Please help me save a T430 (Warning: Pictures)

[Garlic Bread]

Hi!

I stumbled across this forum while researching ways to save a T430 that I just picked up in a thrift store. It works perfectly fine and it even has the fancy NVS 5400M dedicated GPU, so I thought that it would be a fun hobby project to restore and upgrade this old beast to be the best T430 imaginable. The issue? Someone has abused the poor thing by aggressively cleaning it with something abrasive, and the palm rest, keyboard and screen is destroyed.

The keyboard was in the worst shape, missing two keycaps and still half covered in whatever gunk the previous owner had attempted to remove, but I just replaced it as it was in the wrong language layout for me to use anyway.

The screen is covered with a lot of small scratches as you can see in this picture:


And the palmrest has the same kind of scratches, though it is harder to see it on the black plastic.. Still annoying to me though:


And now to my questions:

1) How would you go about fixing the screen? I suppose I could get myself one of those screen repair kits and try to buff out the scratches, which should work well because none of them are very deep to begin with, but I could also just skip that and upgrade the screen now that I am at it. I remember that people would use the 1600x900 panels from the X1 Carbon back in the day, is this still the best upgrade available? And can anyone recommend a vendor that carries such a panel and the appropriate cables for it?

2) The palmrest seems to be harder to repair as I can't just buff out the scratches without making it too smooth. Have you got any idea as to how I can fix it up so it looks good again? I suppose that used replacements are plentiful, but they may not actually be in better shape than the one I already have once they arrive.

3) My unit is a little noisy when the fan starts spinning. It has a Toshiba fan assembly inside, but I hear that the ones from Delta is significantly quieter. Can you guys confirm that before I buy one?

That is my questions for now. I have plans to upgrade the CPU, RAM, storage and cooling later, but only it I can make the PC look decent.

Best regards,
Garlic Bread

[Elmer Fishtwanger]

T430 is a good computer, last model that used a higher power processor, which puts it in the same general performance realm as a newer model with their low power processors. I had a T420 but really needed a backlit keyboard. Keyboard feels exactly the same to me with eyes closed. Screen resolution is fine unless you have eyes like an eagle...

I wouldn't bother with the cosmetics, myself. If I was enthusiastic about that and about modding it, I'd cool my heels for a few days, then come back to it and see if I still felt the same way. Usually somebody on ebay selling key caps. Look carefully to make sure it has the same attachment style -- there are variations with the T420, not sure about the 30