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My new X280 just arrived!

X230-X280, X390 Series
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GomJabbar
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My new X280 just arrived!

#1 Post by GomJabbar » Wed May 09, 2018 4:19 pm

I just received my new ThinkPad X280 from PCNation. :D

Definitely thinner and faster than my X220 (that just died). I'm new to Windows 10, so I am still trying to navigate my way around it.

Only had the X280 a couple of hours now - so not too much to say just yet.
DKB

GomJabbar
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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#2 Post by GomJabbar » Thu May 10, 2018 3:14 pm

Everything going pretty well so far. Got most all my software installed and the system up-to-date. Happily I found that the X280 still works with my Netgear PTV2000 for screen mirroring to my TV - no need to install any additional software (such as Intel WiDi). Windows 10 is still a little bit of a challenge to navigate, but I haven't run into any real issues.

I do notice the keyboard is a little narrower than on my X220. Ok, but a wider keyboard would be nice. Display looks beautiful.
DKB

evening_hunger
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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#3 Post by evening_hunger » Fri May 11, 2018 11:17 am

Congratulations. How exactly did your x220 die?
T14amdR7-4750U/32GB/500gb.ssd/debian_testing (main driver)
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GomJabbar
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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#4 Post by GomJabbar » Fri May 11, 2018 12:11 pm

I was using my X220 on a Sunday morning almost 2 weeks ago and spilled a little coffee on the keyboard. It worked fine for several hours, then I put it in Hibernation while I left the house for a few hours. When I came back, the power on button didn't do anything. No lights or indicators showing when I pressed it. Tried removing the battery and AC adapter, then pressing the power button a few times, then holding it down for a minute or so, but no change. The X220 keyboard is supposed to be spill resistant and I only spilled about a 1/2 teaspoon of coffee onto the lower right area of the keyboard, so I am a little puzzled. Perhaps the coffee incidence was just a coincidence. Probably need a new motherboard to fix it.

Fortunately I was able to recover all my documents and such from the X220 hard drive onto the new X280 using a hard drive SATA to USB adapter cable I bought awhile back. :)

On a side note; I was trying to get my JBL Flip 4 waterproof speakers (2) to work in stereo on this X280 (never got them to work on my X220). I could get them to pair, but Windows 10 would only output to 1 speaker. Some googleing and I found the solution. Install Voice Meeter. See the last post in the following thread where I found the solution. I connected both speakers in Windows using bluetooth, but without pressing the pairing buttons on the speakers (the button below the power button). Next I just had to choose the hardware out devices in the Voice Meeter app. Voila! :D

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... a2b05c806d

I am also happy to say I got my Plantronics BackBeat Fit sport waterproof headphones to connect via bluetooth on the X280 without issue (even before installing Voice Meeter). I could not get these headphones to work on my X220.
DKB

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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#5 Post by teamde78 » Fri Jul 06, 2018 6:28 am

GomJabbar wrote:
Fri May 11, 2018 12:11 pm
I was using my X220 on a Sunday morning almost 2 weeks ago and spilled a little coffee on the keyboard. It worked fine for several hours, then I put it in Hibernation while I left the house for a few hours. When I came back, the power on button didn't do anything. No lights or indicators showing when I pressed it. Tried removing the battery and AC adapter, then pressing the power button a few times, then holding it down for a minute or so, but no change. The X220 keyboard is supposed to be spill resistant and I only spilled about a 1/2 teaspoon of coffee onto the lower right area of the keyboard, so I am a little puzzled. Perhaps the coffee incidence was just a coincidence. Probably need a new motherboard to fix it.
Very interesting - a little bit of coffee and just like that not working, especially for several hours. Usually when things go south with spills (in my case at least) - they have stopped working right away. I'm wondering if the time just got to it and the liquid got somewhere it shouldn't have.
Thinkpads: X1C 5th Gen (daily Driver), T430, T60, Z61, T410

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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#6 Post by GomJabbar » Fri Jul 06, 2018 8:06 am

After getting the X280 I decided to rejuvenate the X220 and let my wife use it.

So I replaced the motherboard on the X220 with a used equivalent, but that did not fix the power on issue. At any rate, the existing motherboard would no longer suspend to RAM so it needed replacing anyway. After replacing the motherboard, I bought a used keyboard and that fixed the power on issue.

Now that the X220 was working again, I replaced the (2) x 4 GB sticks of RAM with the following: "Crucial 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR3/DDR3L 1866 MT/s (PC3-14900) Unbuffered SODIMM 204-Pin Memory - CT2K102464BF186D". I also replaced the conventional hard drive with a Crucial 500GB SSD. Now the X220 boots much faster and runs faster than previously. Fortunately the used motherboard I installed had the BIOS at version 1.26, so it was able to make full use of the 1866 RAM speed. I believe it's after BIOS version 1.29 that RAM speeds are throttled to 1333. Even later BIOS versions cannot be replaced with previous versions.
DKB

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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#7 Post by RealBlackStuff » Fri Jul 06, 2018 9:05 am

You may be interested in this: http://x220.mcdonnelltech.com/resources/
He has a BIOS with every mod-con you can think off!
I have it running on my X220 without any problems.
Lovely day for a Guinness! (The Real Black Stuff)
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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#8 Post by axur-delmeria » Fri Jul 06, 2018 9:36 am

GomJabbar

You should have suspected a bad keyboard first. Unless there's traces of coffee in the X220's system board, there's a good that it still works.
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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#9 Post by GomJabbar » Fri Jul 06, 2018 11:59 am

axur-delmeria wrote:
Fri Jul 06, 2018 9:36 am
GomJabbar

You should have suspected a bad keyboard first. Unless there's traces of coffee in the X220's system board, there's a good that it still works.
Hindsight is always 20-20 they say. A teaspoonful (more or less) of coffee was spilled on the lower right area of the keyboard, around the arrow keys. The power button is at the very top center of the keyboard. It occurred to me the problem could be either the keyboard or the motherboard. I knew the existing motherboard was already having issues (re: suspend to RAM), so I didn't really lose anything by replacing the motherboard first (it cost me $45 delivered).
DKB

teamde78
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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#10 Post by teamde78 » Mon Jul 09, 2018 10:21 am

GomJabbar wrote:
Fri Jul 06, 2018 11:59 am
axur-delmeria wrote:
Fri Jul 06, 2018 9:36 am
GomJabbar

You should have suspected a bad keyboard first. Unless there's traces of coffee in the X220's system board, there's a good that it still works.
Hindsight is always 20-20 they say. A teaspoonful (more or less) of coffee was spilled on the lower right area of the keyboard, around the arrow keys. The power button is at the very top center of the keyboard. It occurred to me the problem could be either the keyboard or the motherboard. I knew the existing motherboard was already having issues (re: suspend to RAM), so I didn't really lose anything by replacing the motherboard first (it cost me $45 delivered).
That's not too bad - if it was giving you grief before the spill then you had nothing to lose by replacing it. Hope it is working well for you!
Thinkpads: X1C 5th Gen (daily Driver), T430, T60, Z61, T410

GomJabbar
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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#11 Post by GomJabbar » Mon Jul 09, 2018 11:56 am

teamde78 wrote:
Mon Jul 09, 2018 10:21 am
That's not too bad - if it was giving you grief before the spill then you had nothing to lose by replacing it. Hope it is working well for you!
The X220 is working too good! After the RAM and SSD upgrades it boots and runs quite a bit faster. :D

I wish I would have saved my money and not bought the X280. I do like the X280, but the money spent could have been better used elsewhere. :roll:
DKB

WarhawkCZ
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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#12 Post by WarhawkCZ » Tue Oct 16, 2018 11:33 am

I think that the spill-resistant keyboard in Thinkpads is somehow demonized. I've disassembled enough thinkpads, especially x2xx series to see that it is definitely not going to work as they advertise. Especially the part around the touchpad has no protection at all.
Additionally, technically speaking it is not a spill-resistant keyboard but a spill-resistant laptop with a throw-away keyboard. Once there is a liquid in the keyboard, you can most likely throw it away.

Nevertheless, happy to hear that you fixed the laptop. It is a great machine.

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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#13 Post by CrazyTPFan » Tue Oct 30, 2018 7:39 pm

@GomJabbar What is your X280's specs?

GomJabbar
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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#14 Post by GomJabbar » Wed Oct 31, 2018 6:22 pm

DKB

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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#15 Post by shawross » Wed Oct 31, 2018 7:18 pm

I am interested to know how you compare the keyboards, minus the coffee though...
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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#16 Post by GomJabbar » Wed Oct 31, 2018 7:57 pm

I do prefer the keyboard of the X220 over the X280. The X280 keyboard is physically smaller.

The X220 keyboard is 11-1/4" wide and 4-3/4" deep (not counting the Volume, Mic, ThinkVantage and Power buttons). The top two rows on the X220 include the F1-F12 row, End, and PgDn keys, larger ESC and Delete keys, as well as the PrtSc, ScrLk, Pause, Insert, Home and PgUp keys. In addition, the Backspace key is a wider key on the number key row.

The X280 keyboard is 10-1/2" wide and 4-1/4" deep (not counting the Power button). These dimensions include the top row F1-F12 row, Esc, Home, End, and Delete keys. So in effect, the X280 has one less keyboard row than the X220. The PgUp and PgDn keys on the X280 replace the browser back and forward keys that were on the X220, and are next to the arrow keys on the bottom right side of the keyboard.

I find the key stroke feel on the X280 fine, although not quite as good as the X220. It is the diminished key spacing and smaller Delete and Backspace keys that cause me to mistype a bit more.
DKB

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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#17 Post by dr_st » Thu Nov 01, 2018 12:15 am

Heh. Just yesterday I tried typing for 5-minutes on the keyboard of the X1 Carbon. It's still nowhere near the experience of a proper keyboard like on the TP25, and it's not even the crippled X-series keyboard with Ins/End on the same key. Even the island key design bothered me more than I thought it would, although I might be able to adjust to the shape with enough experience.
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Re: My new X280 just arrived!

#18 Post by Geartooth » Thu Nov 01, 2018 8:03 pm

WarhawkCZ wrote:
Tue Oct 16, 2018 11:33 am
I think that the spill-resistant keyboard in Thinkpads is somehow demonized. I've disassembled enough thinkpads, especially x2xx series to see that it is definitely not going to work as they advertise. Especially the part around the touchpad has no protection at all.
Additionally, technically speaking it is not a spill-resistant keyboard but a spill-resistant laptop with a throw-away keyboard. Once there is a liquid in the keyboard, you can most likely throw it away.

Nevertheless, happy to hear that you fixed the laptop. It is a great machine.
I would much rather replace a keyboard rather than buy a new Motherboard by itself- plus it's really easy to do compared to a full mobo.
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