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Lenovo’s new ThinkPads score 10/10 for repairability

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Re: Lenovo’s new ThinkPads score 10/10 for repairability

#211

Post by opan »

bigtex wrote: post #208
doubled112 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being soldered on is a huge issue to 99% of people and businesses wanting to repair or upgrade something. I don’t have the tools or skills to replace soldered on memory chips when they fail. Nobody at my place of work does. Nobody was doing that type of work in a warranty centre I worked in either. I’d need to buy an entire motherboard which will much more expensive, and likely more time consuming, than swapping a co…

In the almost 30 years of using Mac’s at home and various desktop pc’s in the workplace I don’t think I have ever seen ram fail. Replaced plenty of old school failed disk drives however.

Failing RAM is rarer than it seems from posts online. My theory is that it's so easy to test for that everyone says to do it even if it's unlikely to be your problem. It reminds me of people who needlessly recap (replace capacitors) everything in hopes of it fixing a problem, often not even bothering to test each cap or exhausting other options first. IME dirt/corrosion/oxidation (often solved by cleaning) is a much more prevalent problem than bad caps. After that, solder that needs reflowing is still a more common issue than bad caps.

That being said, I really did have one bad stick of RAM once in my life, and it really does cause strange seemingly random problems.

Re: Lenovo’s new ThinkPads score 10/10 for repairability

#212

Post by opan »

nine_k wrote: post #71
mushufasa wrote: post #29

This commitment by Lenovo must have been driven by customer demand -- in this case, the IT departments. I wonder how much of that demand may be attributed to questions about comparisons to Framework. Even if Framework is not mainstream, it has mindshare among the IT-crowd.

The replaceable Thunderbolt sockets connecting to an internal Thunderbolt socket are a direct... homage to Framework.

Lenovo has long had a separate board for the power connector you could separately replace. This is likely a continuation of that idea. I had an X220 Tablet (Released in 2011) from eBay that was sparking when I plugged it in. IIRC I just unscrewed and rescrewed the charging board and then it worked again. I guess there was some short, maybe it was loose. It would've been easy to replace just that part if it had failed completely.

Re: Lenovo’s new ThinkPads score 10/10 for repairability

#213

Post by opan »

ed_mercer wrote: post #147
userbinator wrote: post #93

I agree with the other comments here saying that it smells of AI-generated marketing puff-piece --- ThinkPads have always been very repairable, with the official service manuals published (which is more of a guide to disassembly/reassembly, but that's sufficient especially given the availability of (leaked) schematics). Older Dell Latitudes are not too bad either.

ThinkPads have definitely not always been very repairable. The t480 was the last solid option, and it went downhill from there.

Specifically the T14 had half or fully soldered RAM for the first several gens. Gen 5 restored the socketed RAM. T440p was the last with a socketed CPU. We've lost a lot of power user features over the years, but ThinkPads still tend to be better than most modern alternatives.

Re: Lenovo’s new ThinkPads score 10/10 for repairability

#214

Post by opan »

kev009 wrote: post #9

If you are ever bored, maxing out a T440p, T430, or T480 is a fun exercise and not very difficult nor expensive. CPU, RAM, SSD, coreboot, modern LCD panel, Liteon keyboard. Load with Linux, BSD, OpenCore.

Sadly the T440p (my main machine for several years) and T420 run insanely hot even with fresh paste and a cleaned fan, at least while docked and in continuous use. Could not for the life of me overcome it. Got a T14 Gen 5 and it's a solid 40 degrees cooler now on average. Big relief. I'm guessing T480 is decently cool but haven't daily driven one to be sure.

Re: Lenovo’s new ThinkPads score 10/10 for repairability

#215

Post by opan »

internet2000 wrote: post #78
owenversteeg wrote: post #75

Yikes. Has iFixit jumped the shark? An AI generated press release on behalf of Lenovo, who is (from my perspective) essentially paying them for good PR? And this paid relationship - Lenovo paying iFixit - isn’t disclosed until the very last line of the article, so you have to first read 1500+ words of AI slop? That made me start looking into their scores. The Thinkpad E14 Gen 7 gets a 9/10 despite soldered ports, a p…

iFixit makes sense when you think of it as a content mill made to sell overpriced screwdrivers.

They are actually very nice screwdrivers. I had a cheaper no-name set before and ended up stripping screws a lot more often. I got their Mako kit and it's worked great the last 4 years or so. If you ever do work on old game consoles I would especially recommend it. Has the bits for the consoles and the games. Game Bit for GameCube, SNES, GB(C) games, Y bit for GBA and GBA games, security Torx for Xbox 360. The only times it falls short are for very recessed screws like on a Rock Band drum kit, you need a long dedicated driver to fit in there, I think anything with a socket tends to be too thick.

Re: Lenovo’s new ThinkPads score 10/10 for repairability

#217

Post by hermanzegerman »

huddert wrote: post #136
nine_k wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you a gamer? Otherwise it's really not easy to notice a "slideshow" at 60 Hz.

No. I guess everyone has different levels of sensitivity to refresh rates. It is immediately noticeable and very distracting to me when using a 60hz display. It's not acceptable on a high-end laptop nowadays (120hz minimum). Imagine the reduction in headaches, fatigue and nausea if we stopped tolerating this penny-pinching.

I think you are the outlier with Headaches, Fatigue and Nausea from using a 60hz Display

Re: Lenovo’s new ThinkPads score 10/10 for repairability

#218

Post by drillsteps5 »

bigtex wrote: post #208
doubled112 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being soldered on is a huge issue to 99% of people and businesses wanting to repair or upgrade something. I don’t have the tools or skills to replace soldered on memory chips when they fail. Nobody at my place of work does. Nobody was doing that type of work in a warranty centre I worked in either. I’d need to buy an entire motherboard which will much more expensive, and likely more time consuming, than swapping a co…

In the almost 30 years of using Mac’s at home and various desktop pc’s in the workplace I don’t think I have ever seen ram fail. Replaced plenty of old school failed disk drives however.

I think it is less of a concern to the businesses buying these things brand new and more of a concern to the tinkerers who buy/repair/resell/use older models. There's a lot of people who still use ThinkPads made in early 2010s (and earlier). I had RAM module fail on an x270 and replacing it only required opening the laptop (RAM sticks just snap into place). If soldered-on RAM fails, it's game over, or at least full board swap.

Plus, no way to put more RAM/replace RAM with larger module if it's soldered on.

Re: Lenovo’s new ThinkPads score 10/10 for repairability

#219

Post by hermanzegerman »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #16
WD-42 wrote: post #10

This is great. I’m still rocking a nearly 10 year old T470s. Great machine with Linux on it, still snappy enough- Tailscale is there when I need to do serious work (on my desktop at home!) I replaced the batteries a few months ago and it was painless.

I have a T470. I have changed the screen (after I dropped water on it and shorted it), changed the batteries after 5 years, increased the RAM, and added an M2 drive. All of these were painless operations. Couldn't be happier with my purchase.

Same. And it's still fast enough for almost all 08/15 Tasks if you replace Windows with Fedora
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