T420 keyboard on T430?

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clouds · #1 Post by **clouds** » Wed Oct 22, 2014 12:39 pm

I have a T430 however i love the older classic keyboards, is it possible to just simply buy a T420 keyboard and replace this one on T430? will it work?

#2 Post by **ZaZ** » Wed Oct 22, 2014 1:57 pm

Yes and no. It definitely fits and most of the character keys will work, but since the chiclet keyboard moved and removed some shortcut keys, they'll be off. The way to remedy it is modify the BIOS, which no has done to the best of my knowledge.

clouds · #3 Post by **clouds** » Wed Oct 22, 2014 10:59 pm

ZaZ wrote:Yes and no. It definitely fits and most of the character keys will work, but since the chiclet keyboard moved and removed some shortcut keys, they'll be off. The way to remedy it is modify the BIOS, which no has done to the best of my knowledge.

What about replacing the BIOS chip?

dr_st · #4 Post by **dr_st** » Thu Oct 23, 2014 2:21 am

Not possible. A T420 BIOS will not work in a T430.

bit_twiddler · #5 Post by **bit_twiddler** » Thu Oct 23, 2014 10:26 am

You could run Linux and use Xbindkeys:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xbindkeys

Or, there might be an equivalent for Windows.

It would still be nice to interact with the BIOS during boot-up
using F12, etc.

Does anybody know if the ThinkVantage key works?

clouds · #6 Post by **clouds** » Thu Oct 23, 2014 6:04 pm

bit_twiddler wrote: Does anybody know if the ThinkVantage key works?

I second this question. or which keys does not work?

ajkula66 · #7 Post by **ajkula66** » Thu Oct 23, 2014 6:06 pm

clouds wrote:
bit_twiddler wrote: Does anybody know if the ThinkVantage key works?
I second this question. or which keys does not work?

AFAIK none of the Function keys work...

clouds · #8 Post by **clouds** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 12:46 pm

dr_st wrote:Not possible. A T420 BIOS will not work in a T430.

why not

dr_st · #9 Post by **dr_st** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 12:57 pm

Because the hardware is incompatible.

Q-Ball · #10 Post by **Q-Ball** » Sun Oct 26, 2014 4:29 pm

ZaZ wrote:Yes and no. It definitely fits and most of the character keys will work, but since the chiclet keyboard moved and removed some shortcut keys, they'll be off. The way to remedy it is modify the BIOS, which no has done to the best of my knowledge.

To clarify, the reason that no progress has been made on this front is because you can't flash a modified BIOS on an x30-series machine without an external SPI flasher. It's another "lockdown" thing Lenovo put onto this generation of machines, just like how you can't use older batteries that don't have some stupid authentication chip in them.

For reference, check out how you get CoreBoot on the X230 compared to the X60 (where all you really have to do is flash, after some preparation).

T420 keyboard on T430?

T420 keyboard on T430?

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