Bought a R400, first Thinkpad in a while

[terannotterran]

Only had one Thinkpad before. A X230 from work back in 2014.

Unfortunately, this R400 is not as the seller described.

The screen hinge tension is good, but there's a lot of slop before it binds. So it is super loose for about a half inch of play at the top of the screen, then stiffens up. I made sure all the screws on the bottom were not loose.

The keyboard is really bizarre. If I press "s" on the left side of the key, nothing registers. I have to press really hard on the left and right arrows for anything to happen. Backspace was really bad (and "s" was worse) but fixed itself in use. All the keys *feel* fine, but unless I hammer down on some of them, no press registered. The trackpoint and touchpad seem to work really well.

Comes with a new battery but it's a knockoff, so I'll probably want to find a real one sooner than later.

Do you also know where I can find the latest BIOS / EC firmware updates? support.lenovo.com seems to not list an R series and only go as far back as T420.

Thank you for your time. Appreciate any advice you can offer.

[RealBlackStuff]

When Googling with "lenovo r400 bios", first thing it finds is: https://support.lenovo.com/ie/en/downloads/migr-70351
The R400/T400 can take the much better/stiffer keyboards from the T60/T61 series.
There are also metal keyboard support brackets, at least for the T400 (probably also fits R400):
45N5365 for iGPU, such as shown here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/331993506685
45N5366 for dGPU.

And you should bookmark this: https://download.lenovo.com/eol/index.html

[terannotterran]

Thank you for your reply. I appreciate it.

I have a 45N5602 keyboard support installed. Keyboard says Nakawa on it. It's a swiss cheese one.

I can try a T6x keyboard. Wondering if it's not unheard of for keys to have to be pressed hard to activate (despite feeling identical to perfectly working neighbor keys) and it improving somewhat with use.

Strangely, I only see one mount point on this keyboard. I would have assumed it would have more.

[RealBlackStuff]

Someone may have spilled something over that part of the keyboard.
T6x have 3 other brand keyboards: Chicony (worst), Alps (medium), NMB (best) = (average general opinion, YMMV).
Actually all keyboards between the R400/R500/T60/T61/T400/T500/W500/X200/Z60/Z61 are interchangeable.
Get these laptop manuals from the HMM link above.
They contain the parts lists with all the FRU numbers.

[urbanpatrol]

Hi there i have just recently purchased a Lenovo ThinkPad R400 Intel Core 2 Duo 4 GB RAM 120GB SSD and was wondering because im going to use it for a game called second life would this laptop cope or would i need to upgrade it. As far as i know its os is windows 7 not sure about the rest of the specs as of yet could anyone help or suggest?