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
You are probably correct on the majority of what you are saying but I can confirm that you can get from an Enabled and Not Activated state to a Permanently Disabled state without remote code execution or an unlock key.
>Flashing an updated BIOS doesn't change this either so forget it yup, Same applies for the BIOS password. Need to short in order to remove the password.
>Coreboot/Libreboot It would most likely be coreboot since Libreboot does not support anything past the 2008 era due to changes in the way ME is baked in. Also, I wonder if there is any way to force a reflash/wipe of the security chips (similar to the shorting procedure used for the supervisor password)
James Rivera
I will commence the dump
Christian Williams
Please do not do this
Xavier Johnson
...
Ethan Martinez
STOP THIS
Aiden Hall
Tell it to Gookovo
Luis Gray
...
Elijah Diaz
I appreciate that Lenovo keep the thinkpad quality with SOME of their thinkpads but why do they stain the name by putting it on literally not-thinkpad laptops as well?
Jason Rodriguez
...
Jack Clark
Why thinkpads and not toughbooks? jw
William Jenkins
Guy who was gonna buy the thinkpad twist for $50. It went through and I'm a part of the thread now. It's in good condition and the BIOS has no password.
Putting Debian Testing and later Gentoo on it.
Hunter Adams
>I can confirm that you can get from an Enabled and Not Activated state to a Permanently Disabled state without remote code execution or an unlock key
Right, that's why I said so. I've set mine to Permanently Disabled on all Thinkpads I've owned.
I always assumed core/libreboot just disabled any communication in or out from the Computrace security chip but otherwise left it alone.
Flashing/reflashing/shorting? I have no idea but if it was easy as shorting it you'd think it would be common knowledge. If there's a way to do it, somebody's done it. Whether that methodology is documented and accessible to the average DIYer I dunno. I've never cared enough to research any further but I wish you luck.
Kevin Reyes
Where's the best place to buy a 9 cell battery? On ebay I could get one for under $20, but people keep saying only buy genuine Lenovo batteries.
Does it really matter?
Jose Murphy
bulky, expensive, shit keyboards
Nathaniel Reed
chink batteries tend to wear out very quickly, and they tend to lie about their capacities too. I've never had any problems with chink batteries though, probably because I usually sell my thinkpads before I've had them for a year, and I don't use them as my primary machine.
Jason Wilson
Heretical in feature set (or lack thereof) but you can't say education line models aren't durable:
Not sure honestly. It probably has to do with Thinkpads being more readily available compared to tbks. Toughbooks are much better now that Gookovo has started making garbage that spits on any design principles of the Thinkpad line. My next laptop is a Panasonic. I'm not dealing with what the line is becoming anymore
>Other business laptops are also welcome in /tpg/ (e.g. Dell Latitude/Precision, HP EliteBook/ZBook). Toughbooks should be added to the list
Kevin Ramirez
I was going to try to get my desktop up and running again with the $380 I have but then I'd have to buy used sandy bridge since I own a lga1155 board so I guess ill get a thonkpad and do the pc in October when I get my school money. Any business laptop models with at least 1600x900 and enough battery to get through the school day in my price range? I'd like to have enough left over for a $40 ssd and a ram upgrade.
Tyler Williams
...
Cooper Perry
>AMD cpu
Cameron Sanders
...
Chase Williams
I 600€ from my workplace to buy a new laptop for private use. Too little for a proper thinkpad, but I have an e450 now and even though I wish I could use a t420 or x220, this thing is still pretty nice. I can't imagine how good the real deal must be
Justin Martinez
>not easy to find parts/service manuals >expensive >shitty keyboards >used units would have been treated like shit/had a rough life
Maybe some of the downsides you should consider.
Christian Evans
>. Too little for a proper thinkpad the proper thinkpad is a used one
Levi Cooper
Someone mentiones burn-in/persistence on x220 IPS panels in the last thread.
Is that an actual problem? If yes, are there screens known not to suffer from it?
I plan to upgrade the TN panel on my x220 some time, because the viewing angles really are quite painful. I'm not sure I'd trade it for burn-in though, especially since I *had* that problem on my last notebook and it's annoying as hell.
Robert Wilson
yeah, unfortunately all true although you can get some lightly used units on shitbay for cheap
I passed the chance up to get a CF-C2 for 300USD a while ago. Regretting it
the model in the post you replied to is not even a toughbook and has no presence on the western market Shame really since it's a great ultraportable
Noah Allen
> I've never cared enough to research any further but I wish you luck. Either have I since I never had to deal with a locked BIOS or Activated+Enabled. Was just wondering in general about the current state of these things. Thanks for the input anyways
Levi Jackson
Leaving Resolution and weight aside, what are the differences between X220 and T420?
Temperature, upgrading possibilities, TN screen quality, common problems, etc.
it's not officially on any western market so the only place you will find it is on meme sites like that one that charge stupid prices
it's a decent machine minus the keyboard, what a Thinkpad should have been if Gookovo didn't choose to fuck the line >16:10 IPS tablet convertible >good port selection >removable battery >Panasonic build/part quality >very light
Nolan Wood
ips, soldered cpu, two drives instead of three
Juan Lewis
X220 - possibility of IPS panel
T420 - slightly better cooling system, upgradable CPU
Mason Campbell
Copying the files I want to keep off of my T420 so I can wipe it later today. I'm probably going to install Arch, Ubuntu is a big mess now on my computer now.
Elijah Harris
I can tell a X220 is IPS by the TYPE code?
What other differences are there?
Jace Stewart
Work insisted that I buy new :( it's better than a consumer model I guess..
Hudson Smith
>buy new laptop >show invoice >don't open the box >resell >buy memepad
Xavier Smith
Sure thing.
I only encountered one in close to a dozen ThinkPad purchases - a 15" T60p that was going to be the donor for my T601F. Came with Computrace enabled/activated and I just sort of ignored it and set it up as a test box until I had collected the other parts I needed. Worked fine for a while. Left it on one night about 2 weeks later and it was toast the next morning. Didn't care since I didnt want or need the mobo anyway.
The last pastebin link has a link to lookup specs by type. IIRC it will be designated as the "premium" screen if it has it.
Mason Moore
w530 user here.
1600x900 2 500gig 7200rpm drives 24gigs ram quadro k2000m 3610qm (plan to upgrade to 3940xm eventually) win7 and debian dualboot w/grub
had it since 2013 and it's fucking amazing.
great keyboard(backlit) wonderful touchpad and buttons.
mediocre speakers (headphones tho) cooling is great.
amazing hinges, tight as shit and haven't done anything to them.
the hotswap bay is nice for hdd checking too. sdcard reader is handy as well.
webcam is ok, not best but it works, mics are stereo and decent.
battery life is about 2 1/2 hrs to 3.
i use it for photoshop, c4d, production and programming.
i prefer thinkpads due to build quality and the look. they look sexy af to me. mine is heavy but i don't mind.
Adrian Moore
I just bought my 5th thinkpad!
James Davis
they've always done this you just don't realize it because you only focus on the x/t/w models.
Evan Butler
I see, thank you.
I hope i can find one or 900p T420 it is then.
Noah Butler
>3610qm (plan to upgrade to 3940xm eventually) why upgrade to a cpu that's just going to be retarded expensive and not that much faster? why not get like a 3820 or 3840qm and sell your 3610 for about the same price? also any chance you could try out gta 5 on that meme pad? I'm thinking about selling my w520 and getting a w530 with the k2000m
Hunter Powell
Anyone here running the x200? Is the core 2 duo P8400 still useful to use a secondary laptop?
Michael Thomas
I got a t440p from work? they recommend fedora, what do you guys?
Wyatt Perez
Hello guys. I'm that annoying guy with the T530 that has been pestering you for the last few days. I managed to fix the thermal paste issue that i had (I was using too much, simple as that) but now I wonder if 48 degrees Celsius while watching a youtube vid and browsing the web is considered a good temperature, or if I should open her back up and try an even thinner layer?
Parker Diaz
ive gotten no response on the arch forums, so ill ask here too:
my brightness controls (fn+home and fn+end) as well as the sleep button (fn+f4) have stopped working correctly on my t420 with arch and openbox. the brightness can still go up and down, but the lowest settings just turn off the backlight completely instead of getting dimmer. i can still bring it back up from there though the sleep button does nothing. i have no idea what i've done to cause this, as they were all working fine one day and not the next. acpi_listen sees all of the keys just fine. if i log in as root (who has nothing installed) they all work perfectly, i suspect because of thinkpad-acpi included in the kernel. i tried adding acpi_osi="!Windows 2012" as well as acpi_backlight=vendor, acpi_backlight=none and acpi_osi=Linux to my boot parameters, but none of them fixed it. xbacklight gives an error of "No outputs have backlight property," and im not entirely sure how i would fix that.
raising and lowering the brightness does not change /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/actual_brightness, which seems to be locked at 5 (although, again, if i'm logged in as root this does work correctly). it does change /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/actual_brightness, but not in the correct increments. it skips from 443 down to zero.
any help would be appreciated
Joshua Williams
48 sounds totally fine, i get up to the 60s on my t420 and ive never worried about it
Brayden Rodriguez
Seems fine, i'm at 48c watching cartoons with mpv right now
Easton Robinson
Great! I'm certainly happy with it. Gotta say opening my T530 up was such a pleasant experience compared to the clusterfuck that was my HP dv6 notebook's internal layout.
Leo Cox
I use an x200 with a p8400 as my main machine, it's great Mine came with only 2GB memory, but I added an SSD and now it's incredibly responsive, although maybe it's because i'm running debian. You can't even feel the swap thrashing because it's so fast.
Kevin Jones
If your co-workers are running Fedora, you should too. Just so it's easier for everybody to help each other troubleshoot.
Unless you meant it's a decommed asset from work that is now your personal machine. In which case, go nuts and distro-hop til you find something you like.
Levi Perry
Great, that's good to hear.
It has SATA2 and the max memory is 2x2gb ddr3 sticks right? If everything goes right i'll be getting one and installing Antergos on it.
Daniel Barnes
Are thinkpads still sexy, Sup Forums?
Jackson Reed
officially, it's 4GB, but everyone reports success with 8GB
I've been on the fence about upgrading the ram, I'd probably never use it, but it's soooo cheap right now. I have a 4GB swap and it's only ever half-full.
Brayden Harris
gotta be EXTREME. and because i'm a sap for shit like that.
i play gta 5 on it when im on the road or w/o my main rig. i run it in windowed mode 1280x800 with no aliasing/low settings and get around 40-60 fps (same when at full res) i just like windowed mode for monitoring specs.
Jaxon Morgan
yes. very. i've got 3 of them.
Matthew Richardson
picked up a t61 today for £15, no hard drive and the screen looks like ass (ccfl has worn out presumably) is there a way to upgrade it to LED or am i just stuck with an ass CCFL screen
Elijah Rogers
just replace the display, it's easier than replacing the lamp.
Josiah Sanchez
There's a guy that makes LED retrofit kits for x series who says he'll be producing t series kits soon.
You can replace just the CCFL if you want, there are plenty of places to get them online. Just be careful, getting the alignment correct and not breaking any of the little plastic bits can be challenging.
Henry Ross
:/ might not be worth it after all then because I have a 2012 15" macbook pro and the 650m in there gets about the same frame rates with similar settings, but shadows off. maybe if I find a good deal i'll go for it.
>T60p I would guess that whoever had the computrace subscription for a model that old would have completely given up and forgotten about it by that time
Mason Torres
use whatever work supports and documents for it's a work laptop
Carson Kelly
not the current garbage
Joseph Martinez
ayy
Just got my first thinkpad. Managed to get the 1600x900 model off ebay. Condition and build quality are pristine af.
Brandon Russell
Very nice deal!
>toughbooks >overpriced That's standard pricing. A dell D630 XFR goes for $50+ for parts, $150 to $300 used.
Alexander Anderson
How's your weekend Sup Forums, Installed LXLE on T430s. XP on T30, but current not running any wifi because of muh blacklist.
Pixel gots the tunes. :)
Caleb Turner
well the thing is, it's not a gaming laptop. i knew that when i bought it. i didn't intend playing games on it, i just can and try at times.
i bought it as it was, a mobile workstation for producing, rendering, etc. if wanted a gaming laptop i would have gotten one.
it does fine in games that aren't as intense as gta though. primal carnage, saints row 3&4, overwatch, fractured space, distance, dirt 3&2, tf2, gmod all run well with medium settings.
Only compaint is the screen res, would be nice to have something more than 1366x768 but shouldn't expect a lot for £120 bearing in mind the whole thing is in perfect condition
Dylan Taylor
Too pricey... You might as well get an X140e if you're gonna spend that much. 1.3GHz is pretty low as well. I had an X130e with an AMD E-450 processor, it was sluggish at times but it could handle basic web surfing, just not much.
By comparison I still use my X61T. It's 1.6GHz L7500 Core 2 duo scores 967, while the E-450 scores 772. I did like the ruggedness of the X130e, arguably people don't like how big it is, it's bigger than an X220 but with a smaller screen.
Good luck, Canuck.
Christopher Wood
>AMD-E Never, those CPUs are shitty as fuck.
Aiden Perez
Next time, fill the damn subject so people don't have to manually filter.
Aiden Lopez
>filters on gee the best filter is to block this entire site
Jaxson Price
Hey guys, I want to post a recommended battery page on dankpads. please email me at [email protected] or post here. I want to know where you guys get your batteries from, more info is nice but not needed, but I'd like to know if it was: OEM or third party, for what system, good/bad/shit, and price. Thanks.
Andrew Bailey
Yoga 14 reporting in.
This shit is the bee's knees.
Owen White
X200 here, aftermarket batteries I get from Anker, decent quality batteries
Colton King
That actually looks pretty decent on paper for a budget line. I'm going to go against the grain here and give you a thumbs up.
Leo Rivera
>tfw no genuine batteries here >batteries from china will explode or last one hour at most fug
Camden Sanchez
That x140e look real nice. Its hard to find good thinkpads here in canada that are not complete rip off prices. Ebay is tough too cause lots of people dont ship outside the US and when you do tariffs and shipping eat you alive. But its all worth it for a good thinkpad!
Levi Carter
Just wondering, are there any Thinkpad ripoffs that take the functionality of the old Thinkpads but still use current hardware?
I know this thread is mainly about value, but I just want the old Thinkpad quality, with modern amenities like USB 3.1, NVMe M.2 speeds, better resolution.
I need a work computer for work on construction sites but modern Thinkpads fucking suck SOOOO much.
Jeremiah Perry
help me, Sup Forums, my wallet is moving all on its own
Colton Lewis
samefag
Evan Cruz
>Buying an 11E at the Price of a T420
Kayden Bell
are you mentally retarded or something? that's nowhere near a good deal, and it's a shit computer. for the same price you could easily get a t420
John Parker
I prefer my xubuntu x220t over my desktop with windows 7.
David Foster
""""""""""""""""""thinkpad""""""""""""""""""
Nathaniel Adams
Is anyone planning to put one together?
I'm going to try sourcing the best looking X61 body to put the mobo into.
Also, please reply to this if you have any updates from the gook forums about a steady supply to western markets. I rather wait than buy from a middle man with a markup
Carson Brooks
We in there.
The description said the monitor might have white spots, I don't know what the hell that means or how much that will bother me, but I could always replace the screen.
Jayden Walker
nigger
Carson Ross
should I go absolute madman with my T420 and get all the batteries?
Aaron Stewart
Jesus nigga, you still haven't sorted that out? I wish you the best, my man.
Kevin Allen
I just decided to go with windows 7 because I'm a retard who doesn't want to spend a free day learning gnu/linux instructions.
Hunter Long
Me too, i don't want to end up like
Austin Allen
Been running an x200 for strictly college work. Added ram up to 4gb, cheap ass SSD, and a brand new genuine Lenovo battery $60, fucking ouch.
Amazing laptop. Took it apart to do the thermal paste just the other week. Bought it for $70 at a local pawn shop
Jace Hernandez
If I ever wanna upgrade the CPU on my T420, should I get a different heatsink? Is there even a better, compatible heatsink for it?
I don't wanna end up like pic related.
Jeremiah Bennett
I'm about to blow the crap out of the fans and shit with a can of air, then maybe reapply some thermal paste, but my Thinkpad gets to about 85C~ and I use a glass desk. Will the heat maybe cause it to shatter or warp? The glass directly under the PSU is pretty hot.
Brandon Gutierrez
>L might want to cancel that order son, cause that's not a real thinkpad™ why win 7 over win 10? I like the new features of 8/10 far better than being comfy with an old ui just learn the keyboard shortcuts and don't be autism over "muh nsa spying" and win 10 is nice it takes a LOT more heat than the fans exhaust or the the psu can put on the table. glass melts at roughly 14000c your computer will shut off if it's cpu (not the exhaust, the actual main heat source) is over 105c
Oliver Mitchell
Is Kingston a decent enough SSD brand? I work with a local hardware distributor that can get me mad cheap prices on them.
