Enthusiast ejects failing Lenovo laptop keyboard, upgrades system with custom titanium case and mechanical keyboard

YouTube creator Marcin Plaza redesigned and rebuilt his five-year-old Lenovo Yoga laptop after the built-in keyboard broke a second time. Interestingly, he said his replacement keyboard and the keyboard on his brother’s identical laptop failed simultaneously. Marcin suspected that there must be a problem with the keyboard design, so he took things into his own hands.

The donor Lenovo Yoga is a little worse for wear, with its power button torn out of its PCB connection, the screen bent a little out of shape, and the keyboard beginning to die. But instead of chucking the device into the recycle bin and buying a new laptop, Plaza decided to be creative and upgrade his old device.

First, he chose a Redragon low-profile mechanical keyboard and a USB hub to connect to his laptop's motherboard. Then, he spent over 12 hours designing a new case that he sent to PCBway. The company then delivered a new, thicker titanium case to upgrade his Lenovo laptop.

With the new titanium case in his hands, you might think that all he needed to do was to assemble things — but that cannot be further from the truth. Plaza had to do some soldering to allow the keyboard's USB-C cable to connect to the USB hub he installed inside the case. Once he verified that the keyboard connection worked, he used double-sided tape to secure the hub to the case and super-glued an L-bracket to prevent it from sliding around.

He also super-glued aluminum plates to the titanium case to secure the trackpad, although the trackpad itself is mounted on studs secured on the aluminum plates. With the trackpad, keyboard, and USB hub in place, Plaza added another aluminum plate to keep them in place.

From there, he discovered that the screen's hinges were too long, so he had to trim them to fit the new case. He next secured them to the plate with a couple of screws, which, impressively, are the only screws visible on the exterior of the case.

With everything installed, he used Lexan with several holes drilled into them for airflow to close his 'new' laptop. You could see the battery, motherboard, and everything else he added with the clear cover. And although his "clacktop" is now thicker than ever, it at least sports a low-profile mechanical keyboard and extra USB and HDMI ports. He also replaced the missing power button with a mechanical key switch.

Even though his build isn't as sleek as the MSI Titan 18 HX (and definitely not as powerful), it still looks nice and clean on the outside. He also gets a sense of fulfillment as he can add more years to his old but still somewhat useful device.