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I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

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Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#501

Post by Melatonic »

sneak wrote: post #306

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…

I see what you are saying at some level - but for a laptop form factor (which is already inherently larger since it has keyboard and larger screen) wouldn't it make more sense to at minimum have a few super dense robot made boards all integrated ?

Maybe you have the main motherboard with CPU, RAM, and possibly GPU all together. Save space - integrate bigger and better batteries.

Swappable storage though seems like a no brainer (especially because even the fastest SSDs don't require the kind of latency and link speed soldered RAM might). A modern card type slot for peripherals seems like a damn nice addition too along with the ability to swap the WiFi chip.

Hell I would even settle for an easily swapped mobo with soldered parts if I wanted to upgrade down the line - a good screen and keyboard and chassis can last a long time !

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#502

Post by Melatonic »

p_greendale wrote: post #470

Hm, I find that comparison a bit off. As a lover of both, Thinkpads (original IBM and Lenovo followups) AND macbooks, I would like to say that it IS possible to maintain macbooks, at least the older ones. My 2012'er MacBook Pro is holding up, parts like the sata-cable and worn out fan were replaced and the ram was upgraded. My Powerbook 530 hat replacable parts, even the G3 Pismo(?) one and an white ibook g3 is also…

T420 is an awesome machine but damn do modern laptops have better cooling and battery life.

Maybe some day we will see more modern OS work well on power sipping ARM CPUs (like windows and Linux) and someone will offer a motherboard replacement for the T420 (like they do now) using one.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#503

Post by Melatonic »

hxorr wrote: post #473

Here's what happened to the thinkpads I've owned... R51 - sold R50p - died (bad VRAM) X201 - Ethernet chip died, speakers died, bad keyboard - sold X230 - died X230 - sold in relatively good health X1 carbon gen 4 - best laptop I've owned out of all of the previous thinkpads by far People go on about thinkpad reliability, but I've had two straight up die on me... To be frank, I don't get the hype for the older models…

The X Series was always their cutting edge compact models - makes sense they would be as reliable. Personally I always like the T series as they were total tanks (considered mid range at the time).

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#504

Post by Melatonic »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #252
octygen wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its funny you say thay it's the browser slowing you down on your PC. I have an MBP from 2011 and the browser (Safari) is the only thing it can still run extremely well.

The latest browser itself runs fine as well as most old school websites like Hacker News, it's only the "web apps" that run slowly.

Can't throw more than 4gb in there ? Even 8 makes a big difference.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#505

Post by Melatonic »

kodt wrote: post #345

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.

If you're using Windows on it I highly recommend looking into the last version of Windows 10 LTSC - it's basically a completely stripped down version without all the crap (no spyware, windows store, candy crush, etc). Anything you really need to add back is easy (like if you do need a windows store app for example)

With an SSD it boots insanely fast and consumes very little resources at idle. And will get security updates for many years to come. It's really the perfect OS for the T420 (or Linux of course - although I'd actually prefer Windows for a classic Thinkpad).

Bit hard to buy legally (you need to go through a VAR - there are some who will definitely sell you single copies). Core Windows 10 without all the bloat is actually a really impressive and lightweight OS considering the massive backwards compatibility and huge backlog of free software. Not to mention the insane breadth of hardware it will run on.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#506

Post by Melatonic »

RavSS wrote: post #236
neilv wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web, including JavaScript, should work fine on that laptop. Until recently, my daily driver was the T500 (the larger screen version of the T400 in the article), and it worked fine for everything except GPU. (I actually downgraded to the T500 years ago, because I was pissed off about the Intel Management Engine.) Recently, I upgraded from the T500 to the T520, which is the last ThinkPad with a non-chiclet keyboard. It…

You can use the T420/T520's keyboard in a T430/T530 with modifications to the firmware, some plastic around the keyboard part itself, and the ribbon cable (just pin isolation with tape). It lets you go with Ivy Bridge over Sandy Bridge. I have a T430 with the T420's keyboard and it lasted me 7 years of daily use before battery life became too big of an issue for me (even with a single DDR3L RAM module and a slice bat…

Any idea if you can get a quad core into the T420 itself ? I have a dual core i5 that is still doing decently (probably because they still sold i5 CPUs with hyper threading back then) but a quad core 35w CPU with HT would be a great pair with the dedicated Nvidia graphics.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#507

Post by prmoustache »

mock-possum wrote: post #357
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…

I just can’t with the thinkpad’s keyboard layout. The left function being swapped with the ctrl key is a nonstarter for me - you can’t just put keys in the wrong place.

You can swap them in the bios/firmware.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#508

Post by Melatonic »

neilv wrote: post #23
p_ing wrote: post #2

A 17 year old ThinkPad is going to have extremely limited utility for today's applications. You can browse the web****, sure. You can replace parts, yes. But it still performs like dogshit for today's applications. That said, I maintain a G4 Cube running an outdated OS to play Sim City and Sim Tower. And it's "upgraded" as much as possible. ****JavaScript not included

Web, including JavaScript, should work fine on that laptop. Until recently, my daily driver was the T500 (the larger screen version of the T400 in the article), and it worked fine for everything except GPU. (I actually downgraded to the T500 years ago, because I was pissed off about the Intel Management Engine.) Recently, I upgraded from the T500 to the T520, which is the last ThinkPad with a non-chiclet keyboard. It…

Not sure about the T520 but my T420 has an old dedicated Nvidia graphics (quadro NVS 4200m). Still seems to handle anything browser related great and I suspect this is the reason (integrated GPU in the dual core i5 probably sucks). They're rarer and harder to find though

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#509

Post by Melatonic »

mcbuilder wrote: post #417

I have a stack of T40 and T60 series in my shed. All 32bit processors, but man what beautiful machines. I kinda feel like the guy with the classic Thunderbird in his garage.

Throw Windows 10 LTSC on those things if it can handle it ! Way lower RAM and idle consumption

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#510

Post by Melatonic »

tristor wrote: post #494

I used to do this, I have "retro modded" Thinkpads. I keep one still running (X61p) to use as a car computer. I've since switched everything I do that isn't on my Macbook to a Framework 13 AMD. The Framework 13, other than the case design being flimsier plastic vs magnesium alloy, is better at everything a new Thinkpad does than a new Thinkpad, and is roughly equivalent to an old with modern specs. As much as I wish…

Retro modded like you replaced the mobo and whatnot ? How hard was it ?
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