It's better when it's simple
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The X230 is the fourth model in the X2xx series and was manufactured from June 2012 to August 2014. It is the successor to the successful X220.
The biggest difference compared to previous X2xx models is the new ThinkPad Precision Keyboard, which is now installed in all ThinkPads.
The X230 was also produces in the following variants:
It is generally recommended to update to the latest Lenovo EC firmware before replacing the stock BIOS. However, as the result of CVE-2019-6171, newer Lenovo firmware update files have added a digital signature. If you upgrade to locked version you will not be able to patch your EC without downgrading it. This is not what we usually want, because we would be unable to make changes to the EC firmware, e.g. with //github.com/hamishcoleman/thinkpad-ec
It is only possible to install a half-height only adapter as the necessary brackets for a full-height adapter are missing.
It is not possible to WLAN adapters due to missing PCIe lanes.
To our knowledge, the following docking station options exist for the Thinkpad X230 (sold at Vikings as bold text).
All Lenovo docking stations for the X230 come with 1x VGA, 1x Ethernet (RJ-45) and 1x Kensington Lock.
It has been reported 2) 3) 4) that the two USB 3.0 ports on the left appear to suffer from read and write errors when USB to SATA adapters are being used on any supported coreboot version with a SeaBIOS payload.
USB 3.0 sticks work fine and the USB 2.0 port on the right does not have this problem.
This may be isolated to the SeaBIOS payload.
This is being investigated (with low priority, don't expect an update soon); we'll update this article once we know more.
