Still have a T420 I keep in my toolbox in the garage. Use it to watch videos when I'm working on my bike or car. It's covered in grease and oil. Sits out there through summer/winter, high humidity, etc yet always boots up when I plug it in.
I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad
481–490 of 595 posts
Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad
#482I too maintain an older thinkpad! i want to say T430 so probably not as old, maybe got in 2012 or so? In any case, I have replaced: the screen, the battery, the power button (3D printed), the hard drive, the RAM, and the entire internal fan /cooling structure, and probably some more things I've forgotten. Why? Well it's all been over the years. But 1) because you can! like this post describes. Also: it's been nice to have a windows system around that I can remote into for certain tasks that are difficult or impossible on linux, like using the adobe suite. The last time something broke (the fan) I looked up how much a used T430 costs on ebay (~$40-$50) and buying a new fan was still cheaper. So I fixed it. It's been like that every time and it's still here.
Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad
#483> I continue to use my MacBook because I like using proprietary software like ... Alfred
Is this like saying you still boot Windows occasionally to use the Start menu?
Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad
#484Personally I think beyond T450 generation, i.e. over 10 years old systems, you are starting to make pretty severe compromises. T440 generation had really bad Trackpoint setup, and older hardware starts to lose features. Random stuff that T450 has that T400 doesn't * USB3 * Up to 32 GB of RAM (vs max 8 GB for T400) * M.2 slot (for SSD), 6 Gb/s SATA (vs 1.5 Gb/s on T400) * x86-64-v3 (AVX2 etc) and OpenGL 4.6 * Dual-ban…
I still use my Thinkpad x61 as my daily driver (typing on it right now) and I don't feel most of the "severe limitations" you are listing.
I think some are wrong (eg. I use Dual-band AC wifi and BT4.0 wifi card in mine, and have a 2.5" SATA-II (3Gbps) SSD), and others are not limitation for my use.
I won't recommend it to everyone, mind you, but for my use it is perfect.
Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad
#485The tightness of hardware integration isn't a bug, it's genuinely a feature; In fact, it's the defining feature that makes Apple hardware great. Socketed RAM, CPU, and Storage just weren't worth the tradeoffs, namely size, weight, cost, and performance. Including those modular interfaces just wasn't worth it when the internal interfaces would be obsolete within 5 years, and the average user was replacing sub-componen…
That said, I've a MacPro 3.1 in production (also 17 years now – always up), which is from Apple's era of easily (or even hot) swappable parts. Apart from failing 3rd party RAM, no issues ever. – And I'm probably going to upgrade the drives to SSD (still HDD) this year, since you can still get new upgrade parts for its ancient busses. (And for the failing RAM: open the hood, a LED tells you which strip is failing, swa…
> failing 3rd party RAM
Unless you're Samsung, almost all RAM is 3rd party. It's either Sammsung, SK Hynix, or Micron.
Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad
#486I 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.
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Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad
#487[dead]
Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad
#488I replaced my 2019 Macbook Pro 13" i5 16gb/256gb, with an M4 Pro 48gb/1TB 16". It just wasn't worth it anymore, it would stall opening some large files, the fans would spin up for inexplicable reasons, the screen was mid... it was just barely serviceable for my needs and wasn't worth being so frugal about anymore. Yes technically I could use something from the 80s to write text files if I wanted to most of the time,…
Are you worried about your SSD or the data on it? Making a backup will probably significantly reduce your anxiety ;)
I've got backups, but I'm more worried about the possibility that the computer will just kill itself one day, possibly resulting from some component failure.
Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wasn't there at least one movie, where that was not a good thing?
There was. I think it was titled "Moonfall", or maybe "Another Earth". There is also "Oblivion" in which the Moon was partially destroyed. There are probably other ones, too, but I think "Moonfall" is the one to which you are referring. I might just give it a watch in a bit! But yeah, it would not be a good thing, according to the movie at least.
Try seveneves for an even worse outcome
Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
The conflicts arise when all you do is work. Every second of every day does not need to be spent staring at your children and still be a good parent. I often sit with my kids and get a little work done on the couch while they're entertaining themselves. I can engage where appropriate, and of course I don't spend my entire life working. This flexibility allows me time to walk them to school, pick them up from school,…
I have a kind of strict separation between home and work and I have since I started working remotely. When I’m “at work” in my home office. I’m not to be disturbed. When I’m “off work” my computer is shut down until the next day and I get on with the rest of my life - which doesn’t involve computers. That sets strict expectations from everyone in my home.
I’m glad that works for you and your family. For me, I thrive from taking breaks during the day with my family and having the ability to catch up and work when the ideas hit me. That’s what’s wonderful about remote work, both our styles can be accommodated, we can be there when our families need us, and we can both be our most effective selves.