Thinkpad T460s Trackpoint Mod

The trackpoint of the T460s has changed from the previous generations of thinkpads. It feels much less sensitive than in previous models. Of course, we wonder why Lenovo changes the much beloved trackpoint into something this bad... but we also need a solution for the current problem.

There is an interesting difference under the cap, the trackpoint stick has gotten much narrower. That also means that the rubber cap itself got much thicker. It seems to be so thick that the cap prevents the stick to tilt freely. With the mod below the T460s trackpoint seems to react much better to up/down and left/right finger pressure.

see the T460s trackpoint:

T460s_trackpoint_modified by drrossum posted Apr 8, 2016 at 11:30 AM

and the T450s for comparison:

T450s_trackpoint by drrossum posted Apr 8, 2016 at 11:30 AM

If anyone else feels like trying this mod, please report your findings.

 

You can experiment with software settings to improve trackpoint sensitivity, but without the mod it didn't seem to get much better.
Settings that work reasonably well for me are:

Code:

/sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio2/sensitivity: 180
/sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio2/speed: 50

instead of default values of:

Code:

/sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio2/sensitivity: 128
/sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio2/speed: 97

 

And here is a udev rule to set those values:

Code:

ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="input", ATTR{name}=="TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint", ATTR{device/sensitivity}="180", ATTR{device/speed}="50"