Previous thread: Don't buy anything OTHER THAN IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T, X, and W/P Series if you want the Real Business Experience™ >Other business laptops are welcome in /tpg/ (Dell Latitude/Precision, HP EliteBook/ZBook).
Why ThinkPad? >Used machines are plentiful and cheap >Excellent keyboards >Great durability (excl L and E series) >Utilitarian design >Docking stations that easily turns your laptop into a desktop >Most models are easy to repair, upgrade & maintain thanks to readily available service manuals for every model and spare parts are easy & cheap to obtain >The best TrackPoint™, easier to use when typing >Good for Hackintoshing
Libreboot-compatible models: >T60 (check lcd), X60(s/t); X200(s/t. -s requires soldering), T400(s)/500; W500 Models before *40 series can be Corebooted
Modern models: >X220/X230 - 12", 768p, cheap >T420/T430 - 14", 900p, widely available for a good price, socketed CPU (Ivy Bridge CPU support on T420); Quad Core Compatible >T520/530; W520/530 - 15", 1080p, DTR, 32GB RAM on quadcore models, USB 3.0 >T440s - best price/performance ultra portable >T440p/540p; W540/1 - Last Thinkpads with socketed processors, easily replaceable trackpad (W541 doesn't need trackpad replacement)
Does any of you have any experience with ArcaOS? How usable would that be in the year of our lord 2019? Feels like it's more geared towards businesses still running os/2 to migrate to but I'm wondering how usable it would be for basic shitposting, word processing etc. Seems like an interesting project overall.
Gabriel Scott
Anyone know how to replace the ribbon cable in a thinkpad T420 keyboard?
Elijah Thompson
You would be better off just buying a new keyboard. I'm pretty sure those cables are not meant to be replaced and fixing it by soldering would be pretty hard. Are you sure the cable is fucked?
Looks like a usb mic I don't see why it wouldn't work with non-ibm harware.
Nolan Baker
/tpg/ please tell me if I'm thinking this right: If I get a normal t440p ($150-200); you know i5, 4gb ram, 320hdd; then upgrade it to i7-4810, 16gb ram, ips screen and a couple SSDs, plus 170w AC and a 57++ battery ($500 or so for all of this)... that could work well for me for the next 5 years or so, right? (just normal stuff) or is there a better option for $700? is my math wrong? also would this be able to emulate ps2 and/or purple purse games or nah?
Owen Gray
Anyone with a W530/T530 with dGPU, how do you deal with external monitors, considering that the nvidia gpu have to be on to output through the miniDP port? Windows seems to be just plug and play, but this looks difficult to manage on systemd/IBM/Linux distros
Isaiah Smith
Part of the cable was severed when I got the machine
Owen Long
Time to get a new keyboard then.
Owen White
Hi, everyone. I'm tired of having to buy a new laptop every 4-5 years. I've heard that Thinkpads are durable and, more importantly, can be repaired easily. I would like to buy powerful laptop that I can repair myself when some part of it dies. Is it a pipe dream?
Alexander Howard
if it's 1080p screen I would say good deal, if you use it as is.
Ian Robinson
i don't know
Nolan Richardson
Thinkpads have less and less replaceable parts nowadays. Even the ram is seems to be soldered in in recent models. They do seem like decent machines when compared to other laptops on the market right now though. My frustration is really more about the overall state of computers and hardware right now than thinkpads. All these thin-and-lite memes and such are just grinding my gears.
Nathan Ramirez
ive had an x220 for a while with win10 on it but it got slow as fuck so i clean boot installed ubuntu and that is also slow as fuck, is the hardware jsuta dieing cause its old? might try another clean isntall of win10 this time
What kind of battery life should I be getting with a 9-cell battery when I'm actively using the laptop? I bought a replacement battery for a refurb T430 I got a while ago and, regardless of whether it's the new battery or the one it came with, it seems like neither lasts long at all.
I've seen people comment about getting multiple hours out of theirs, but I probably couldn't get more than 90 minutes out of either battery if I'm actually doing things. (We're talking using Firefox and working on text documents, no resource-heavy shit.)
Ian Turner
I get 8 hours of Web browsing on my 9 cell T530, 1080p panel at second lowest brightness, i7 3840QM with crucial SSD Use debloated Windows 10 and Microsoft Edge, the original not the chromium fork.
Ayden James
honestly batterylife to me is a meme
if it goes up to 10-12 hrs then id care but anything below 6 is plug territory
Henry Sullivan
based cmus user
Hudson Cox
I'm running Linux on this thing, might've made a backup of the W10 installation it came with but I nuked it right afterward if I did.
Would having two hard drives in the laptop drastically impact battery life? Main slot has an SSD and I swapped the CD drive with a second slot, in which sits a SATA.
I might just go the always-plug route, been doing that with my other laptop anyway. I'm only asking because I'd like to fix it if I can but, if that's not the case, I'm not gonna trash this laptop. I like it a lot otherwise.
Chase Martin
do you have a proper battery and power supply? ie if you use the x220 without battery and with the standard power supply it throttles
Chase Morales
do you need a special power supply for the docking stations?
Ayden Hill
Should be the same connector.
Wyatt Long
Apparently Lenovo just straight up deleted the option to set a battery threshold with the Lenovo Vantage update. Is there any other way to set a battery threshold so I won't kill my battery when it's plugged in most of the time?
Brody Barnes
lenovo is losing their grip
Benjamin Moore
ive bene using an upgraded battery + ssd + ram and standard pwoer supply
Jayden Hill
>1366x768 That's a big yikes from me dawg, throw it in the garbage.
Justin Sanchez
Can someone explain to me the laptop and all the neat peripherals? I can't tell which model or what shit they're using.
Lucas Reyes
Into the trash it goes 4:3 or bust. Can flexview t60s be librebooted? I can't remember which displays work.
Cooper Allen
Power Hungry user from last thread here,
So I found a Lenovo ThinkPad W541 15.6” Intel i7-4810MQ 2.80GHz 16GB 500GB K1100M,1920x1080 for $340, sounds good? P52 are pretty pricey and tempting but even that was too much power for what I need now and made some compromises.
Camden Jenkins
what do you think of the m6800?
Grayson Taylor
I got one with more or less the same specs (750hdd), it was $270 with shipping and no charger. Try to get at most $300, that seems the most common price.
Angel James
Hey lads, need to buy a laptop it needs >win7 compatibility, no drivers being "exclusive" to win10 >an nvme slot for an ssd >1080p screen, may be able to settle with 1600x900 if it's a better deal >good enough specs to play 4K movies without ever needing to worry about dropping frames I don't care about the brand and I'm buying it for my dad
Austin Brown
Is it a bit of an overkill to get an Precision M6800 (or older M model) if my main use of the machine would be basic office work, browsing and a bit of gaming? What makes me interested in this model are is the sturdiness, screen size, performance and it seem to have good reviews and keeps on being recommended, but the weight of it is a bit unappealling and I'm thinking maybe a lighter model would be better (not gonna lug it around too much, but enough that it might become a hassle) I could get one for 625euros from one place
Lucas Miller
>Anything from Skylake and older >Haswell series and newer, remember to check if it uses 2242 or 2280 first. >Anything since Sandy bridge
Noah James
I know a girl named Barbosa should I marry her and take her last name and name my child albertk
Bentley Hernandez
what's a reasonable price to sell a librebooted x200?
Ayden Campbell
Get a 4980 or a lower tier HQ CPU instead for the Iris Pro 520. Doubt you'll need a 170w AC adapter, will let you know when my CPU arrives.
David Collins
holy fucking shit! that's a wall made out of thinkpads!
Noah Russell
do you have all of these installed tlp thinkfan thinkpad_acpi tp-smapi tpacpi-bat powertop
I don't know how to on Linux, but you should be able to set the HDD to turn off when not in use as well. If it's spun up all the time then yeah that's sucking a significant chunk of power.
Bentley Evans
including docks, did any thinkpad ever come with two NICs?
Jeremiah Garcia
T440p
Dominic Anderson
tlp use thinkfan ?
Dylan Jackson
I know jack shit about processor families or codenames cuz I don't follow hardware news at all I'm considering dropping the choice to get nvme and instead just get a sata ssd since any ssd is already going to be a huge improvement, I just thought that since m.2 drives are smaller it would be the better choice for a laptop, not to mention being the same price as sata drives and being nvme and once again I'm open to any suggestions that aren't a thinkpad as well about how much should that cost?
Cooper Bennett
>about how much should that cost? >ebay.com >"t440p" >filter by "for parts only" >buy one with a locked BIOS but otherwise fine >buy another with a busted screen or something, but a fine or upgraded mainboard >buy charger and SSD >spend $50 in parts and get a $250 machine after you swap the board
Jace Sullivan
See The list of upgrades are optional but serves well as a guide.
Ryan Nguyen
T440p uses a 2242 SSD and outside the overpriced RC100 there aren't many around.
The second number in a Thinkpad says the generation. T420 is the 2nd core generation which is a I5-2500m aka, sandy bridge. T430 is ivy bridge (3000) T440 is Haswell (4000) Here is when M2 support was introduced. T450 uses 2242 too IRC. T460 uses 2280 which is your standard M2. The W541 and P50 series use normal SSDs.
Why do you even need a NVMe SSD in first place?
Elijah Miller
dunno don't remember, I just remember having all of these noted down for when I was retarded and trying to do linux on thinkpad but what do you know, they are built for and around windows thus windows tends to work best on them
Nathaniel Gutierrez
>T440 is Haswell (4000) Here is when M2 support was introduced. do you happen to know what size nvme the 540p supports?
Tyler Rogers
2242mm.
David Garcia
He specified nvme slot for ssd, 2242 is still nvme. Nobody said anything about prices.
John Jones
Just because i couldn't find this anywhere else outside a blog that used a image host that deleted all the images. Here are the insides of a 65W fake thinkpad charger if anyone is interested and somehow is googling for it and finds this in the archives.
Forgot to mention. 65W Charger died after 9 months(5-8 hours daily) of use in a T400 with a X9100. 90W is still alive after one year, overheats too much to the point it hurts to touch, same use than 65W. Original 90W is still alive after 9 years of use.
my logic for m.2 nvme was just that it's the same price as sata ssds and smaller so I thought it should be better for a laptop, but I guess it doesn't matter. I'll get a sata ssd for it instead is T460 good? how much do they cost? I don't want to spend more than $200
Caleb Morris
T460 will be more than $200
t. own a T460, paid more than $200 for it. It's a nice laptop and was pretty cheap otherwise but you're looking at north of $300 for one
NVMe SSD are mostly for server, editing or "enterprise" use, not for OS/games/normal programs, there is literally 0 difference between them when it comes to OS and simple programs. Just get a 2.5" 860 EVO, MX500 or SU800 in that order from best to worse.
>$200 Look for a T440p then.
Jason Lee
>51nb.com NIGGA IT'S ALL CHINESE HOW DO I BUY AN X210
Joshua Long
I see, thanks anons last stupid question: what's the difference between T440p and T440s? the laptop isn't going to leave the house let alone the table it sits on so portability is not a concern
Josiah Rivera
One uses m CPUs (I5-4300m) that can be upgraded or replaced, the other is a bit smaller but uses a way weaker CPU (I5-4300U) that CAN'T be upgraded or replaced.
Christopher Ross
considering upgrading my t430 from a 3320m to one of the i7s. would it be worth moving up to a t440p for muh haswell if i'm going to upgrade it all the way?
Charles Bailey
souka, arigatou gozaimasu nanashi-san
Nicholas Walker
Sculpting with zBrush on my x230 16Gbs RAM, which is great except now at random intervals my eGPU jumps to full power and everything freezes then crashes. It was working great before, got my GTX 1660 operating on my x230 with 85% effectiveness up from about 70% with a lot of initial tweaking.
I'd be worried about overheating with anything over 4810 but what do I know? And I used the 170w for the budget just to be safe, I guess the 135w would be ok.
Carson Wilson
Get the dGPU HSF if you are worried about temp. Neck to neck 3840M vs 4980HQ? Less than 10% differences.
Brody Baker
I can pick up a T420 for very cheap, however the left mouse button has "snapped off". How hard would this be to fix? I've search and haven't found any info yet on replacing the mouse buttons
Is it the ultranav button or the one on the rim of the machine?
Hudson Long
Does buying a newer ThinkPad void the repairability perk?
I remember in the W520 days I could get just about any part I needed for under $100 and fix this n' that problems. Do the X1 Carbons / Extremes still have after market parts?