I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad • Hacker News Board

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#341

Post by gherard5555 » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 1:59 PM UTC

herbst wrote: post #210

gherard5555 wrote: post #179

My T480 just doesn't want to die. I dropped it a lot, in my staircase, on concrete floor, accidentally emptied my whole mug of coffee on it (had to change the keyboard that time some keys were stuck). At some point I felt so confident I tried stepping on it when it was closed. So yeah this thing is pretty tough.

Except the USBc. Not sure if this applies to all models of the t480 series but that connector was slowly breaking down with each use, until it partially worked as charging slot and all usb functionality was lost. I went trough 4 different docks until I realized who the actual problem was, and the internet was full with similar issues once I knew what to look for. For some reason my nearly identical, slightly newer, X…

Yes, the connector is a little loose now and the cable comes off easily. But you can use the other connector so its not really an issue for me.

Also it sounds like you may have the infamous issue where the firmware of the charging port cease functioning. I strongly recommend updating the charging port firmware to anyone reading this if you have a T480.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#342

Post by Bluestein » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 2:04 PM UTC

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.

Tarifs.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#343

Post by JansjoFromIkea » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 2:05 PM UTC

ajxs wrote: post #16

My x220 has traveled around the world multiple times. It's been through dozens of airport scanners, dropped multiple times, and shared a few cups of coffee with me by accident. It just keeps on kicking. My x220 running Debian is actually quicker and more responsive than my friend's modern Lenovo running Windows. I'd be tempted to upgrade to a lighter and thinner laptop, but I'm too attached to the keyboard.

Do you ever have any trouble at airports? The one time I ever had grief at an airport was a few years ago travelling with an X230 with the larger battery pack. Security seemed extremely suspicious of such an old laptop and I got stopped again later by a plain clothes security guy.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#344

Post by bobjordan » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 2:06 PM UTC

I’ve been using my 10-year-old ThinkPad X250 and a decade-old workstation without feeling any need to upgrade. However, the possibility of running powerful local LLMs that require a lot of GPU or unified memory has finally increased my interest. It's my impression that laptops likely won’t see the major leap required in that area to run truely large LLMs for another 5–10 years, but I expect workstation capabilities to advance more rapidly, meaning I may upgrade in the next 1–3 years.

My current workstation setup includes 22cores/44threads decade old xeon plus four decade old Titan X GPUs with a total of 48GB VRAM, which is enough to run a decent local AI model, but I’m finally wanting more capacity. I haven’t been this interested to upgrade in a decade. NVIDIA’s new DGX-class offerings might convince me, depending on pricing and supply, although waiting a few more years to let things stabilize could be what I do. Still, it’s an exciting time for hardware, especially now that there’s a tangible reason to invest in more power for local AI.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#345

Post by kodt » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

I have a 14 year old T420, I upgraded the processor, ram, hard drive, battery, and wifi chip several years ago which really sped it up and gave it more usable life. Still runs great for most things.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#346

Post by 0xbadcafebee » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

There's a fallacy often repeated for computers: "It's lasted a long time so it's going to keep lasting a long time." The thing is, failure of computer hardware is often due to manufacturing flaws. There's many that could have flaws, and they're subject to (varying) environmental stresses (both at build time at run time), so there's many failure modes.

It's difficult to know exactly when a server might fail. It might be within 1 month of its build, it might be 50 years. But what's clear is that failure isn't less likely as the machine gets older, it's more likely. There are outliers, but they;re rare. The failure modes for these things are well recorded, and the whole thing is designed to fail within a certain number of hours (if it's not the hard drive, it's the fan, the cpu, the memory, the capacitors, the solder joints, etc). It doesn't get better as it ages.

But environmental stress is often a predictor of how long it lives. If the machine is cooled properly, in a low-humidity environment, is jostled less, run at low-capacity (fans not running as hard, temperature not as high, disks not written to as much, etc), then it lives longer. So you can decrease the probability of failure, and it may live longer. But it also might drop dead tomorrow, because again there may be manufacturing flaws.

If given the choice, I wouldn't buy an old machine, because I don't know what kind of stress it's had, and the math is stacked against it.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#347

Post by organsnyder » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 2:15 PM UTC

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #35

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…

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…

I have an M4 MacBook from work and a personal Framework 13. The MacBook certainly feels more solid, but I wouldn't call the Framework flimsy, and it still has a premium feel.

I made the mistake of packing my MacBook (at the time an M1 model), my Framework, and my iPad Pro 12.9 (with keyboard case) in a single laptop bag for a work trip a while back. The Framework got bent around the power button in a way that made the button get jammed; I bought a new input cover for ~$100 and replaced it in five minutes. My iPad's keyboard case now has keys that occasionally get stuck, so I'll probably replace that at some point. My MacBook seemed fine at the time, but it developed an intermittent trackpad button jam that could have been caused by that (or maybe a piece of dust).

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#348

Post by ge96 » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 2:15 PM UTC

I always have a Carbon x1 lying around (old one) just because it's a great design to me being slim and nice keyboard

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#349

Post by xdavidliu » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 2:16 PM UTC

TaupeRanger wrote: post #335

ajxs wrote: post #16

My x220 has traveled around the world multiple times. It's been through dozens of airport scanners, dropped multiple times, and shared a few cups of coffee with me by accident. It just keeps on kicking. My x220 running Debian is actually quicker and more responsive than my friend's modern Lenovo running Windows. I'd be tempted to upgrade to a lighter and thinner laptop, but I'm too attached to the keyboard.

Airport scanners? Are those normally dangerous to laptops?

of course not. When you go through airport security, they give you trays where you put your backpack, laptop, and shoes. Happens every day with no problem.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#350

Post by NikolaNovak » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 2:17 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #309

NikolaNovak wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting; I do find sometimes I need to go into the app and adjust the acceleration/sensitivity/speed to my liking, but even up to my current work Yoga (12th gen Intel), I used them preferentially to trackpad when on the move (ergonomic mouse when stationary). I have struggled more with Dells and HPs, but can usually get it "close enough"