Need help with repairs

Ok, so I dropped my T400s. Like 5 minutes ago. One handed in the bathroom with a numb left leg. Lost my balance and down she went. Took a 4 foot drop on to tile pretty well. Everything is still working. But I fear the cosmetic damage is alot of $$ because it was a corner hit and bent/broke the roll cage slightly. It even put a dent in my SSD but I ran some read scans and data integrity scans from the SSD toolbox and it's checking out fine. I'll prob. just replace it with a 310 eventually and just back up more frequently until then.

From the hardware manual, I'm going to be needing:

#2 Keyboard Bezel Assembly 45M2656 - $50.50
#12 Base Cover Assembly 60Y4868 - $77.50
#20 Palm Rest Assembly w/ FPR - 253 <-- I'm pretty sure that's wrong. I paid 80 something for the same palmrest early january.
Misc. Hard Disk Drive Cover Assembly 45M2671 - $34.00

That's about 250 dollars in repairs. I know the T400s isn't all that old, but any chance of finding a dead used one? I'm not paying 34 bucks for a 2 inch long HDD bay cover... Or any reliable IBM parts vendors that offer cheaper prices than IBM themselves? I knew the damn this was gonna fall, but it was either me or the laptop and I didn't wanna bust my head open. Sigh.

 

Here's a new palmrest housing for a lot less. You need to swap over the touchpad and fpr.

New IBM lenovo T400S T410S Palmrest FP 75Y5573 45M2371 | eBay

 

I would suggest taking a time management course before doing the repairs.

 

well most likely places you are going to find a dead one is on ebay, personally i haven't seen many broken T400s on sales right now.

 

You can infer all that from the fact that I dropped my laptop in the bathroom?

What's with all the smarty pants replies to threads this morning, or am I just cranky. I dropped it on tile because I lost my balance. I wasn't dropping a duece while watching XXX or something. My bathroom is a passway to the hallway closet. You want me to send you my floor plans?

@vinuneuro - yeah I saw a couple palmrests without the touchpad buttons and FPR's on Craigslist and Ebay as well. I may go for that option, I just need to take my palmrest off again to see how difficult it would be to transfer them over. I'm comfortable breaking down my laptop pretty far, but that might be beyond me.

@lead - Yeah I thought there might be other places to look I may not know of. Ebay has a bunch of used ones, but not dead. Cheapest ones are like 600 or so? I figure it's only a couple generations old... no spare parts stock yet!

I think I can omit replacing the HDD Bay cover. It's still the correct shape, but the plastic inside is cracked.. most likely due to the corner of the ssd jutting in to it. It would fit and look normal, but probably couldn't take another drop. I think that bay cover saved my SSD after looking at the damage more. If it hadn't been securely in place with the screw the horizontal crushing of the palmrest and rollcage probably would've gone in far enough to wear it actually damaged the SSD internally. I love Thinkpads.

 

i guess at this current moment, you should just monitor the various websites for potential parts. From the sound of it, this machine is still in functional state, so i guess you can use it as it is, and fix it up slowly when cheap parts become available.

Do you have a picture of the damages on the T400s?

 

I will post them today. I think it's a "WIN" as far as the drop went. A 5 foot drop onto hard tile is no slight fall. And yes it's still functioning perfectly, aside from the cosmetic damage. The lid still closes and I can still carry it around with me. It did in the end protect the SSD, even though it took a dent. But I imagine with flexi plastic and no roll cage.. my SSD would be dented to the point of damage (since it has no wear to move since the battery is to the right of it) and the plastics would be far more damaged. I would have no data and a busted laptop. Pics will come when I open it up this afternoon.

 

try checking craigslist for old dead t400s and ebay of course.

 

Certainly you are lucky with the fall, if it was the Macbook Pro, then you would probably have a hard time closing the lid.

Lets have a look at the damage, and see whether some epoxy and sticky taping can fix the issue before your parts can arrive.

 

Here are the pictures! I apologize for the quality, they were taken with my phone on a chest of drawers.

View attachment 67332
The bottom. There's a crack in the bottom obviously. You can see how the side got squished in, the Bay door and the corner palmrest/hdd cage absorbed must of it and cracked/crushed.

View attachment 67333
Front. You can see where the hdd cage crushed in and dented the SSD. And how the palmrest bent upwards and warped. Also you can see there's a chunk of bottom piece missing where the shiny cage is exposed.

View attachment 67330
Palm rest and HDD Cover. That bubble in the palmrest was caused by me after the accident by trying to use a longer screw to hold it together. You can see where it cracked from above and below, and that bay cover crumpled in the middle. Nothing actually hit it there to push it in like that, not from what I can tell.

View attachment 67331
This is with the palm rest off. You can see where it dented in the side and how the corner caved in since it hit on the corner. That shoved the SSD down and the palmrest screw that lies to the left of the HDD cage went into the side of the SSD and dented it, as shown below.

View attachment 67335
My poor, expensive little SSD I'm gonna get a 320 160GB and back this one up more frequently in the mean time. It smelled a little funky.. like hot PCB for a little while, but I ran every test I could on it and have been using it since and there's no more smell, but the inner SSD is exposed because the black strip isn't flush against the metal case anymore.

View attachment 67334
This gives a better view of the cracked hdd cage and how that screw went in to the side of it.

 

Man that sucks, but good thing the damage for the most part was cosmetic. Perhaps when you are done send in the pictures anonymously to Lenovo and they can market it further to how bulletproof ThinkPads are.

 

Lenovo T400s LCD screen T410s 1440x900 FULL TOP | eBay

this guy on ebay is selling a screen from a broken machine, maybe he would have the rest of the parts that you want.