R500 Expert needed - Use T61 touchpad and clickboard in R500?

[Insomniac1971]

Hi, I got an Thinkpad R500 were the touchpad is acting irratic and the buttons(clickboard) are not working - I think previous owner spilled something into it, because I have rechecked the flexcables and they seem ok.

I also have a dead T61 7665-12G (the one with faulty nVidia chip) and were wondering if the touchpad and clickboard would fit in the palmrest and work with the R500 - before I order one online.

I'm in Denmark now and my R500 is here, my T61 is in the Philippines and I won't go there until december and return in may 2017. So I can't just test it right now.

I found some Palmrest's online but time limited offers - that's why the urgency.

Hope an expert / frankenpad builder can answer this:)

JBJ

Ps. If you have no technical knowledge about this, then please don't reply to this thread.

[theterminator93]

The dimensions of the touchpad are different from T61 to T/R 4/500 series machines, so that won't interchange. The palm rest in the R500 is also different than the one in the 15.4" T61 and won't fit (despite the 15.4" T61 palm rest fitting the T500) as a complete assembly either. Furthermore the MTM you mentioned is a 14.1" T61, and the R500 is a 15.4" machine. I don't know about the clickboard and buttons though.

[TPFanatic]

The buttons might be able to switch over

One reason why you're finding the R500's touchpad to be erratic may be because Lenovo used crappy ALPS Touchpads in R500! Synaptics is much superior

If you buy a replacement touchpad, I haven't done the mod myself, but since the dimensions are the same I'm 99% certain a T500's Synaptics touchpad would fit in the R500 palmrest.

[Insomniac1971]

Thank you for the answers, they are really helpful:)

One reason why you're finding the R500's touchpad to be erratic may be because Lenovo used crappy ALPS Touchpads in R500! Synaptics is much superior

Well, I find that the ALPS touchpad on my other R500 work just fine in Linux:)

I have 2 identical R500's and the reason for that is to have one in Denmark and one in the Philippines - so when I travel back and forth I only need to bring a USB stick with the changes. It has been allot of trouble the past years always have to have the laptop with me on travel, through security in airports - and it's kinda heavy.

I love the Thinkpads, and I'm really satisfied with the R500 - comming from R61 and T61.