r/thinkpad #X220

Someone asked how I planned to clean the lid. So here it is ! First step : Removing that old sticker residue. I used a random piece of hard plastic to scrape it off.

Then, I cleaned the whole lid with alcohol.

It was very dirty...

Then, I used a "magic sponge" AKA melamine sponge. I added a bit of water to the sponge and I gently rubbed the surface with circular motions. Here's the lid after the first pass.

Here's the lid after a second magic sponge pass and a second alcohol pass. It is now pretty clean.

Obviously, this method is very good to get the grime off, but deeper scratches are still visible.

While disassembling, I noticed what looks like cola on the touchpad ribbon. It's the only place I found these stains... So I just gave it a good wipe with alcohol.

Indeed, here's the little WWAN card !

I accidentally ripped off the speaker connector... Woops. It will be fixed later.

The damaged USB port has been desoldered to prevent issues. All the contacts were shorted to ground.

The chassis has been cleaned.

The outside was cleaned using the same method as for the lid, while being careful around stickers to not damage them.

I blocked the broken USB port to prevent accidental insertions...

The palmrest is quite damaged tho. It has 3 cracks and I need to buy resin to fix it. Yes, I know I can find replacement palmrests for 3€ on Aliexpress but I wanna kepp the OG one.

Crack !

Giving the X220 a new chance in life...

Fun fact : Not only the 3G card works out of the box on Debian but I wrote this post and uploaded all the pictures using cellular network !

full list of mods is in the comments

Some stains are more questionable than others...

hmmm...

The keyboard is very dirty. I think I could find food in there if I look well enough...

The nipple has been ripped off... Such pain ! Btw, what's the FRU of a replacement nipple ?

The touchpad is also quite worn...

I did not even know they made them without a webcam... Fine by me : I'm ugly anyway !

The bottom is as dirty as the lid...

That USB port is not gonna work... It looks like it's shorted too. I don't know if just replacing the port would fix it, maybe there's a blown fuse too...

Missing screws ! Yay !

Jokes aside, I have plenty of replacement ones so that's no big deal... Also, there seem to be a few stripped ones as well, mainly the palmrest... Maybe that's why they fell off.

Little surprise : It has a WWAN card installed !

Serial number for those who wanna look it up. I don't care, it's out of warranty for ages.

It even got dropped at some point...