/tpg/ - ThinkPad General

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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

xsauc buyers guide:
dankpads.com

EPP discount for new ThinkPads (USA & Canada only, usually 15%+ off):
pastebin.com/ULHCY5ch

Helpful links and resources (Wiki, lookup tools and wallpapers):
pastebin.com/DYjEnVq1

Other urls found in this thread:

newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1GK3Z95602&cm_re=2.5"_PATA_SSD-_-0D9-004V-00011-_-Product
ebay.com/itm/9-Cell-Battery-for-Lenovo-Thinkpad-T410-T420-T520-SL410-SL510-Power-Supply-/262472268054?var=&hash=item3d1c90f916:m:mcLOUYaR8Xh9YYHFtGJ-7-g
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

First for T420s, i.e., the best Thinkpad. Fight me.

x250 for 350 do i take it

Is a refurb T420 with a i5-2520m, 900p screen, 4GB of RAM, 160GB Intel SSD, and Windows 8.1 for $179.99 and free shipping, a good deal? I am thinking about it.

Fairly often (but not all the time) when I start typing on my T410 the screen flickers, like goes black for a fraction of a second. Is it X being shit or could there be a hardware issue?

We cant, Chinkpads are truly a gift from the pajeets goods

I caved in and grabbed a X220 for $180 (cheapest I could find on eBay here in Australia). Comes with Linux Mint installed. Should I keep that as babbie's first Linux?

If you like it, if not it's not that hard to install something else. Having said that drivers can be a bit of a pain depending how the distro devs feel about "non free" software.

ALWAYS reinstall after getting a used computer
never trust the OS they preinstalled
seems pretty good
I just hope it has an ssd, or not godshit screen
pretty average
in linux I'd have that issue when adjusting the brightness some times
but never in windows.

>not using a thinkpad related OP image
SHAME

ssd i7 8gb of ram no info of screen, thats what im trying to get from seller. If it does can i upgrade it? if not then i got a not shit tier screen.

I'm pretty sure you can upgrade it fairly easy
It is a thinkpad after all

true hopefully they fucking reply so i can buy that shit.

report frogposters and ignore

I'm gonna graduate soon. I kept an Acer working for years but now I might try a Thinkpad. Since I won't be doing schoolwork and instead will be focusing on personal dev projects, is the t420 still able to keep up these days?

Kill yourself, fucktard.

Easily for anything but vidya games
skylake is like 30% faster than sandy vagoo

is there any point in getting an older x series thinkpad that uses pata? besides the fact i like older computers, pata is so slow

Actually, it'd be kind of cool to put a PATA SSD in it.
newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1GK3Z95602&cm_re=2.5"_PATA_SSD-_-0D9-004V-00011-_-Product

>tfw i want 4 of those to dual disc my PPC 'Books

I'm currently looking at the thinkpad 13 probably getting the full HD screen and 8gigs of memory.

I don't game too much maybe OSU and league from time to time.

Dose anyone know if this is a good pick or should I go with something else

Can i buy 2500mah cells and repack my 9cell battery for my x220? Would that give me a 22500mah battery or would it be impossible because of the circuitry?

Interested in this as well.

So I just got a used thinkpad, and sometimes it doesn't want to turn on unless I plug it in (even though battery is full) and it seems like the usb 3.0 ports aren't working at all. I'm thinking it's a bad main board, what do you guys think? I've also seen it randomly power down twice, but I can't reproduce.

Ooo tough luck on buying a lemon. How much was it?

$200, it's a t440p. I just ordered an i7 4810qm for it. A new mobo would be like another $140.

It's still under warranty, but I don't know if I can claim it since I'm not original owner and the ram and hard drive have been changed

That's not so bad. My first guess would be mobo but someone else who's more experienced with them might disagree

Not sure about the screens of the X250, someone bricked their X240 when trying to upgrade.

I was able to play league of a T430s fine, but not on a X1C3, however the 13 looks like it has a decent heat sink fan, which is why the X1C sucked at it.

When it came to the X1C2 & T440p I had, when I removed the CMOS battery & mains, it would not turn on until I connected the machine to power. Does yout T440p give a clock/time not set error? The USB 3.0 ports not working can be a driver missing, I had this problem when installing Windows 7 on an HP Envy 17 w/ only USB 3.0 ports, I burned a CD full of drivers to fix it. ":)
Liveboot to linux, its a driver issue if it doesn't recognize.

As for the random shutoff, it could be an overheating issue, maybe the fan isn't kicking in?

I don't believe you have to be the original owner to use the warranty, give lenovo an email or call.

The craigslist seller isn't resonding ;-;. There are also ads in my area for x230 and T430 no T530's though.

Due to thinkpads PWM being literally eye raping I've decided to try an HP elitebook or dell latitude

Anyone have experiences with either?

Which tend to have less shit screens or are they all equally generally awful?

Also latitudes and elitebooks seem to be cheaper in general than thinkpads hoping this doesn't equate to much worse build quality or something and is just due to a lower popularity

What's a fair price for a near-new 4GB RAM, i5 2540M CPU x220? I'm looking at these two, both are the same price and have almost the same specifications, but one is listed as having a 2500-3100mhz CPU and the other one as 2600-3300mhz. Also there's slight differences on the keyboard face (pic), the most noticeable one being the fingerprint scanner (which I doubt I'll ever use since my fingerprints never work on anything)

So I gather the old thinkpads are great for their price, but what if you've got money to burn and want newer hardware? Are the latest models any good, even if overpriced? And how far can you go manually upgrading an older model to compete with the new?

Top : us layout
Bottom : uk layout (Personnaly I would change asap that keyboard so add 50 bucks to the price)

budget? and what are you using it for? also what models did you have in mind?

Ah yeah, just noticed the ñ there. I'd prefer that one though since I'm Hispanic. Too bad that one has the slightly less powerful processor. Guy is asking $230 for either, is that a decent price?

Got no problem dropping a thousand or two. I've been pretty frugal with tech over the past couple of years and I'm aiming for something that, even if expensive, I can use for years on end. I'll most likely be using it for the usual browsing, office work, and light emulation and gaming of course, but I also hope I can do some programming on hefty IDEs when I'm in bed or out of the house.

So far the T460 and p50 caught my eye, the former for battery life and the latter for quad core, dGPU, huge RAM, and numpad.

Maybe a little overpriced, check on ebay you can find some x220 in good condition for less than 200 bucks

Problem is when you add international shipping to that price

gaming as in just emulators or like high end games that require graphics cards to not be shit?

Emulators, maybe circa 2010 games at best but mostly older, etc. I have a decent enough desktop for anything new or intensive.

You can use mail forwarders. For example, I ship thinkpads to Russia for 35-40$+US shipping instead of ~100$ for direct shipping, idk about other countries.

How do I make my T420's battery last as long as possible?

No, I don't an error, and the system clock is accurate. I've really only booted to fedora so far, it won't recognize the ports in fedora and it also won't boot to them, no matter what the settings in BIOS are.
I wasn't sure if the warranties still followed the device, like they used to, or Lenovo changed their policy

How to charge laptop without charger

Look for some other 20v power source and make something to attach it to laptop.

There's the pwm tool and you can crank up the refresh rate to 2kHz...

opinion on T430 T530 and X230?

I have a t430, I really like it. Screen isn't great, touch pad takes some getting used too, and some people really dislike the keyboard. Mine sits on a dock most of the time, so none of those really matter to me. I got it a few years ago as a package with the dock, a bag, multiple chargers and it was basically brand new for like $300. Can't beat it for that price. It also has an i5 3xxxM (as opposed to a "U") and the performance is satisfactory.

Opinions on the Dell precision 7000 series?

question have any of you just swapped the motherboard on your thinkpad for another one? ex take out the T420 input a T460 mobo keep the rest of the hardware and only spend 200 upgrading? or do the screens have a compatibility issue or is it not possible?

Why not just use a T460 at that point?

cause you get the best of both if it's possible, new hardware, great original design

I'm looking to cop the X260 literally just for the 1920x1080 screen. How fucked am I?

P.S. I don't care for its autistic keyboard layout.

Upgraded my t420 today to a Core i7 2720QM. Runs about 39c idle with TPFancontrol Could not be happier!

Is the L412 any good?

I'm this user again. I'm wondering if I should commit to the thinkpad 13.

So far I opt for a full HD display 512gb ssd and an ultra dock(muuh ports), but kept the stock i3.

So far its pretty cheap cause some deal (about 705 for everything). Would anons recommend different specs? Or perhaps a different laptop in general.

This is from the lenovo website BTW.

So I have a Thinkpad X230. It has one AUDIO out which is for audio + mic. I have apple earbuds which have a mic. When I plug them in, only the mic is recognized. What gives? I want to listen to music through them.

is a T450 with a missing trackpoint worth 575 or no? otherwise 5600u 256gb ssd and 12gb of ram worth or no? can i just replace the trackpoint?

T420 for £150. T440 for £250, X220 for £150. Which do I take?

Does any user have experience putting a 1080p screen on the T420? How difficult was it and we're there any problems afterward s?

depends what's inside them

I think the Apple headphones have a different wiring than every other headphone in the world, so the TRRS connections don't line up properly with the connections in the jack. Not sure about that, but I think I remember reading something about this once.

Is the T60 a good laptop for school documents and making websites with Java Script? Course is manditory and I'm super poorfag at the moment.

Hi guys!

Should I go for a T430, T430s or an HP 8470p?

why is searching for an x250 w/ 1080p fucking impossible. Do i just get a pleb 720p and a screen at the same time to replace it? As much as I would love to use the T430 keyboard I really don't wanna use the hardware.

t61 with integrated graphics is same price and better

NEVER get the version with an nvidia gpu though they are all fucked and faulty as shit by design

How come they never released the T450s with the Nvidia GPU in the US?

Welcome to the QM club m8

does this seem decent? I know that I can't change the ram on the T400s series which is why I want to know if it's good for the price. it costs 680

Ok wanna get new batteris for my T61 and R61.....which of all these cheap battery sites are ok....dont want explosions and insta-deads.
>post your experience with these pretend lenovo batteries.

>post your experience with these pretend lenovo batteries
Pretty fucking good, China is my greatest ally.

Based free worldwide shipping.

Can X201 palmrest be fit into the X220.
I just want the "no touchpad" look, not the fingerprint reader.

Are the fingerprint readers on W510s legit. I just set mine up now realise I did so through windows hello so now the botnet has it which is a bit shit

have an option to buy a W550 w/ i7 touch 250gb ssd, call for more info 500 do i call and take it if the ram isn't shit tier? how are the W series thinkpads, I know they're heavy but I browse /fit/

What are you using to control fan? Is TPFC any good?

tpfancontrol

>tfw silent quad core t420 with the fan turned off
fucking hdd is louder than everything else

Ugh stahp

Best Thinkpad for video editing, friends?
T420 seems great but i need HDMI support

I'm going to get an x131e for free from a family friend, but the problem is the keyboard needs to be replaced, like missing keys fix, which doesn't seem to be a problem.

Besides "x131e keyboard" where can I find a suitable replacement for it?
Prefer to be cheap obviously but whatever I can make due.

Thanks

Get a monitor with DP already

t420 + egpu and a gpu with plenty of hdmi ports

or dongles :^)

Succ my dongle, dude!
I might have to do the EGPU shit.
Hopefully everything works with Premiere CC.

Appreciate it, anons!

Let's assume they're all i5s with 8GB RAM

ebay.com/itm/9-Cell-Battery-for-Lenovo-Thinkpad-T410-T420-T520-SL410-SL510-Power-Supply-/262472268054?var=&hash=item3d1c90f916:m:mcLOUYaR8Xh9YYHFtGJ-7-g

Are these batteries any good? Looks a little to good to be true.

They use the CTIA wiring but they use a special signalling protocol.

W520 or W530 with quadro and get a miniDP to HDMI cable.

Are the palmrests of the x220 supposed to be a bit bent inwards?
It's kinda uncomfortable.

Can anyone tell me how the t460p is? Planning to get this as my first thinkpad with an ultra dock. There's a good deal going one so its about 900 bucks for everything

Someone please help me. I got a Thinkpad without noticing that it had shiny keys. Am I fucked or is there a way to fix them?

Ebay

just buy a new keyboard if you don't like the idea someone else touched the keys you're touching now

How do I take of the shininess though? Is it too late?

it's polished wear of the finish of the keys and is permanent as far as i can tell

FUCK
I don't know if it's just me but it seems to slightly change the texture of the keys and it makes it hard to type

Calling all t420qm lads, how are your temps, and battery life time in light use cases (Firefox & Video in the background)? I'm tempted to get a 2820qm and disable HT, but i'm concerned it might strain battery and the cooler too much. No dGPU btw.
Talk me into doing this, i'm hyped.

Otherwise i wanted to try a 3820qm with coreboot, anyone got some experience with coreboot and ivy quads?

So what dedicated keyboard or laptop have you been using up until your thinkpad purchase hasn't had its finish worn down from regular use? If its that much of a dealbreaker, maybe switch back? Or buy 2-3 extra thinkpad replacement keyboards and swap out as they wear out

Just buy a new keyboard or stop being autistic about jt

Not a QM but the dual i7-2640 with a fairly clean fan and new paste: 30-40 idle, 50-60 with a 720p youtube on firefox, 65-80 overwatch, 85-90 (no throttling) intelburntest

But what are you doing with it?