Lenovo X1 Carbon Laptop Keyboard Replacement

Geschrieben von: Christopher Thormodson

Kommentare: 12

Lenovo X1 Carbon Laptop Keyboard Replacement

Schwierigkeitsgrad

Difficult

Schritte

Zeitaufwand

3 Stunden

Einleitung

This guide outlines how to replace a keyboard on a 2nd generation Lenovo X1 Carbon laptop. These laptops are quite compact, which results in a keyboard replacement being a very involved process. This process includes removing almost every other part of the laptop first.

Werkzeuge

Ersatzteile

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 2 Upper Case

Schritt 1

These screws can't be fully removed; they will stay attached to the back cover.
Loosen the seven screws from the back cover.

Schritt 2

Unplug the bundled cable connector attached to the battery by pulling evenly from each side of the plug.
Remove the four 4mm screws from the corners of the battery.
Remove the 2.5mm screw from the center of the battery.
Remove the battery by lifting from the bottom edge and pulling towards the front edge.

Schritt 3

Remove the 3mm screw from the solid state drive.
Pull the solid state drive straight out from its connector to remove it.

(The SSD exits and enters at a slight diagonal angle.)

Benjamin Irvine - 23/07/20

Schritt 4

Unplug the Local Area Network Card by prying the coaxial connectors straight up from the board.
Unscrew the 3mm screw from the LAN card.
Pull the LAN card straight out from its connector to remove it.

Schritt 5

Unplug the CPU heatsink fan by flipping up the small locking flap on the ZIF connector and gently removing the cable.

Schritt 6

Loosen the upper-left heat pipe screw.
Loosen the lower-right heat pipe screw.
Loosen the lower-left heat pipe screw.
Loosen the upper-right heat pipe screw.
Lift the CPU cooler straight up to remove it.
Thermal paste will need to be applied during reassembly.
Apply a small amount of thermal paste across the processor case.

Schritt 7

Unscrew the 4mm screw from the audio card.
Pull the audio card straight back from the side of the laptop and flip it over, exposing the flat topped connector.
Disconnect the flat topped connector by pulling straight up from its socket.
Remove the audio card.

Schritt 8

Unplug the laptop speakers by pulling evenly on each side of the bundled cable connector.
Remove the four 4mm screws from the speakers.
Remove the speaker wires from under the tape loops along the front of the laptop.
Lift the speakers and speaker wires straight up to remove them.

Schritt 9

Disconnect the RJ45 ribbon cable by pulling straight up.
Remove the 4mm screw from the RJ45 card.
Move the RJ45 card slightly to the right and pull up to remove it.

Schritt 10

Remove the two 2.5mm screws from the guard.
Pull the guard straight up to remove it.
Slide the bottom plastic part of the ribbon cable socket forward.
Disconnect the ribbon cable.
Lift the fingerprint reader assembly straight up to remove it.

Schritt 11

Do not subject the system board to excessive shock or electrostatic discharge of any sort.
Remove the 4mm screw from the guard in the upper-right corner of the laptop.

Schritt 12

Do not subject the system board to excessive shock or electrostatic discharge of any sort.
Lift the ribbon cable locking mechanism.
Disconnect the ribbon cables by pulling straight out from the socket.
Disconnect the ribbon cables by pulling straight up.

more a question than comment… mine doesn’t have j2 cable… is that for the touch screen digitizer? if it is does anyone know where to get it?

Douglas Chong - 12/11/20

Schritt 13

Do not subject the system board to excessive shock or electrostatic discharge of any sort.
Remove the five 3mm screws from the system board.
Move the system board slightly to the left and pull up to remove it.

Schritt 14

Remove the 4mm screw from the guard.
Pull the guard straight up to remove it.
Remove the three 4mm screws from the LCD hinges.
Pull the antenna wires away from the hinges.

Schritt 15

Lift the laptop and open the screen 90 degrees.
Lift the LCD unit straight up to remove it.

if you get just the keyboard replacement you don’t have to remove the screen and speakers… you can just remove the 45 screws of the keyboard

Douglas Chong - 12/11/20

Schritt 16

Remove the two 1.7mm screws from the bracket.
Pull the guard straight up to remove it.
Remove the two 1.7mm screws from the adaptive keys panel.
Remove the three 2.5mm screws from the adaptive keys panel.
Lift the adaptive keys panel from the rear of the laptop and pull to remove it.

Schritt 17

Lift the ribbon cable locking mechanism.
Disconnect the ribbon cable.
Remove the remaining ribbon cables from the back of the keyboard.

Schritt 18

Remove the 45 Xmm screws from the back of the keyboard that are visible.
Remove the tape covering one of the Xmm screws and remove that screw.
Peel back the large ribbon cable and remove the four Xmm screws underneath it.
Lift the keyboard straight up to remove it.

for those who are fairly impatient… be careful not to scrip the screws

Douglas Chong - 12/11/20

Abschluss

To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.

Tinte & Feder

Christopher Thormodson

Mitglied seit: 05/10/17

330 Reputation

8 Kommentare

This was one heck of a difficult feat, thank you for documenting the process. It took me about one hour to disassemble and two hours to re-assemble.

Anthony Dragone - 01/06/18

Excellent guide - many thanks for writing this. It took me about 3 hours in total as well but it’s all done now. Worst part was the 50 tiny screws holding the keyboard in place!

benjamin.s.yeomans - 31/01/19

Hey, I did this and have some serious Wi-Fi connection issues now…Ethernet and Wi-Fi are both listed as non-operational although sometimes a network will appear in my available networks to connect to. Any idea what might have gone wrong? I took out the LAN card and reinserted it, no dice.

D Walford - 21/07/19

You got the cables connected to the wrong little circle post on the wifi card. Swap them and it should work! happened to me drove me mad until I tried it.

derek ram - 23/10/19

I do have issues that seem to be the CMOS Battery.

I couldn't see that in your disassembly instructions.

I am looking everywhere for this little issue and I can not find instructions for the CMOS replacement.

Could you enlight a little where to get this information?

Juan V Bueno - 29/01/20

My laptop got rained on. After initially drying it out, the laptop wasn't turning on. Then it would turn on but was shutting down very rapidly. I followed this guide as far as the keyboard and adaptive LCD display removal. After disassembling and cleaning with isopropyl alcohol and compressed air (including some bluish deposits on ribbon cable connectors) the laptop now powers on without the battery and also with the battery installed. I also reapplied the thermal paste to the fan as advised.

The only thing not working is the LCD adaptive keys display, which I understand is universally hated, but nevertheless somewhat important.

Will try and go the whole way through the disassembly to see if I can get that going again. But for now very grateful for this guide.

I would strongly recommend using a tight fiited pair of disposable vinyl gloves both for grip and avoiding unwanted microsubstances getting on the microchips when doing this :)

Benjamin Irvine - 23/07/20

My experience: not every step is necessary. I replaced the keyboard (X1 Carbon 3rd gen) and what you have to do is to work the keyboard free so you can remove it. I do not see, for example, any reason why you have to remove the speakers and the screen.

Cor de Haan - 03/06/21

I’ve had a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon laptop since January 2020. I have one troublesome occassionally-crooked keyboard key, that always returns to the correct position, and that is not entirely broken. I requested Lenovo to replace the entire keyboard because it is under warranty. The Lenovo technician told me that the entire laptop would have to be disassembled to replace the keyboard. I did not allow the Lenovo technician to replace the entire keyboard just to replace one troublesome key because I didn’t want to risk damaging the laptop and creating more significant operating problems. I can buy parts to fix the key if it breaks comepletely. Or I can replace the entire keyboard later before the 3-year warranty runs out. This leads to my questions — Did I make the right decision? What is the risk that the very difficult keyboard replacement will cause other damage and laptop operating problems? Should I replace the entire keyboard to repair the troublesome key before the 3-year warranty runs out?

Michael Wolk -