T400 Palmrest Creak: My Solution

I've had my T400 for a month and a bit and, overall, I'm quite happy with it. However, one thing that has been causing me great annoyance is that the bottom right palm rest creaks whenever I put any pressure on it - typing, using the touchpad, etc. Basically, the top/front part of the palm rest doesn't fit quite properly with the bottom and side pieces.

I cannot describe how irrationally bonkers that this creaking has made me. Really aggravating.

Accordingly, I have been trying to find a solution and, today, I have all but completely fixed it! I thought I'd share my experience with the forum in the hopes that it could be helpful to someone else who has the same problem. Also because I'm really happy to have finally solved this ridiculous problem.

Here's the deal:

- There are three screws that are involved in holding the right palm rest: two small ones, and one larger one (see first image).

- My mistake was to think that it was some combination of all three screws that was the problem. I kept tightening them and loosening them in various combinations, trying to find the right balance. I got close, and managed to greatly reduce the amount of creaking, but never truly solved it.

- It turns out, the problem only had to do with the big screw. All I had to do was slightly loosen it and it almost completely eliminated the creaking. I think that it has to do with the design of the HD-cover: instead of having a screw on each end, they only have one and rely on a piece of plastic to keep the other end in position. Because the screw was over-tightened, the piece of plastic was forced upwards, which lifted the top part of the palm rest up, and caused the creaking.

Anyways, I hope this is helpful!

Isaac

 

Ha awesome find. I used some double sided tape also, fixed my creak.

Also double sided tape fixed my battery wobble.

Thanks for the tip!!

 

That is what I did aswell, double sided tape worked well.

I also have this warped chassis issue however, since I need my machine for school I don't feel like sending it in atm. It really does bother me though...grr...

 

i have this problem too and have tried tightening the big screw, but havent tried loosening it.

i'll try this out, thanks.

 

For me, the right palm rest at the speaker/microphone jack creaked whenever I applied some pressure on it.

So a simple solution was to paste layers of tape on the magnesium chasis at that part.