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I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

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Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#301

Post by reaperducer »

JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #298

Bought an X220 years back and it unintentionally became my main laptop for a few years. Sold it on in much worse condition (I kept the keyboard) at a profit and got an i7 X230T instead, which has also somehow gone up in price since. the X230 didn't last as long, the efficiencies of the M1 macbooks were too good to ignore. Gave it to my mother since because she wanted "an old laptop that just works"

I kept the keyboard

This I understand.

My company's IT department is using the Windows 11 migration to move everyone to new laptops, and I am going to miss that amazingly firm-but-sqiushy keyboard so hard.

I can't stand Windows, but writing long-form reports on that machine is a joy.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#302

Post by nticompass »

In September of 2012, I bought a T430 from Lenovo. I loved that thing! Covered it with stickers, even upgraded it as the years went on.

Eventually, it had a Core i7-3820QM with 16GB RAM, 1080p screen (with an adapter), SSDs (plural, I put one in the UltraBay)... I installed Coreboot with Tianocore, upgraded the WiFi card... I even modded in the keyboard from a T420.

In June of 2022, 10 years later, I bought an X270 off eBay. I could still use the T430, it was just starting to feel sluggish... I just felt like I needed a new laptop. I'm very happy with the X270 and I hope to use it as long as possible.

It was also fun to start covering it with stickers all over again!

I still have the T430, it's just not being used and it's sitting in a storage locker (with my vintage computer collection).

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#303

Post by numpad0 »

mikae1 wrote: post #51
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Framework’s offerings are interesting, but after having gotten used to the solid rigidity of M-series MacBooks and X1 series Thinkpads, the level of flex in the Framework 13 is a major issue for me. It’s difficult to justify for the price, plus PCBs and repeated flex stress don’t mix nicely. I think it’s time for either Framework or a third party partner to sell a new chassis that’s compatible with the FW13’s mainboa…

As I see it, an aluminum slab MNT Reform Next[1] would be a better Thinkpad replacement than a Framework (from a build and reparability standpoint). [1] https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/mnt-reform-next

Every time I see any of those MNT machines in pictures, it makes my fingers start frantically typing out lengthy rants whether it's about internals or externals or even choices of colors.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#304

Post by acquacow »

I just finished completely rebuilding a 2008 and 2010 macbook pro. The older ones are quite serviceable. This round, the speaker surrounds had cracked causing buzzing audio or no audio. I managed to ebay brand new speaker replacements and got them installed. I cleaned everything and re-pasted the CPU/GPU while I was in there as well. They are on El Capitan and High Sierra, but can be patched to be upgraded to Mojave if I wish. Currently running a LTS version of Firefox as my browser.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#305

Post by Retr0id »

VK538FY wrote: post #213
Retr0id wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to upgrade the panel - mine has a 1080p IPS.

Does it involve the LDVS board that you solder to the main board? I'm looking for a good source and one that doesn't cause problems with the setting for brightness.

Yes, got mine a few years back from taobao (I no longer remember specific details). IIRC the brightness control Just Worked however the chip in charge of that seems to have failed at some point and now I'm stuck at 100% brightness (I no longer daily-drive this thinkpad so I haven't bothered fixing it properly). Unsure if it's down to a design fault with the mod board or I just got unlucky.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#306

Post by sneak »

It’s just a different layer of abstraction. The chips on your SSD in your thinkpad are also soldered without any easy way to replace them save for replacing the whole SSD. Same for your RAM.

Now in a modern laptop it’s the top case or bottom case or board; the robot-made factory parts are bigger integrated components of the system. All you care about is your data anyway, the repairability of the system as a whole by swapping out components at home (admittedly a large culture in the PC world, as silly as it is these days when all you’re doing is connecting a robot factory gpu to a robot factory cpu and choosing a PSU and RAM (also made in robot factories)) isn’t that important.

I hope one day that computing gets so small and light and dense and integrated that I can’t replace any single components without a robot factory and/or microscope. I want a solid microscopically integrated slab (which is what my iPad Pro is basically approaching).

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#307

Post by acquacow »

dpedu wrote: post #10

> A [macbook] battery replacement involves carefully prying out a glued component. Can't speak to every model, but it's not always like this. I just swapped the battery on my 2020 M1 Macbook Air, and it's much easier now. The battery is glued to a metal tray that unscrews and lifts out of the laptop. It is discarded with the old battery. The tray is also held down with pull-tab adhesive strips, but they are trivial t…

While the battery is glued down with adhesive, you can just soak it in some 91-99% isopropyl and that adhesive dissolves quite rapidly and the battery can be pulled right out. I had no issues doing this on my 2016.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#308

Post by SuperSandro2000 »

ladyanita22 wrote: post #240
tyushk wrote: post #47

I run NixOS on a coreboot-ed T420 and I absolutely love everything on the outside, but it really shows its age when compared to the display on my Macbook or it comes to running heavier software ie. rust-analyzer, Chrome, or Nix builds. If Lenovo were to release a modern T420-like, with identical chassis, battery system and similar IO port variety, but a modern display, modern internals (replaceable SSD! soldered RAM…

Doesn't NixOS hog on your hardware?

How?

The package manager needs more RAM than the average other package manager because it is doing a lot more behind the back.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#309

Post by dagw »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #286
CursedSilicon wrote: post #6

I wish that Framework could attain the same lofty levels of "second hand market success" that ThinkPads enjoy. A lot of the "Thinkpad fans" I've talked to genuinely want them, or respect them for similar reasons they enjoy the ThinkPad legacy. ThinkPads are durable but every day they get older, slower and more difficult to source parts for as collectors entrench themselves and the requirements of operating systems (a…

Not all, but a lot of ThinkPad fans enjoy the track point. No laptop without a track point can be considered a viable alternative for me :-/ And thus, I have everything from a 14 year old t420s to my trusty t25 anniversary edition, and then a few workhorses with 8th gen Intels (x13 yoga, x1 carbon, t580) as personal and family laptops.

As someone who once loved the track point on my old IBM ThinkPad, I've found that for some reason every track point not made by IBM sucks. Even the modern Lenovo ones are terrible, and I have no idea why.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#310

Post by bluGill »

fouronnes3 wrote: post #176
shoo wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We must either increase the production rate of T480-size thinkpads by around 9x or get Lenovo to release at least one special edition extreme widescreen thinkpad specialised for lunar round trips

Or move the moon closer.

Unfortunately the moon is moving farther away, and robbing the earth of rotational speed in the process.
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