Fixing keyboard flex?

[mushrew]

How would I open up my T42 to apply the napkin/businesscard fix for the keyboard flex? Thanks in advance.

[K. Eng]

The Hardware Maintenance Manual (HMM for short) will tell you how to remove the keyboard:

You can get the HMM for most ThinkPads here:
http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.ws ... &loc=en-us

I actually did not use a napkin or a business card on my T40. I cut tiny strips of foam (about the thickness of a penny) and taped them in three areas. (1) under the home and end keys (2) a strip from Backspace to Shift (3) a small piece under the arrow keys.

Be careful to avoid covering up the holes in the keyboard or the keys will not spring back into place properly. I found that this fix eliminated the slight flex in the Right Hand side of my T40's keyboard.

[JaimitoBond]

Depending on your tp model, there's already a foam like material under the right side of the keyboard. It runs vertically, from the arrow keys area to where the back slash button is. It is taped on, on top of the casing that holds the optical drive and HDD. I'm not sure if every TP T4x 14" models have this, and this part is not listed or shown on the HMM. It came with my T41p, direct from the factory. There's is still a bit of flex if you depress the arrow keys long enough, though. To make it stiffer, I just added thin double sided tapes right on top of the factory foam, this way you dont have to worry about covering any holes etc.

[jomar]

I wanted my T42 keyboard to be rock solid like my old 380XD brick. So I used double sided tape about the thickness of a nickel at several spots, including just under the edge of the palm rest at the corner of the control key and arrows (I left the paper on the top of the tape so it didn't stick to the underside of the keyboard. I also used those clear plastic discs that you use to keep a glass table top off of the wood furniture - cut them up to fit. Very firm now.

After the solidity of the 380XD, I'm still not completely satisfied with the left side of the T42 palm rest. It flexes over the card slots. I put in a strip of a business card but it creaks some. Anybody got a fix for that?

[JaimitoBond]

You can see the strip of tape/padding on the right side.
4th pic from the bottom.

http://www.ibmuser.idv.tw/articles/t40test-4.htm