I'm a proud owner of the following Thinkpads.
X60s - restored during MCO with parts from Carousell and Shopee.
X220 - bought it from a forumer, no problems. Upgraded with 256GB MSATA and 500GB HDD. Bought the dock from Carousell.
T440P - also bought it from a forumer. Minor issues like crappy display and 2 dead USB ports.
Yesterday, while dismantling the T440P for a thorough cleaning, I accidentally broke the touchpad cable. It was fucking shitty without the trackpad. I went online to check for the price from eBay, Shopee, and Lazada. Just for a 6-7cm cable need RM 35 up! Craziness. Since I already burned some moolah on the FHD IPS display upgrade, I don't want to spend close to RM 50 for a small item.
This morning, I decided to drive down to Low Yat Plaza to find the cable. Damn Pakistani shops wanted RM 150! Bloodsuckers! After an hour of searching, I found a shop named DS selling laptop spare parts. They don't have the original cable except for a generic 12 pin flex cable. Only RM 10 per piece. I took the gamble and bought 2 pieces.
Upon reaching home and after 15 minutes of dismantling, I tried the new flex cable. It was much longer at 15cm and it is of the correct dimension. And voila, the trackpad is alive and working again. No more bloody external mouse. And all for RM 20 for 2 flex cables.
Many thanks to the fella at DS for suggesting the generic cable. Now, I love this laptop more than my 2012 Macbook Pro.
I have even added a 4G card inside using a generic antenna from Shopee. The signal was not strong enough but otherwise working fine. Too bad no more laptops with upgradable parts.
Since you got dead usb port, maybe you can try usb-c mode in case you want to revive the port