T400 USB ports

I work in IT and we supply every user with a laptop. Our current model is a T400 and it seems our biggest complaint is with the USB ports. I took in a users laptop this morning only to find this:


Just a word of caution. be very careful that you arent putting too much stress on them. The plastic cracks and then will get pulled out when unplugging your devices.

 

Ouch. Less than a year old? Is it safe to assume this is covered under the typical warranty?

 

Its less than a month old actually. Yes, I'm a certified with lenovo so i'll be fixing it, but this was more of a 'try not to be rough on them' post. Currently the motherboard is on backorder.

 

Wow... I've never been able to break such a port. :-o

 

you have to replace the whole motherboard just to fix them?

 

What are they doing, sticking popsicle sticks into them? I've broken USB sticks in ports, but have never broken the ports themselves..

 

unfortunately, a t400 here has the same problem. just a few months old, plastic nose came out with a mf628 usb modem.

lenovo quotes a 130€ repair fee, as the problem is most likely related to mishandling (which it wasn´t). normal warranty does not cover it, the customer would have to prove that he or she was not responsible.

annoying. do more people have the problem?

mfg
w

 

I've had some issues where USB ports on my T61 and T400 were too tight at purchase and didn't want to take peripherals. That said, I was careful, and used a flash drive, slowly inserting it several times to loosen them up.

Looks like the users in this case may have been a bit impatient or ham-fisted when something was a little tight and decided "if it doesn't fit, force it", rather than going for finesse.

 

the mf628 had been used on multiple pcs before, including my own T60 - and as I tried it first on the T400 in question, I can tell you that it was a snug fit, but nothing extraordinary.

mfg
w

 

If you straighten out the pins and not having any of them having contact with that metal casing it will pass POST and work. You will also have on usb left on the back right side.

 

This problem is reported on Lenovo forum on few occasions, and personally i have seen a few cases myself in the recent two weeks.

This is due to the poor Polycarbonate material used in the usb slot.

 

I have a T500 and have the same issue. Unit is only 3 months old and the black piece just snapped. A new motherboard is required.

The unit now at my IT dept at work, but I am still waiting for the tech to see if Lenovo will cover it.

If it's not, I am going to talk to Lenovo.

It's good that I have Lenovo tech working in my IT dept, otherwise my laptop will be couriered back and forth.

 

2 of my t400 usb ports are broken. Is there any way I can fix it myself?

 

scary. are all T400's affected with this issue or only a specific batch?

 

my T400 is working well and is not affected as such. So i guess this most be a batch related problem.

 

I am onto the third year with my T400. USB was working fine until recently the plastic pin dividers fell out of the socket. The pins are in good condition, just that the plastic fell off. I am surprised simple parts like these cannot be repaired/replaced easily.

 

It maybe a simple part but since the thing is physically soldered to the motherboard, which means it won't be easily replaceable.

 

I was hoping that the usb port could be made detachable from the motherboard. Maybe there is practical reasons why this is not so, but I don't have the technical expertise to understand it.

 

By increasing the no. of parts soldered to the motherboard, the manufacturability of the laptop (i.e. easy of assembling the laptop) also increases, which decreases production cost and the RRP of the laptop.

 

If thats the case, it's a defect and under warranty.

 

I guess my option is down to getting a USB PCMCIA Card. Do you know any card that will work nicely with the T400?

 

Recently the 2 usb ports on the left side of my T400 failed as well. The quality of the plastic apparently wasn't too good, the black pieces fell out after a little rough handling. Nothing out of the ordinary though, certainly nothing severe enough to break a normal usb port, let alone a ThinkPad one.

I managed to solder the old connector from the system board, hoping to be able to find a replacement online, but to no avail. Does anyone know whether I will be able to find such a part online? It's a Foxconn piece, it says 925YA on top, but Google has no hits. The closest foxconn match I found is UB9112C-S01-AF, but it is slightly different.

 

I think your best bet would be to find a "for parts or repair" T400 mainboard on Ebay, desolder its ports, and solder them to your current system.

 

it is almost impossible to find these usb ports as spare parts, as said try to get a second hand board and get the usb port from that.

Alternatively get a pcmcia or expresscard usb card, this will be the cheapest way of adding more usb ports at minimum price.

These usb ports break quite frequently on this series of thinkpad, i have seen numerous early build T400, T500, W500, R400, R500, W500 all having the exact same problem.

 

Thanks LoneWolf15 & lead_org. I will try ebay for some time, but I'll probably buy a usb3.0 express card soon. Are these parts custom made for Lenovo? Seems rather strange that they are unavailable on the web.

 

since very few people have really done a straight usb ports swap on these machines, it is hard to say whether these parts are custom made or not. But most likely it is not a custom made usb port, but you would have to look around to find the right one, since there is very little public information on these sort of stuff.

The best beat and cheapest fix is to just get a expresscard usb expansion card.

 

so if i have a newer W500 (got it from lenovo outlet last october, new) it probably wouldn't have this problem?

 

I have a friend with a t500 witj the same prob. My t500 hasnt had any problems with the usb jack yet. May you guys are a bit too rough with it?
If it was my unit, i would just get a usb 3.0express card slot like many have mentioned already.

 

I haven't seen any T400/T500s with this problem, and I haven't had the issue with my T500, but I can definitely see it as a possibility. The plastic wedge in the USB sockets seem to be pretty low-grade and brittle plastic.

 

maybe not enough plasticiser was added to the plastic, which may make it brittle.

I haven't really seen many recent machines having this problem, but that doesn't mean it is not going to happen to these machines.

 

Mmm. Plasticisers.

My T400's USB ports are all still working great, despite much abuse to the laptop itself.

 

Sorry for thread necro, but one of my Dell Latitude's USB ports also had the plastic plug fall off. It still works but it's super vulnerable to damage.

One of my flash drives fits with a very tight fit. That might be why.

 

I find it surprising. they're very durable for me. i've even plugged in dented plugs and the ports on the t400 forced them straight again.

 

Hi. I know it's a different model, but I have an Ideapad V570, brand new, and was shocked to find out that the USB ports were almost alarmingly tight, so I Googled and found this thread. It was hard to insert the thumb drive that I use without a hitch on both my desktop and my other laptop. I didn't do anything different when inserting the same drive into the Lenovo, but it felt like I was ripping the port out of the laptop just trying to remove it. It made a metallic, grinding kind of sound. Some of the other ports were a little easier, but I felt very uncomfortable the first few times I tried them. I got out different thumb drives and basically had the same problem with all of them. After reading this thread, I went back and, one by one (the V570 has 4 USB ports), I very gently inserted and removed one of the thumb drives a few times in each port. I did notice that it got easier, to the point that they now seem normal. But the first few times made me feel very uncomfortable. It felt like either the thumb drive would break, or the port itself would break. So I posted here just to say that it appears to be a problem on more than just the T400 model. I hope it's fixed now, but if something happens down the road, I will not be a happy camper. To have to replace a mobo for something like this is a major hassle.

 

Shouldn't be a problem. Avoid "wiggling" the USB when it's plugged in, and pull straight out--with one hand on the laptop--when you want to unplug it. And that's generally what you should be doing with all USB devices

 

^^^ A video demo would help tremendously.