Other business laptops are also welcome in /tpg/ (e.g. Dell Latitude/Precision, HP EliteBook/ZBook). ---- 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 ---- 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. ---- Used ThinkPad buyers guide: ktgee.net/tpg
>tfw dad let me borrow the keys to his ultimate business machine™
Jack Morris
My x200 has started getting really hot lately.
I can't tell if it's a new chrome update, or if the thermal compound is decaying. The fan is running nearly at 100% at all times, and using thinkfan only slows down the fan and makes the keyboard warm to the touch. I can smell the wood veneer of my desk getting toasted underneath.
Should I reapply thermal paste?
Mason Peterson
Has it been a slow ramp up to running hot, or is it just doing it all of a sudden? Have you checked your processes for suspicious/excessive use?
Jackson Barnes
it's been getting worse over a period of 4 months, yes.
the only active process is chrome and it's threads, which don't go past 0.35 cpu usage anyway
Owen Barnes
hmm it's more like 40-47 for me, but the ambient temperature is pretty high.
Jackson Scott
>chrome found the problem don't use chrome on a laptop, or even a weeker desktop. only use crhome on a fairly decent machine with at least 8 gigs of ram
Yes, all mechanically and electronically the same. Someone even came up with a modded BIOS that allows you to use an X220 keyboard (praise the Lord), but a small amount of dremelling is required.
>he's a spec whore that thinks he needs Sandy/Ivy Bridge in his 12" shitposting machine >he doesn't own the single greatest X series and possibly the only X series Thinkpad worth owning >1440x900 screen standard on all models >superior *60/*61/**00 keyboard layout >low-voltage i7 provides sufficient shitposting power without burning down the house >has real locking latches and physical trackpad buttons >can even remove trackpad entirely with an X200s palmrest swap for the patrician Thinkpad experience What's your excuse, /tpg/?
Jacob Moore
I'm poor.
Justin Diaz
Those are rare as hen's teeth. How'd you land one?
I completely agree with you that it's the best non-square x-series. Do that palmrest swap, btw.
John Rodriguez
Hey guys so you know the latch on the T420 that you push to lift the screen? Well it jammed on mine to be permanently in the open position. Would it be possible to take apart the laptop to fix it? How hard would it be?
Chase Edwards
>i7 >thinkpad those are house fire tier user
Bentley Stewart
Because the seller won't respond ;_;
Josiah Bailey
>Including stupid vape shit in the OP Someone make a new thread
Xavier Lee
Remove the screws around the screen and check it out. Most of them are under annoying black stickers. Check out some disassembly video or guide.
Levi Diaz
>Should I reapply thermal paste? but it's an soc. where would you apply paste?
Brandon Reyes
Managed to actually find a listing on ebay and fought like a motherfucker for it. Some cunt tried to snipe me at the end but my max bid was high enough to stop him. $450+$36 shipping in the end, worth every penny
Elijah Campbell
Why would I need to disassemble the screen?? The issue is with the switch that you push.
Grayson Perez
you can pull the fan assembly off and get at the CPU
Levi Sanchez
>with a modded BIOS that allows you to use an X220 keyboard you're shitting me? You can't use it with stock BIOS?
Ryan Williams
because I didn't find one when they weren't priced to cater to the hobbyist market
William Hall
oh, from the bottom. I see now. Haven't had heat issues on my X200/X200T yet fortunately
Gabriel Lopez
Would people move over to it?
Owen Watson
>you're shitting me? You can't use it with stock BIOS?
No shit retard, all the key mapping are different
Jaxson Cooper
oh fuck. I completely didn't think about that
I only started using the newer Gookobo """"""Thinkpads""""" recently
Gavin Scott
Installing win 10 ltsb on a t420. Any Anything I should know to look out for?
Brody Turner
Fun fact: Lenovo was making ThinkPads BEFORE IBM sold off the division
Luke Baker
Somebody sell me their fucking x240, i cant find them anywhere for sub 700 usd
I'm not even comparing them to IBM era laptops. When they acquired the brand from IBM they continued producing decent quality laptops for a while. All they had to do was keep the same formula and add options and internal improvements to the battery, screen etc. No, they had to return to their Chinese nature and start gimping on quality and slapping the logo on any consumer piece of shit with a black matte finish
Looks like some greedy jew fuck thinks he can get away with selling a used laptop for its new price. Also looks like some retard already enabled him. $800 is way too much for even a top-spec W520, never mind a poorly-specced budget laptop.
David Hall
looks like one person that can't into research already fell for it
what do you think is the right price for an L520 with about those specs (i5, 4gb ram, 15'' screen)? I don't even see many for sale to get an idea of the pricing for these
Parker Howard
>a top-spec W520 yeah, I was thinking the same since I pay attention to the W520 market
Josiah Fisher
The same people still design ThinkPads.
Caleb Nguyen
under a new company that thinks the only market type for laptops in this world is macbook and macbook clones
Jayden Martin
Awesome, thanks. Any driver issues?
John Sanders
I have a quad core i7 (OP pic related)
Haven't burned up yet
Christopher Butler
sup /tpg/.
I have a cracked palmrest on my t430s
the seller on ebay provided an additional palmrest assembly with a fucked up touchpad.
Is there any way to debond the touchpad from the palmrest so I can replace it?
Cameron Sanchez
>implying "designers" have choices
Jayden Roberts
>modded BIOS don't confuse people. The BIOS has nothing to do with keyboard handling. All the hardwork of scanning the keyboard matrix is done by the Embedded Controller(EC). The Fn/Ctrl swap is done by the EC itself and controlled by the BIOS
Christopher Carter
Damn, son. I fully understand why though. She's a beaut. Enjoy it.
I've been wanting to do an x200/1 with the IPS mod. I secretly love glossy panels anyway.
Christopher Martinez
because it throttles itself to prevent that. And I can't tolerate throttling.
Thomas Morgan
>I can't tell if it's a new chrome update kek
Shut down the X200 and repaste immediately
Luis Ross
I ran it fine on my x200, albeit not for long.
Elijah Nguyen
Just found out i could change the splash screen. I think it came out nicely
Hudson Jackson
I've had my X220 for a few days now and I have a question
Why the fuck does this thing seem to perform better when it's not plugged in? Seriously, what the fuck? Everything is snappy as fuck when I'm just using the battery, but when I'm plugged in everything is slow as fuck.
I've noticed I can play high bitrate animu when I'm unplugged, but when it's plugged in MPC shits itself
William Rivera
Thinking of getting an x220. How bad is the low resolution though? Does it bother you?
Oliver Butler
Power options > high performance powerplan if neccesary change plan settings > processor power management > maximum processor state to 100%
Hunter Flores
>I've had my X220 for a few days now and I have a question
did you do clean os install? if not then check power settings either in windows or in bios
Jonathan Foster
>maximum processor state to 100%
Whoa where do you see this option? I'm on Windows 8.1
What BIOS settings? I've taken a look there but there doesn't seem to be anything relevant for this
Mason Robinson
system performance on ac and on battery turbo and maximum turbo are obvious, balanced means full power but no turbo and low means perma downclock to 800MHz
Aaron Robinson
if the option isnt there you could be missing important drivers. Also upgrade to windows 10
Jace Anderson
All right, will mess with those settings and report back
>Windows 10 >upgrade
No. Also I found that setting. It was already on 100% max so that's not it
Cameron Adams
>downgrading to windows 10 good joke
Gabriel Anderson
It bothered me enough to seek out the mythical X201s, but only because my main machine is a 4:3 UXGA T601F. If you're coming from 16:9 or even 16:10, it'll probably be fine.
Caleb Reed
run powercfg -restoredefaultschemes in an elevated (administrator) cmd window
It's not like windows 7/8 is any better with the recent telemetry updates Besides i blocked fucking everything Microsoft related in my pfsense router.
Cooper Walker
thinkpad p50s or Xiaomi Mi notebook?
Nolan Gray
>recent telemetry updates Who the fuck installs anything else than Security Updates?
William Johnson
I need a sleeve for my thinkpad t430, the Lenovo 14" sleeve got horrible reviews saying it was too big, I need recommendations on a good sleeve
Gabriel Baker
If price isn't a factor definitely the p50s
Either way I'd wait for reviews on the mi laptop.
Samuel Mitchell
here
Okay fug, changing the BIOS power settings didn't help either.
It still runs better on the battery
Carson Morgan
Anybody that doesn't care or is too dumb to know.
You'll be moving to windows 10 around 2020 anyway. Might as well get it for """"""""""""free""""""""""" while you can.
If people really cared about their privacy 2020 will be the year of the GNU/Linux desktop, but i don't see that happen.
Jose Miller
Is undervolting your CPU harmful?
Anthony Bailey
>Might as well get it for """"""""""""free""""""""""" while you can but every version of windows is gratis with ms toolkit :^)
maybe by 2020 they fix the shitty ui
Jackson Cook
So the ExpressCard SD card reader in my T420s stopped working awhile ago. I happened to get another one the other day and I just tried it and it also does nothing.
It shows up when I do lspci. But when I put an SD card in nothing happens. The SD card doesn't even show up in disks.
What could be causing this? I'm running Fedora 23.
Joseph Cruz
All this does is reset the power schemes, right? Already tried that but still no change in AC performance.
Also this. It baffles my mind people actually pay money to use Microshit's shitty OSs
Liam Cooper
I need a good Thinkpad that I can run Windows 7 on through 2020. After that I'm switching to Mac. What model under $1000 will best hold me over until then?
Xavier Gray
Does no one use a sleeve for their thinkpad? I know they're durable or whatever but I have a bag without a built in laptop compartment
Nathan Bell
did it work on windows
Sebastian Johnson
>I have a bag without a built in laptop compartment Mine does so i can't help you m8.
Adam Stewart
Don't have windows installed.
Adrian Perez
Out of curiosity do you guys look at the recommended models, skip that and proceed to ask anyways T420 is the baseline for price to acceptable performance due to age
If your budget is 1000$ you should be looking at newer thinkpad models, you can get a modern one such as the T460
Austin Lopez
what do you think is a fair price for an X230T with a regular HDD, 8GB ram in an almost new condition (touch/stylus combo panel)? The prices online vary too largely to make a judgement
Oliver Cooper
>I'm running Fedora 23. there is your problem fedora is testing corporate garbage use a good distro
Andrew Cooper
>Fall for thinkpad meme >buy a t420 for $225CAD >overheats to 98C and freezes up with basic usage (browser, spreedsheet, text editor) >Have to set system performance to low for it to be usable with normal temps (55C). >a-aleast the battery life is good
So now I have to spend $10 on thermal paste plus some air duster and hope to god it improves temps. With a new SSD ($120) and another 4GB RAM ($30) I'll have spent nearly $400.
Why didn't I just buy a new fucking laptop?
Luis Jenkins
It's not like you could've gotten a decent laptop for that price anyway.
Austin Richardson
Absolutely badass.
Lucas Cox
>He bought a five year old laptop and is upset about having to repaste
Stop being a wiener
Xavier Perez
you don't need a sandy/ivy bridge for shitposting, but you really want it if you want to use the battery saving features to get good battery AND have the web browser not run at 10 fps.
Christopher Ross
>overheats up to 98c that's not overheating. that's running hot, but 105c is overheating. and your fan/thermal paste is probably fucked $20 if you give it to me :^)
Eli Baker
Do not all X220 have a webcam? I just got one on Monday and it has the rectangular cutout where it is on all of my other ThinkPads, but unless I'm retarded (I feel like it right now), it seems like it's opaque.
Eli Williams
Not in the slightest. It just may not be stable til you work the voltages out.
Aaron Watson
Sup /tpg/
I'm headed back to school for my master's this fall. I plan on using my x220 as my main class machine, but I need to upgrade the battery.
I'm looking at getting an official lenovo slice battery, but I'm wondering if anyone has bought one used and had a decent experience. Is there any reason not to buy one used?
Are any of the chink batteries good? Or should I go lenovo for the 9 cell as well?
John Thomas
Stay away from the shitty cheap batteries.
Nicholas Jones
so my replacement screen and hinges for my t430 just arrived. im gonna put them in later. my t430 was driven over by a semi, lel. still works though but i can turn it on since the keyboard is busted, the screen is and part of the left hinge broke off. i know it still workes since i used the keyboard from a friend for diagnostics. never htought that little baby would survive being run over. the screen is the matte 1600x900 screen from the dell alienware laptops which i got off amazon for 30 bucks. hinges are from a mom and pop hardware-store and from what i can tell theyre actually genuine lenovo hinges. ill take that opportunity to also clean out the fans and probably reapply thermal compounds since i got some arctic silver 5 lying around. the only issue is getting a suitable keyboard. i have found them in the right layout but none of em seem to have backlighting i really love that backlight. any idea where i can find them? im going into the city tomorrow to check some hardware stores for them since i didnt find them on amazon. if i wont find any can i order them directly off lenovo? where woudl eb a good place to get them (in the eu)?
Brayden Barnes
not all have them not sure why all of them don't because it has to be dirt cheap to add them in, and every once in a while they're useful.
David Hughes
>Do not all X220 have a webcam? nope it depends on the config the company wants
Bentley Phillips
Cameras aren't allowed in some offices, mostly government agencies.
Lincoln Ortiz
>don't because it has to be dirt cheap to add them in think about how costs scale for contract orders for large companies the us gubmind wouldn't use a chink computer anyway
Luke Nelson
>the us gubmind wouldn't use a chink computer anyway
yeah i guess they're using those made in usa laptops
Mason Evans
>Mi Notebook Air Thinkpad killer? Also X220 resolution is utterly abysmal, I regret falling for this meme.
William Rodriguez
>yeah i guess they're using those made in usa laptops I do wonder what happened to the mass of IBM gubmint contracts after Gookovo bought their consumer line
Angel Reyes
xps 15 is very decent. the keyboard is weird though.
