Replacement keyboard for my old Thinkpad - KB266US - Or a good way to repair it

Hi I have an old ThinkPad P50s it was a work laptop from my old european company which they sent long ago, its been with me since ages (>7yrs) and I’ve converted it into a personal laptop for my Mom.

Recently she “cleaned it” and I mean the keyboard with colin and cloth (insert gopi bahu meme). She basically sprayed colin on it and cleaned it I guess from what I hear from her

Everything is working on the laptop except the keyboard, the keyboard is also acting weird, like the FN key lock works and the FN lock lights up but rest of the keys don’t work. Sometimes the arrow and enter keys work and after reboot, nothing.

I checked online for the model but its on some polish site but out of stock everywhere


image from reference website

If you guys know a good way to repair this, let me know, I dont think the ribbon cable is damaged as nothing physical happened to it. I checked the cable and its fine.

Is there some place in India where I can find this?

Before buying, remove all the key caps and clean with IPA as much as you can. Then wait for a while and check back.

I guess colin dried up and left things behind in the keys.

Hope it’s just a mechanical issue.

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Could get his one for the cleaning. Use it quite often.
The other option would be De-Ionized water.

@Heisen thanks Will try that.
@anchberry were you gonna post a link?

I have this already


so will try with this

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I added the link, not sure why it wasn’t added.

Is that safe to do? I think the keys might be scissor type and it’s very, very difficult to put the keycaps back, if at all possible.

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Probably not, but we are already looking to buy new one.

Best would be try first on the least used key.

@wapenshaw Watch the youtubes before trying. It’s not simple to pop them and put them back.

Some people say it breaks once popped.

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Also you can fire up some app, which logs which keys are being pressed or depressed.

It wont break. Just be careful.