding area on the top left. Loads of flex and the thing rattles when you press it even lightly. Some of you have fixed this problem any ideas?

Thanks

LJ

[ThinkRob]

My brand new x200 (9cell) is pretty good except for the ESC key and surrounding area on the top left. Loads of flex and the thing rattles when you press it even lightly. Some of you have fixed this problem any ideas?

It's pretty easy to fix this. Take a small bit of paper (or a business card), fold it to the necessary height, remove the keyboard, and wedge the paper in the top left corner under the little lip used to hold the keyboard in place. Replace the keyboard and see if the problem is gone. It might take some experimentation to place the paper just right and to get the thickness correct, but this method should work like a charm.

One quick warning: make sure you're not obstructing the fan. Covering it a bit is fine (although I'd try to avoid covering the top as much as possible), but you'll want to check that there's not any loose paper actually protruding into the path of the blades.

[LumberJack]

Thanks. I will try it out. Just disappointed that this kind of adjustment is necessary on a brand new laptop. Will report my results.

LJ