T42 vs. a Glass of Orange Juice on a plane....

[mwoc]

So I'm sitting in my aisle seat on the plane yesterday morning. The flight attendant hands me my orange with no ice. As she turns around she runs into my arm that I'm holding my drink with. The cup of OJ is now all over my suit and tie, as well as all over my keyboard of my T42. Mind you I have a meeting an hour after I land at my destination.

So I try and wipe up what seems like a gallon of OJ off of me and the thinkpad. Already I can feel the keys begining to feel sticky. Nothing has shorted out or stopped working thankfully. By the time we land, the spacebar and numerous keys are not bouncing back after pressing them. I am not in a good mood. Changing my shirt and tie in a restroom at the airport doesn't help my mood either.

So later in the afternoon at the hotel I try clean the keys some more but to no avail. It's still really sticky. I call IBM support and tell them what happened. At first the tech thought the machine wasn't working and said that the charge would be $895 to fix the machine. Once I explained that it was just the keyboard he said "Oh well I can send you a new keyboard". Now I had already admitted that it wasn't a warranty claim and that orange juice had been spilled on the machine. This was about 5pm central time when I called. He first told me that the keyboard was out of stock for another 3-4 days, but thanks to this forum I gave him the FRU number to the Thai keyboard and low and behold he had that in stock. He sent it overnight to my hotel and I am now typing on my keyboard gratis of IBM.

I share this story as I think this one of the small ways buying an IBM Thinkpad is an investment that cannot be rivaled(although we'll see what happens in the coming year with the new owners). If I had purchased another well known name brand I doubt I would have had anywhere near the level of customer service on this issue. I was truly impressed not only that they would send me the keyboard for free 'under warranty', but overnight it at their cost to my hotel.

Of course a few quick screws to remove, pop out the old keyboard, make sure no OJ under the keyboard, pop the new one in, put the screws back in and I was all set - in under 5 minutes. So add build quality and design to the list of reasons to buy an IBM.

[kev009]

Not to mention that the OJ didn't penetrate anything past the keyboard! Good story. BTW if you pop each key off, clean them and set them off to the side then wipe down the membrane you can probably save it. It'll take about an hour but it might be a good idea to keep on hand.

[daeojkim]

WOW an amazing story.
Gotta love IBM and their service. The premium that we pay for is worth the price. You get what you pay for. definitely.

[admsteiner]

Not to mention that the OJ didn't penetrate anything past the keyboard! Good story. BTW if you pop each key off, clean them and set them off to the side then wipe down the membrane you can probably save it. It'll take about an hour but it might be a good idea to keep on hand.

Read something (i think it was on extremetech) where someone did something similar (coffee) to the keyboard. What they did (and I want to try this but I don't have a spare keyboard) is actually soaked the keyboard and washed it in the sink to get off the stickiness. After that they soaked it in rubbing alcohol (anhydrous) to suck up the water and blowdried it (on the air setting). Lo and behold, it worked.

--adam

[Plinkerton]

That's awesome. I love my Thinkpad, and I'm still a bit bummed when I think of Lenovo taking over. I hope they don't screw things up.

Us students like "business" machines and "business" profession companies also. I don't want a goddam iBook, or some cheap piece of Dell...

[rhobite]

I actually tried the rubbing alcohol trick with a thinkpad keyboard a couple years ago. Made sure to let it dry for a couple days, but it killed the keyboard just the same. And I wouldn't recommend prying off keys, it's very easy to break the plastic tabs that hold them on. And forget about trying to replace a space bar.

[mwoc]

Well now I have an 'extra' keyboard I can borrow from in case I need to replace a key or two in the future. I've heard that in Raleigh when IBM demos the Thinkpads sometimes they will actually pour a glass of water into the laptop, shake it out, and demonstrate that it keeps on working.

Pulling off each key individually and cleaning them seems pretty tedious. Especially if IBM will send you a new one without much prodding.

[Leon]

next time, on the plane, drink water (or Vodka)

[t41user]

With all due respect, I must warn all T4x users NEVER to try anything like what kev009 suggests. It is practically impossible to re-attach a key to a T4x keyboard once it has been detached. With extreme care, it might be possible to re-attach a single key after, say, 5 minutes to 5 hours, if at all. And that is for a single key. The keys do not simply 'pop' off. Rather, each key must 'pop' off two moving parts. The keys cannot be pressed, pushed, or popped back into place. They need to be reattached to these moving parts, which is no easy task. Be careful. And if anyone wants to prove me incorrect by experimenting, please do so - but be prepared for the possibility that I'm correct.

[RCube]

With all due respect, I must warn all T4x users NEVER to try anything like what kev009 suggests. It is practically impossible to re-attach a key to a T4x keyboard once it has been detached. With extreme care, it might be possible to re-attach a single key after, say, 5 minutes to 5 hours, if at all. And that is for a single key. The keys do not simply 'pop' off. Rather, each key must 'pop' off two moving parts. The keys cannot be pressed, pushed, or popped back into place. They need to be reattached to these moving parts, which is no easy task. Be careful. And if anyone wants to prove me incorrect by experimenting, please do so - but be prepared for the possibility that I'm correct.

hum this is not true. Becasue I just poped "6" off today. I would say poping the key off is harder than poping it on. It was really easy after I figured out that it will not break the key while pulling on it. You just need to pull on the lower left and then lower right side. You will hear two clicks and the key will be off.

To pop it back in place, just put the key ontop of where it used to be and push. One pop and the key will go back in place. Very easy to do.

[plucky duck]

I second RCube's comment about the keyboard. I've had two keys come off and I was able to simply push it back down easily. Click and that's it.

My "x' key still clicks but even when it's pressed down it doesn't register a response. I'd have to further apply pressed down once it's down to register a command. Same thing with the right arrow key.

This is the thailand keyboard. Somewhat disappointed about the Thinkpad keyboard. Might have to call IBM to send me a replacement.

[egibbs]

I've heard that in Raleigh when IBM demos the Thinkpads sometimes they will actually pour a glass of water into the laptop, shake it out, and demonstrate that it keeps on working

That sounds like a story I was told many years ago when I worked on B-52s. IBM built the Mission Computers for the B-52, and supposedly during a demo an IBM engineer was asked if they were going to meet the humidity spec. He said "I don't know, lets see." So he went and got a glass of water and tossed it into the cooling fan inlet. The computer never missed a beat but the Program Manager nearly had a heart attack.

Don't know if it's true or not, probably has at least some basis in fact. But as others have pointed out good clean water is usually not a big problem since it's a poor conductor and leaves little or no residue. Orange juice, coffee, beer, or a sink full of soapy dishwater (see a recent thread) are a different story.

As far as re-attaching the keys, my experience has been that it is difficult to impossible, depending on how good a life you've lived. For plucky duck, if the keys aren't working right after you reattached them, why would you think they are attached properly? Sounds like the scissors mechanism is not assembled correctly.

Ed Gibbs

[slagmi]

Ditto the comments that repairing/replacing Keys is possible.

My X30 was purchaced with 4 busted keys. The previous owner had graciouslly preserved the keycaps along with most of the other (mostly broken) little pieces. Suprisingly, the screen was perfect. I simply took what was needed from an i1300 I was parting out anyways.

It took about 30-35 minutes, and some paitence, but technically wasn't that difficult, and the keyboard works flawlessly.

Broken keyboards and caps/pieces/parts are occasionally available on eBay if needed.

[kev009]

I've taken entire laptop keyboards apart over the summer doing laptop repair. It take a bit of technique but once you do a few keys and get a method going it is not hard at all. Infact replacing the keys is the easy part, though the space bar may take around 10 minutes. Taking them off is difficult because they have a bit of flex. I agree with the earlier comment of pressure from lower left to right.

These membrane laptop keyboard keys can easily lose function when debris enters and sometimes you need to take the cap off and blow it out before the "dead" key will resume fuction.

I just popped a key off my T42 (Thai keyboard) to confirm this is the same as older IBMs and Dells. The key depress mechanism looks more robust than the older ones but the method is indeed the same. It took me all of 10 seconds to remove and replace the right control key..

[t41user]

Okay, I stand corrected and apologize to kev009. However, I'm now confused about how different my experiences with detached keys seem to be from the other experiences reported above.

[thenew3]

IBM sent a product engineer to our facility a few weeks ago to try to sell us on IBM PC and laptops. (we've been an all Hell shop...I mean dell).

The part that won my CIO over is when the product engineer took a T42 powered on, dropped it on the floor from about 6 feet up, then stood on the cover and jumped up and down twice (a fully grown adult about 200 to 220 pounds) then picked it back up, open the lid, showing the machine is still working perfectly, no cracks in the display, no dead HD, no cracks anywhere in the case.

He then took a glass of water and poured it on the keyboard. then turn the machine over and let the water drip out of the keyboard, and the machine was powered on and running during this whole demo.

Several other similar demos on their desktop PCs impressed my CIO.

We now have over a dozen thinkpads in our fleet, mostly T42 and T42P, one X40 and a couple R51. Adding more shortly.

[admsteiner]

<snip>
The part that won my CIO over is when the product engineer took a T42 powered on, dropped it on the floor from about 6 feet up, then stood on the cover and jumped up and down twice (a fully grown adult about 200 to 220 pounds) then picked it back up, open the lid, showing the machine is still working perfectly, no cracks in the display, no dead HD, no cracks anywhere in the case.
<snip>.

I can see IBM's internal marketing manual now...
"If you can't fit your car into the office, throw the laptop off a desk and jump up and down on it...after that take water, spill it on...."

--adam

[Plinkerton]

thenew3, you actually saw him doing this? I almost can't believe that. But if it's true, that's pretty darn amazing...

[Steve007]

Nice story, shame the service isn't that [censored] hot outside the US

[thenew3]

yes, me, my boss, and a room full of about 10 other people saw him do this, not once, but twice!!

[slagmi]

too bad most 'real' drops are edge drops, not flat. dare him to drop it on either rear corner from 6 feet...

[thenew3]

That's true, while the IBM guy did not do this, we did get to witness this on a X40 after the presentation.

People were playing with all the hardware he had brought, and someone accidently knocked a X40 off the table about 2.5 to 3ft high and it landed on one of it's corners.

The thing survived the fall pretty well, the casing was scratched (cement floor) but not cracked, and the unit stayed powered up and working.

[slagmi]

that's great! one of the benefits of 'thin and light' I guess. that's likely why my Pocket PC has survived as long as it has...