/tpg/ - ThinkPad General

Previous thread: IRC: #/tpg/ on irc.rizon.net

Other business laptops are also welcome in /tpg/ (e.g. Dell Latitude/Precision, HP EliteBook/ZBook).
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If you're looking for purchase advice, READ THE BUYERS GUIDE FIRST. Then post, stating budget and requirements (e.g. size and performance).
Don't buy anything OTHER THAN T, X AND W/P SERIES if you want the Real ThinkPad Experience™

Recommended models:
T420 - 14", normal size
X220 - 12.5", ultraportable
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Why ThinkPad? (also applies to other business laptops)
>Used machines are plentiful and cheap.
>Excellent keyboards - tactile feel and quiet.
>Great durability: chassis uses a magnesium rollcage for structural integrity, with high quality plastic body panels.
>Utilitarian design: e.g. indicator LEDs, 7 row keyboard layout on older models.
>Docking stations that easily turns your laptop into a desktop.
>Easy to repair, upgrade and maintain thanks to readily available service manuals for every model. Spare parts are easy and cheap to obtain.
>The best trackpoint (that red thing in the middle of the keyboard). Great for those who type a lot or hate swiping their fingers all over a touchpad.
>Excellent GNU/Linux & *BSD support.
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Used ThinkPad Buyers Guide:
ktgee.net/tpg

New guides by xsauc:
dankpads.com

EPP discount for new ThinkPads (USA & Canada only, usually 15%+ off):
pastebin.com/DujvzEzU

ThinkWiki - Info on ThinkPads and running GNU/Linux on them:
thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki

ThinkPad service guides w/ tutorial videos:
lenovoservicetraining.com/

ThinkPad wallpaper collection:
imgur.com/a/NlepZ

Other urls found in this thread:

ithinkpad.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/x6xipsguide/
cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-6200U-vs-Intel-Core-i3-6100U
ebay.ca/itm/121881726585
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

First for x61

Just posted this in the last thread:

I saw a 390X today for 3500 rubles (~$53.) It was in mediocre overall condition and the trackpoint was missing. Was this something worth getting or not?

Recommend am upgradeable Thinkpad with a numpad, I don't care about how a keyboard feels

I thought you guys boasted about thinkpads being customizable. I was shocked at how long and difficult they are to take apart compared to Dell Latitudes. I wanted to repaste an X230 but lost interest quickly after seeing how disasemblies go. It's embarrassing and I imagine newer chinkpads are even worse.

should i? need a replacment for my current craptop inspiron

Was Intel Core 2 Duo the last CPU that did not have Intel ME, or was it the first to have Intel ME implemented?

I am looking for a cheap laptop. All I need is 8 gb of ram, fast procesor and around 6 h (with wifi on) of battery live. Is T420 with 2 SSD's, new battery and i5-2520m will be good for web, rendering vids (nothing special) and traveling ? I chose t420 is the
possibility to use docking station. Sorry for my english but I am still learning.

Posted this in the previous thread and now it's dead.

I got an ultrabay battery for my T420s, and it only charges the second battery to 100% if I reboot. I will start with 100% on both batteries, run them down, then start charging. It will charge the main battery fully, but will charge the second battery to ~70%. Sometimes it will charge the main battery to ~80% then start charging the second battery.

I have TLP installed, but the battery options are disabled.

What would be causing this? I'm running Fedora 23. Should I enable the TLP charging settings?

Can't comment on the "rendering vids" part because i have no experience with that but for everything else yeah it'll be alright.

I think Intel ME doesn't pop up until Sandy Bridge?

I've never had to install it on my T420 and on my X230 I got is the first time I saw it listed as a thing to download

>looking for a laptop for several months because I know I'll need one for college and I'm always really indecisive
>end up getting a T460 with a student discount
>XPS 13 was also on the top of my list but kinda out of my budget at the time
>like two weeks later the XPS 13 is on sale all over the place

kinda feeling buyers remorse right now, I guess I should've stopped looking

285 is a bit steep for 8 gigs of ram and a 320 gig hard drive.
I'd say look around more and see if you can find one with an IPS screen for cheaper.

How much did you spend?

ME was a thing in core 2 laptops too, but I think you could actually disable it from the bios.
It wasn't until somewhere in the core i line that they didn't allow you to turn it off.

900€ with the student discount, otherwise they're closer to 1400-1500€ here

stuff is expensive here

Western Europe, I'm guessing?
I know what you mean

central, but I guess it isn't any better anywhere in europe

thank you, I enjoy being spoonfed. I had already read that not to trust anything after Intel Core 2 Duo but I wasn't sure if I was to interpret that as the last good CPU or the first bad one.
Not that I am too concerned, I use a T430 myself, just wanted to have that noted.

Look the thinkpads who are sold with Libreboot. Those are the last ones where IME was a relatively easy solvable issue.

I'm thinking of getting a used X220 for some Kali Linux / wardriving shit. Found this one online:

>i7-2620M
>8GB DDR3
>128GB SSD
>299€ ($331)

Should I get it?

I have Thinkpad T440p that is EXACTLY 1 year, 4 months and 14 days old and I have a large problem with it

In a span of 3 months, the USB port plastic inserts just broke and fell out, so now I have zero working USB 3.0 ports. I covered them in duct tape to prevent any damage to the ports.

I have no fucking clue how this could have happened since I've been being very gentle with it, seeing as it is a 14" inch 1.5k Eur baby

Seeing as it is still in warranty, should I bring it to the authorized Lenovo repair centre? I really don't want to bring it to the place where I bought it from since RMAing anything takes months and I need this laptop for work

Wot do I do, /tpg/?

>Can't stream 1080p properly
>no livestream shit like Hitbox and Twitch, or 60fps youtube playback
>1080p hi10p animoo playback not gonna happen smoothly
>integrated graphics not good for much nowadays
>no IPS

I'll always miss its size, 4:3 ratio, and the super cute keyboard cut off on both ends while still being 'full size,' but as much as it pains me in some ways to say this, X220 > X61

If an X61 with the X61t resolution IPS screen existed, that had a modern CPU, i'd choose it over the X220 in a heartbeat, but since it sadly does not exist i'll be over here using the X220s' PCIe slot for eGPU to play every game including every modern game just fine, mSATA slot for a 2nd harddrive for extra storage, and the 9 cell battery is pretty good.

Maybe I'm just jelly I no longer own one, but I can't justify buying one again as I couldn't do half of the stuff my daily driver does. Kinda sad, I do miss 4:3

Is there any significant difference between an i7 and i5 t420 if they both have the 1600x900 screen?

C2D thinkpads run just fine with linux, and mpv will solve most of your streaming problems other than 10bit anime.

p hi10p animoo playback not gonna happen smoothly

And the X220 is capable of that?

I'm a manchild who still plays videogames
Will an X61 hook up to an eGPU and play shit like the new DOOM or Overwatch at 60-100FPS on medium settings 1080p on a high frequency monitor?

Does the X61 even stand up to the X220 in terms of battery life?

Yea. Some 1080p60fps youtube videos can lag slightly, once downloaded or if streamed outside of youtube it's fine, hi10p I've never had a problem with, why, have you?

>If an X61 with the X61t resolution IPS screen existed, that had a modern CPU, i'd choose it over the X220 in a heartbeat, but since it sadly does not exist
The X62 does exist, though.

>Kali Linux
please don't be that type of person that runs kali on the actual computer.
>wardriving
why?
>Can't stream 1080p properly
>no livestream shit like Hitbox and Twitch, or 60fps youtube playback
unless you are in a turbo battery saving mode you shouldn't have any issues with 1080 60 video.
and the igpu is fine for anything 2d, It's just pretty terrible in power saving modes and in anything 3d.
>Will an X61 hook up to an eGPU and play shit like the new DOOM or Overwatch at 60-100FPS on medium settings 1080p on a high frequency monitor?
>
>Does the X61 even stand up to the X220 in terms of battery life?
not even close. the dualcore i5s run laps around the x61.
also don't do an egpu unless you like pain or are full blown autism. Just get a desktop for gaymen.

>hi10p I've never had a problem with, why, have you?

No, I was just asking because I've been looking for a cheap laptop which can play my hi10p 1080p animus.

How does it handle high bitrate hi10p 1080p animu? If it's butter smooth I might pick up one of them X220's.

>don't do an egpu unless you like pain or are full blown autism
explain further

egpus are a pain
don't perform very well
and cost a fuck load of money to set up (at least twice the cost of an x61, and depending on the gpu twice the cost of an x220)

>The i5s run laps around the X61

Why I upgraded, and every day I'm kinda sad there's no older laptops with newer hardware. I even think the X60/X61 look better than anything before them either (close 2nd would be the X40/X41, but anything older or newer I don't think looks as good)

I already did an eGPU and for me it's great. Already had a gaymen peecee (2011 build, still works great) but I like having a laptop to do everything instead of using cloud storage shit and constantly switch between them because of work vs videogames, the X220 can play most the games I wanna play just fine, so far only 1 game I've wanted to play didn't play - a ps2 game, among other ps2 games which ran just fine, and the game in question runs on my PC anyway.

it's nice knowning I could take just a couple small things (egpu, psu) with me and my laptop and that they all fit in my bag and I'd still be able to game without taking my big ass tower with me
They don't perform as well as desktops for the same gpu, but it's very much good enough for me, I've even put my desktop away last month as I no longer need it. As for fuckloads of money, not really, the adapter was 50 quid and then the egpu and psu can be bought cheaply, I happened to have spares anyway.
And games that I like to have 144fps for such as certain online multiplayer competitive games, they run at 144fps just fine, so I'm sorted.

Worst case scenario, it's a fun little project for a year or 2 and I still have my desktop should I need it again.

Right now I'm thinking of getting one of these so I can plug in my 3TB desktop HDD in and not have to only have some games downloaded at a time but to have them all ready to go at home

Not outside of China unless you're willing to pay thousands of dollars

And accept that half of things necessary for a laptop plainly doesn't work.

Like what?

As I know, screen light and suspend plainly doesn't work.

Where is Sup Forums's go-to spot to pick up genuine batteries? Mine just went and I need a new one for my t420.

There are separate battery charge thresholds in TLP for main vs ultrabay batteries. Dunno if you've looked into that or not, but I think BIOS manages at least some of that behind the scenes -- as in I don't think you can make it discharge the main first and then the ultrabay, etc.

>If an X61 with the X61t resolution IPS screen existed
It does, just takes a fair amount of fuckery.

ithinkpad.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/x6xipsguide/

Of course, you got me on "modern CPU".

Yeah I just ran it down so the secondary battery was at 0% and the main battery was down to about 25%. It charged the main battery to 80%, and just started charging the secondary battery, which is now at 7% and rising.

I enabled the charge settings in the TLP config file. I changed them a bit, too:
# Battery charge thresholds (ThinkPad only, tp-smapi or acpi-call kernel module
# required). Charging starts when the remaining capacity falls below the
# START_CHARGE_TRESH value and stops when exceeding the STOP_CHARGE_TRESH value.
# Main / Internal battery (values in %)
START_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT0=75
STOP_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT0=98
# Ultrabay / Slice / Replaceable battery (values in %)
START_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT1=75
STOP_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT1=98

I'll see in a little while if it can charge the secondary battery all the way now.

pls help

not really

unless you put some of those qm i7s

The i7 will be very power inefficient. Battery life will suffer.

No, unless it's your only machine and even then
>le dual core i7s
are going to give you barely any performance boost over the i5. Same goes for the nVIDIA graphics. It's a marginal improvement over integrated Intel and (like the i7) a significant detriment to battery life for very little benefit.

are those IPS panels factory options or aftermarket mods?

>The X62 does exist, though.
No it doesn't
It's never going to be market ready just like his other board

Anyone have issues with cheapo ebay chargers?
Bought one for my x200 which worked for the first few months. Now getting ridiculously hot, making sparking noises and stops charging only after a few minutes.
t. penny winching neetfag who can't cough up a couple bucks more for a genuine lenovo acadapter

you can get used oem ones for like $20, why would you buy chink?

protip: Don't cheap out on power supply related electronics in the future

Looking at an X260 - i3, 8GB, 1TB, 1920x1080 for £595 or an X250 - i3, 4GB, 500GB, 1366x768 for £479. Both are brand new. Is the X260 worth the extra £116?

where abouts?

>i3
Both are hilariously overpriced

Welp im down one thinkpad, the new T42 15" one i bought a week or two ago.

I went to paint the lid yellow because it sounded cool, and that went well. looked nice.

While it was apart i decided to do a proper cleaning, turns out the seller did not list everything that was missing from the laptop, namely:
>no hdd
>no hdd caddy, just the cover
>no processor
>no internal ram
Which i should have seen instantly, however the first thing i did before booting it was install ram in the back, which i thought was 512mb but was actually a 1gb stick, so i thought the inside slot was filled, wrong...
>no heatsink fan
>no wireless card
>no pcmcia card slot
>no cmos battery at all

So i said to myself "fuck it", stripped it for useful parts such as the keyboard and touchpad, which i can use on the T42.

Fucking 35$ down the drain

On the other hand, i got a 15" screen out of it, which i want to see if i can install on my G40, which needs a new screen as the current one has dark spots. Should that be the case and it works, not only will i have a nice uxga flexview screen in the G40. So it might not be all bad today.

Either way, im pissed for many other reasons, Chromebook died on me today so im down a shitposting machine, and my Gt430 suffered the fate of "i forgot to re-apply thermal paste after cleaning it".

Any ideas how to not be angry /tpg/?

try killing someone with your thinkpad, works for me

you know, ive thought about it sometimes

every time my grandmother comes bursting into my room for some dumb ass reason i debate how well a 8 pound G40 flying at 40mph would damage a human skull

>buying a thinkpad with an i3
>ever

Find a better deal on brand new Thinkpads in the UK...

Best place to get a new battery?

Is $70 for a factory sealed confirmed genuine X220 9-cell good?

Yes, considering lelnovo charges more than twice as much

Is 150USD for an i5 X230T (finger and stylus with battery) worth it?

Are all X230T models IPS?

yes 200%
and yes

thank you
found a good local deal

hopefully I can get more than one unit. I haven't seen anything under 200USD on shitbay which seems weird

Meh. The difference between an i5 and i3 is pretty negligible:

cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-6200U-vs-Intel-Core-i3-6100U

Yeah, I have no idea what's going on. It seemed to stop at 100% main and 74% secondary. So I rebooted and now it shows both at 100%.

Just picked up a W520 for 230 Americanos. Did I fuck up? I don't think I did, and it seems like a reasonably powerful little portable machine, even if it's only the Quadro 1000.

older models had reduced instruction sets and no turbo

Hello gee
Let's compile a list for general checklist of things to be aware of when purchasing a used thinkpad.

If anyone wants to contribute or save the list to add to our guides feel free to.

I'll start with the basic knowledge I have:

Check physical condition, if there are noticable cracks, screen defects, corrosion, etc make note of it
-If you can test all ports and pop out the battery to ensure that the input is in a good condition
-Make sure you can access the BIOS (no password lock)
-ensure you get a proper boot into the OS if one is installed
-if you can, run a hardware stress test, battery status test, RAM test, and storage media health check
-ensure that the OEM sticker is in place and that it is the proper OEM OS license (someone with more knowledge should elaborate on this)
-ensure there are no theft-lock software or hardware (someone with more knowledge of how these work should elaborate)

ebay.ca/itm/121881726585

Pull trigger or no?

>ulv
no

>ebay.ca/itm/121881726585
No. Is not a Hashlel ULV. Will be slow as fuck.

I want to upgrade my Thinkpad Tablet 2 to something with bigger screen. May be at least 12". fanless, supports wacom, surface doesn't get hot. It's for simple drawing and I run Alias Sketchbook pro2, so slow speed doesn't matter. Any suggestions?

>hashlel
kek. You couldn't say it better.

So a guy here is offering me a X61 tablet for "just" 137 Trump dollars.
Score it?
I will use only for documents, score edition with Sibelius and taking some notes in class mostly. I have a powerful machine in my home.

Just buy an esp8266 (and other parts) and warwalk with that

>ULV C2D
Lel, I answered myself.

Shouldn't you be asleep by now, Timmy?

Someone answer
I can't really afford a 200 Eur quote for a motherboard replacement

To the anons who have used or are using an eGPU setup, what performance should i expect from a card? 40%? 60%?

I'm between buying a 750ti or a 950 for an eGPU setup. I don't know much about AMD cards but if there's a better AMD alternative to these cards please do tell.

>tfw copped a scraptop t61p with a fucked nvidia chip for $10
>baked it and it works
>it'll be dead again in probably a month at most

>I went to paint the lid yellow

nigga you srs?

should have vinyl wrapped it m8. It would look less shit.

Hey boys, just bought a thinkpad but it didn't come with a webcam. Can I buy one of these random aftermarket thinkpad webcams on ebay and jam it and it will just werk™?

>Hashlel ULV
It's Arrandale, not Haswell?

>implying anybody buying an x61t would be concerned about vidya jame stuff and 60fps YouTube
just get an AlienWare, faggot

Go buy a doorknob with a key.

-Neet who got cheated on then posted naked pics of himself on Sup Forums

Don't think we forgot faggot.

I live here

I own a Thinkpad but it's a Lenovo one

Can I still kill with it or should I trade it in for a T61?

>build T601 frankenpad
>certain CPU intensive task exceeds C2D T9500
>guess I'll upgrade
>buy x230
>figure out "CPU intensive" task isn't even that resource-hungry when run natively (mono a shit)
>realize I am a fucking retard
>don't even need now fully kitted out x230
goddamn it
>mfw please clap

I'll buy that x230 off of you.

I need a laptop for school because my old one finally kicked the bucket.

Been here long enough to trust no one, so that's a negative, ghost rider. Wish you the best of luck finding a good laptop for school, tho.

Would recommend the x230 with the x220 kbd swap and a 4338 dock tho. It's pretty based, but overkill for me.

how much does a used T420 or X200 cost?
I bought a used Dell Latitude E6410 and am wondering if I should have bought a thinkpad instead.

would you trust them if they did a normal payment over paypal?

T61's are still Lelnovo, even if they have that "IBM" logo

>t420
200-250 depending on specs and condition
>x200
like $100-150 also depending on specs and condition.
and depending on the specs I'd just stick with the Dell. My mom has one and it's really nice, too bad the battery doesn't charge for some reason.

the battery is probably dead
the battery that came with mine died when I was being stupid and possibly overcharged it
ad to buy a new one off amazon

unless you took the battery out, and forced your own power into it I highly doubt you overcharged it.
and I think it's the laptop itself because the battery stopped working within a few months of my mom getting it

Yep, and because of that will be slow as fuck.
ULV processors only became useful since Hashlel

I'm gonna get my first ThinkPad soon. Going for the x220. How do I get one on eBay? How can I know the seller is reliable? Are there specific sellers I should look into? I saw people selling them for way higher than the range of prices you guys are talking about. All I want is one in good condition with an IPS screen.

The ones in the back seem to enjoy using them. :^)