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I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

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Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#551

Post by wazoox »

acquacow wrote: post #311
wazoox wrote: post #136

I have a ~2009 MacBook. It has a swappable battery (replaced once, dead again), and it was overall easily upgradable : it received a 4GB RAM stick to replace its original 2GB (unfortunately it can't manage more than 3.5GB), an SSD to replace its hard drive, and a new DVD drive as its superdrive failed. However its core2 Duo is really too slow for the modern web (either running MacOS or Linux), it takes almost a full…

You should be able to do a 2gig + 4gig stick combo. That's what I have in my 2008 Macbook pro, it runs 6GB just fine.

It's a MacBook 5,1, not a MacBook pro. Its firmware only sees 3.5GB out of the 4GB installed, apparently it requires a BootROM upgrade to support more.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#552

Post by bjpirt »

Melatonic wrote: post #511
bjpirt wrote: post #227

I've been pondering the same thought recently but applied to analog cameras. Analog cameras have evolved over time, approximately according to the following: - fully mechanical - mechanical shutter with light meter - electronic control of shutter, mechanical advance - fully electronic shutter and advance Broadly, what I'm finding after digging in to restoring some cameras is that most of the cameras from the first st…

The second category is my personal favorite - bought a used and slightly beat up Nikon FM2n when I was in college for cheap and the thing is still trucking with no maintenance done 15 years later. Shutter speeds seem at least reasonably accurate and it only requires a battery for the light meter. All mechanical otherwise. Or if you want to get fancy the Nikon FM3a gives you sort of the best of all worlds (all mechani…

Yeah - big fan of the FM / FM2n (I've also got the latter)

The FM3a always really appealed, but the more I think about it the less it appeals. Although it's a mechanical shutter, the electronics are still pretty complex and if they die, there's so few of them that there's very little way of repairing it with salvaged parts. I've also heard that because they are not as reliable as the previous FM / FM2 iterations

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#553

Post by dahauns »

op00to wrote: post #530
dahauns wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Every hardware vendor has problems. Yeah, and I explicitly stated that this isn't what I was criticizing. >The difference is that Apple, after enough pressure, actually fixes things. They create repair programs, offer recalls, and have the infrastructure to make things right. Most vendors don’t. Which simply is bullshit. I don't know why you feel the need for a play-by-play - I know, I was affected by several of the…

You’re leaning hard on a No True Scotsman argument here. “With serious vendors, you’re not” is doing a lot of hand-waving to ignore how inconsistent support actually is across the industry. Just because you had a good on-site experience doesn’t mean it’s universally better. In my case, I had a ThinkPad X1 Carbon with a new, whiz-bang 4k screen that needed warranty service due to a faulty panel. Lenovo sent out a Unis…

And you are leaning hard into a combo of anecdata and sweeping generalization.

I could recite lots of personal accounts of perfect service from Lenovo/HP/HPE business service (Mainly X/T-Series at Lenovo, Elitebooks/Z Workstations at HP, Proliants and general server/networking infrastructure at HP and later HPE) and terrible "business" service from Apple. Then what?

>The difference is that Apple actually rolls out repair programs and has the infrastructure to fix things in a relatively consistent way. You can take a broken machine to a store, talk to someone who can usually solve your problem, and almost always walk out with a solution.

And that's an idealized version not consistent with reality. "This is not an issue on our side" (very much related to my examples) is not a solution. Hell, in enough contexts "Bring in your device, we'll look at it, maybe repair it and you can collect it sometime later" isn't either (and for the longest time Apple didn't offer anything else - oh, and BTW: at least here in Austria, Apple Care Enterprise on-site is very much done via subcontractor...).

>Pretending other vendors are more accountable just doesn’t match reality. They’re not immune to problems. They’re just a lot better at quietly ignoring them.

Neither is this. Again: repair programs/recalls and associated infrastructure aren't exclusive to apple, they are expected standard in business service. And begrudgingly doing those recalls after (or shortly before) a judge orders you to isn't the high standard you seem to make it out to be.

Too bad you had an issue with your on-site technician - but honestly I don't understand why you allowed them to repeatedly send him back after that mess...

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#554

Post by dzamo_norton »

My cupboard server at home is 2007 vintage ThinkPad I inherited from my father's discarded machines. The battery is gone and the CPU fan is shot so the processor sits at about 80 degrees C and gets thermally throttled very aggressively indeed should any work come its way (little does, and Debian doesn't ask much of it either). I didn't hold out much hope for its longevity but the damn thing just keeps running.

I wouldn't be surprised if its DVD drive is also okay and if you gave me a disc I could read the stuff off of it for you. Now there's something not everyone can do these days.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#555

Post by degrews »

xnorswap wrote: post #130
shoo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> enough Thinkpads on Earth to probably stretch end-to-end around the moon and back LD, average distance between Earth and Moon = 384,399,000 m [1] C = circumference of moon = 10,917,000 m R := approximate round trip distance = 2LD + 0.5*C = 774,256,500 m n = total number of thinkpads on earth Alas, T / R, the ratio of total thinkpad distance T to our lunar round trip distance R, is at most about 0.11 . This is with…

It won't get you to the moon, but you can squeeze out a little more distance by arranging them corner to corner.

Call that tip to tip efficiency ;)

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmwYxLaaQ5s (reference - which really fits this whole thread)

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#556

Post by jmclnx »

johnisgood wrote: post #465
jmclnx wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my corrupted memory, but I think what you need to do is unplug, pull out the battery, open it up and remove the cmos battery. There should be instructions on the WEB for that. At work, people alawys returned their Thinkpads with that PW set, so I know there is a fix. But if the password is a harddisk password, you are SOL :( You will need to get a new HD.

If I remember correctly that is not enough, because the supervisor password is stored on the EEPROM chip, so I supposedly have to short some pins. I found this: http://asknotes.com/2018/09/04/removing-supervisor-password-... I am not certain, however! We will see.

Maybe that is what it was, you need to flash the BIOS ?

For the tech people at work it was not a too difficult thing to do.

I am no longer there, so I have no one to ask now :(

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#557

Post by prmoustache »

smiley1437 wrote: post #449
prmoustache wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've solved the USB-C aging issue by using those magnetic cable adapters on all laptops and smartphones.

Be careful - those magnetic adapters can fry your port https://www.pcworld.com/article/2307079/dont-buy-these-dange...

The only real difference is that magsafe ports are recessed really. I tend to check regularly that my magnetic ports aren't dusty.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#558

Post by sota_pop »

jamesdhutton wrote: post #239

I’m currently coding a Flutter app on a 15-year-old Dell desktop, running Linux. The experience is great. I’m running latest versions of VS Code, Flutter, you name it. It’s nice and snappy and a joy to use. I’ve upgraded RAM, SSDs, GPU over the years to keep it somewhat up to date. Eventually I’m going to have to cave in and buy a Mac so that I can publish my app for iOS. I’ve been loathe to do it though and I’ve bee…

The latest Mac minis have a great reputation although it’s been a little over a decade since I’ve personally used a MacBook as my daily driver. Every year I tell myself “this is the year I buy one of those Apple silicon MacBooks”. I have a Lenovo P50 collecting dust and primarily use a desktop tower I built for personal or my employer’s Lenovo X1 Yoga for work.

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#559

Post by nticompass »

jmclnx wrote: post #315
nticompass wrote: post #302

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 o…

>I could still use the T430, it was just starting to feel sluggish A cleaning and re-paste will bring it back. If on windows maybe time for a windows re-install. Typed on a T430 via BSD that was just re-pasted and cleaned, not sluggish anymore :) If you are interested *BSD, I can confirm both NetBSD and OpenBSD works great on the T430 I have.

I think it's currently running either Arch or Manjaro (I forget which) and maybe a quick re-install and cleaning of the fans/thermal paste could help. I dunno, I just got the feeling that I wanted (needed?) a new laptop...

Re: I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

#560

Post by n4r9 »

johnisgood wrote: post #269
n4r9 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An early 20th Century scientist named Olaf discovered a means to do this by intensifying the level of intelligence on Earth. If you ask me, the first step towards this must be slashing government funding for anything that smells of tolerance. And making bizarre tweets that coincidentally correlate with buying and selling shares.

Ah yes, the Olafian Lunar Proximity Theory. While government defunding might accelerate intelligence in peculiar ways, I've found that the most effective method involves strategically placing enormous quantities of vintage ThinkPads at precise geomagnetic nodes around the Earth. The collective electromagnetic resonance of their legendary keyboards creates a subtle gravitational anomaly that could, over approx. 17.3 y…

No problem; I've pored over and deeply understood your paper by a process I call "vibe-grokking". I'd explain more but have a patent currently in application.

Do you think the gravitational anomaly could be intensified by having the Thinkapds run multiple local copies of GPT-4.5 passing messages in an input/output circle? I call this setup "ChatGPT whispers" and frequently utilise it to write the abstracts of my own papers. I also used it to design, code and publish the website "https://www.chatgptwhispers.com/". I've only vibe-surfed the website myself but feel free check it out the old-fashioned way.

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