The X230 Classic Keyboard Swap Failure

As far as laptop keyboards go, you just can't beat pre-2012 Thinkpads. The keyboards are rock-solid, have an incredibly intuitive layout, look great, and don't compromise despite being laptop keyboards. The trackpoint and mouse buttons feel great too. It's not possible to get these on newer laptops, save for the TP25 - the 25th anniversary edition thinkpad, a T470 with the classic keyboard. And those are sold out!

So most people turn to the keyboard swap - a procedure in which a *20 keyboard is grafted onto a *30 laptop, like the T430 or X230. Some people just by a *30 motherboard and shove it into the *20 chassis, too. I have an X220, and an X230. I want to make the swap, so I can use the X230's Ivy Bridge CPU (better power management, GPU, silent fan modes, etc.) with the keyboard. But there were problems.

First, the resources:

thinkpad-ec

1vyrain

skulls

X220/X230 BIOS unlocking

I bought my X230 years ago with a locked BIOS. No matter - I flashed skulls before I even installed my SSD! But now I wish to update the EC. Booting the thinkpad-ec USB stick says "No Operating System Found"! I discovered that the EC can only be updated running the original BIOS. It relies on that platform. Luckily I have backups of the stock BIOS, so using another computer and a ch341a I flashed both the top and bottom chip with the backups. It worked and I was back on original BIOS.

However the BIOS was locked. I couldn't change any settings and was stuck on UEFI boot. The EC patcher boots in Legacy mode. I can't change that, because the BIOS is locked. So I tried to exploit the BIOS using 1vyrain. This also did not work! I tried it a few times. Maybe the BIOS lock continues to be the problem?

So I researched how to unlock the BIOS, and apparently it's pretty easy - I already had the thing disassembled enough to find the chip after all. However, the pictures on the BIOS unlocking site do not match what's on my X230's motherboard. Not wanting to cause any damage I did not attempt to short pins of a chip I wasn't sure was the right one.

So I've failed. I flashed skulls back on the X230. My main problem with using the X220 is the noisy fan, so I ordered what appears to be the "good one" of those off of ebay. It should be here... someday. Until then, I'm still on the X230. It's fine, the keyboard is nice, but the X220's is just better. Or I can order another X230 board, and patch the EC there. Lots of options with these old things.

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