/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

xsauc buyers guide:
dankpads.com

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

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

Other urls found in this thread:

sites.google.com/site/quiethdd/
thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_hard_drive_clicking
youtube.com/watch?v=1mha1NNXTbY
t.me/thinkpadgeneral
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

I managed to accidentally step on my x200t, and now my screen is cracked. However, the pen part of the screen works perfectly fine. So does anyone know if I can just buy a regular IPS x200 screen and replace that part only?

What would be a fair yuro price for a T450? Or for an X250?

US price + VAT

>inb4 telegram faggot

What does Sup Forums think about the 2011 X1 (the one before the Carbon)?

It's shit.

What does the Sup Forumsenius club think of Dell Precisions?

kek

tgfew wattchingf riddick n browsuinng on myt x230t


USIONG ,MHYU GFFDEDEWTG

>Other business laptops are also welcome in /tpg/ (e.g. Dell Latitude/Precision, HP EliteBook/ZBook).
They're cool, I guess. Never used one.

>Never used one.
Doesnt seem like many people have.

I don't really see any good reason to get one, the only advantage they have over a reasonably specced x220 is that it's thinner. Maybe it'd make sense if you got it cheap, but on the rare occasion I see one on ebay they're overpriced.

why does everyone say to avoid the nvidia gpus? is optimus in linux really that bad?

>more expensive
>more that can go wrong
>depending on the model, some are either worse or equal to the iGPU and some have issues with limited graphics memory
>even if it's better than the iGPU, the dGPU is still pretty average on everything but maybe the W series
>more power usage
Unless you want to use CUDA or something, you're better off either living with the HD4000, getting a W series, or getting a laptop that's actually meant for gaymen.

That sucks. I had the t420 in mind. If I get one with an Nvidia card, and disable it in the BIOS, will everything else (like the video ports) still work? Will it have the same battery as one without the Nvidia card?

Oops, meant to give you a (you)

I don't have one but I'm pretty sure it'll be fine if you disable it. The dGPU on the T420 should be a fair bit better than the iGPU anyway, it's just that a T430 iGPU would be better than both, and probably around the same price. If the T420 with Nvidia is cheap though then don't let the GPU put you off.

My t420 makes a shutter sound randomly.

It's not the same as the screenshot shutter, it's more muffled and maybe a bit shorter.

It seems to originate from underneath the area where you'd rest your left wrist when typing... near the little stickers.

I bought the t420 used of course and there was a little bit of play or looseness in that area when it was delivered.
It's not anything too bad but if you tap it lightly with a finger, plastic clicks against plastic... whereas the corresponding area on the other side does not click.

The random shutter sound is mildly annoying and not really good for my paranoia.
What am I hearing?

also... i've searched the internet and found nothing helpful
i don't have skype installed (some people have had issues with that making noise in the background) and it happens randomly no matter what i have running

thicc

>It seems to originate from underneath the area where you'd rest your left wrist when typing... near the little stickers.
Only one of the drives and the smartcard reader (if you have it) is there.

>plastic clicks against plastic

pretty normal in the left area after it's been disassembled a few times.


>The random shutter sound is mildly annoying and not really good for my paranoia.
>What am I hearing?


probably the hard drive parking its head.

use this sites.google.com/site/quiethdd/

right now I only use ssd's in my laptops but before that I've use this for years to stop the hard drive clicking noise from happening, with zero side effects.

Thanks, anons.
That helped a lot.

I decided it was time to move away from Windows, so I guess I won't be able to use the nifty little application that was linked.
But as long as the sound isn't some sort of precursor to the click of death or the NSA stealing my pterodactyl porn, I can live with it.

Please help me Sup Forumsays, are there any internal differences between T430 and T430i? I think the chipset is the same QM77. Some people say there are worse capacitors in the T430i, some say there's no difference at all. I'm asking because I can get a T430i with 1600x900 screen and i3 3120M much cheaper than a T430 with 1366x768 and i5 3320M, and I'm planning to upgrade to an i7 anyway.

>I guess I won't be able to use the nifty little application that was linked.

thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_hard_drive_clicking

you'll fry that shit

Is T420 with Core i5 2520m + 4 GB of RAM enough for today's daily drive?

Can you elaborate? I know that I'll have to match TDP, but I'm worried that T430i mobo will shit itself if its built worse than standard T430 mobo

yes

For how long before it becomes obsolete?

dude mobile core 2 duos are still perfectly usable in 2017

>mobile core 2 duos are still perfectly usable in 2017
For using basic text editors.
Have you tried opening a website or using a document with a lot of charts?
Or simply playing 1080p BD chinese cartoons?

>falling for the T420 meme
Unless you're a programmer, you should get a decent laptop.

>Have you tried opening a website or using a document with a lot of charts?
my t500 (p8600) has no issues, and I only have 4gb ram atm
>Or simply playing 1080p BD chinese cartoons?
>falling for 1080p meme
no point watching 1080p when screen isn't even 1080p(1680x1050, at least on mine), 720p plays just fine.

>720p just fine
yea, maybe, if you live in the early '00s

>no point watching 1080p
What to do if the only available is 1080p?
Ask nicely to provide 720p?
Also downscaling require less CPU power than upscaling.

Yeah, why would anyone want to only pay $175 for a laptop? Stupid dumb asses.

>Also downscaling require less CPU power than upscaling.

lmao

Is the only reason the x220 is recommended instead of the x230, the keyboard?

I have shells of both that I got for more or less the same price and the x230 is slightly lighter with better specs. Seems like a keyboard swap would give me the best of both worlds. Just wish it had an IPS display, though I can see some on aliexpress for $60. Those are legit right?

i am looking to uograde mu T430 with an ssd. is it worth to get a small ssd (~30gb) just for my root and swap partitions whilst home will stay at the hdd? what are the best ssds to get?

It's mostly the keyboard, yes, but that can be fixed. Another thing is probably that it's not worth the minor upgrade in specs for the money, if you want to go cheap that is.

The IPS is probably legit, but might have problems with burn-in

hey Sup Forumsuys
im gonna buy a thinkpad T410 later today, anything i need to watch out for? notorious problems in general and all other buying advice welcome

Get a X201

Some issues I've had with mine
>subframe around the hinge broke and to be araldited in place
>hinges are kind of loose
This isn't a big deal and can be fixed anyway so I wouldn't let that put you off
>256MB of graphics memory is a fucking joke and combined with the lack of graphics switching it means you'll struggle to make use of the GPU but it'll still be shitting on your battery life no matter what
If you get one with a dGPU, check that you can turn it off in the bios or that it's 512MB, else you'll be stuck with overheating and shit battery life.
>Overheats to 100C under load and has to throttle where later generations will usually sit at 70C with an equivalent mid-tier i5.
>Overheats just browsing the net if you try and use a dock with it
>1440x900 screen has absolute shit viewing angles and the moment your eyes aren't completely perpendicular and centered with the screen the top and bottom start looking off
>Backlight fuse was blown when I bought it
I'm pretty average with soldering and the fuses are tiny so fixing was hell, but buying it for next to nothing because of it was well worth it.

If you need any real performance out of it, it's very well worth going a generation up. Otherwise the 16:10 screen is pretty comfy as long as you get it cheap.

perhaps this is a good place to ask:
i'm looking for a (very) cheap laptop that will do good at torrenting, to reduce the power usage, and be used whenever i need to leave home for longer
prefered long battery life. doesn't need to be a rocket for games like HoMM3 or older

Actually while I'm at it, if you get one apart make sure you don't confuse screw sizes - there's nothing to stop you from putting an incorrectly long screw too far into the keyboard or WLAN card.

Look at the X220, or X230 if you want better graphics performance for paying a little more. If you want cheaper or more power efficiency then I would just hunt around for whatever's cheap with an atom in it - though don't go too old because very early atoms probably won't take well to torrenting.

>my thinkpad won't get delivered to me today because of a snowstorm
JUST

need more info on that atom stuff
also X220/230 are still damn expensive

Does the Speaker Mute button have a LED in it on the T410? When I press it, should it turn red, just like the Microphone Mute button?

Can a T410 owner confirm if theirs lights up when they press it? I am on a Linux distribution and the Microphone Mute button lights up red when I press it, but the Speaker Mute one doesn't. I don't know if it's a Linux software issue, if my hardware is broken or if it's just not supposed to light up.

Guys, how difficult is it to change the RAM in a thinkpad so it can have more RAM?

X200 then

hmmm i see, i better not then
I found a T520, would that be a better bet?

...

I should add im not looking for an x series because its a bit too small for my taste

With iGPU does the VRAM of the GPU get shared with the RAM?
If so does that mean graphically intensive tasks would get affected if I run RAM intensive tasks?

As far as I know the iGPU actually doesn't have dedicated VRAM. It uses the system RAM

Atoms are Intel's super low power CPUs that are cheap and usually end up in netbooks and phones. Having a bit more of a look now there's plenty of cheap options with higher end low power processors anyway. Just so you know, any cpu with a model ending in U is the ultralow power models which might be better for your situation but M models aren't usually much worse for power anyway.

Just have a look at something like the X131e as an example of something very cheap that fits and is a thinkpad. The only thing I'm not entirely sure of is how well it'll handle gayming. Otherwise some of the older X series like suggested can be cheap though having an older CPU doesn't do you any favours for power efficiency.

The T410 might still be fine, other than my gripe about the graphics, which you can check, the rest is mostly random issues or me being pedantic. It's nice for the form factor and good if you can get it cheap anyway. The T520 will probably be a bit more well rounded though. Ultimately it comes down to specs, prices, and what you need out of them.

I know that.
Will it affect performance that way?

Why the recommended laptop is the X220 and not the X230 ? I want to buy one of those. I prefer the X230 but i want advice. youtube.com/watch?v=1mha1NNXTbY

okay, i'll check them

>not just making a ramdisk in your VRAM and using as swap and setting your swappiness up high to take pressure off of the RAM so your iGPU can use it

Because the X220 is a little cheaper and the classic keyboard is a meme. Though mostly just because that's how it's been since the X230 was much more expensive and the OP hasn't been changed.

If you're maxing it out, I suppose. HD3000 and 4000 allocate around 1.5GB of system RAM for their VRAM. Thinkpads of either generation can be loaded up to 16GB, so that'd have to be some really intensive program to have such a problem, probably beyond the iGPU's capabilities to handle.

Do you care about the old keyboard?
Do you want to easily flash a modded BIOS without any extra tools?
Do you want a cheaper one?

Grab the X220.

Otherwise, X230.

I'm just trying to play Life is strange with wine, on core i52520m with iGPU HD 3000

On a x230 you can only use genuine batteries

Do you have RAM in both DIMMs? Otherwise chances are that it's just the iGPU that's your bottleneck, assuming you're not running anything stupidly intensive at the same time.

You can force it to use chink batteries

>Do you have RAM in both DIMMs?
Yes, 2 GB x 2.
I'm running manjaro with XFCE.

Can you flash whatever unlocked bios on a x230? Or is it hardware-flash only?

Very easy in my experience. Standard laptop SODIMM swap out. It has a panel that you remove to access the ram and then you just plug in your big dick.

>Do you care about the old keyboard?
Mod it m8

>Do you want to easily flash a modded BIOS without any extra tools?
What do you do this for? Genuine question.

>Do you want a cheaper one?
Same price when I ordered both.

Will DDR3 and DDR4 work with any model if I have an older one?

>What do you do this for
kek

>What do you do this for? Genuine question.
Not him but I'd say to remove the chinknovo whitelist and unlock 1600MHz RAM.

>Same price when I ordered both.

Nice non-argument.

actually 1866

Can I install a IPS screen on a X230?

How? Can that be done in a T430 as well?

yes

new Telegram Group

t.me/thinkpadgeneral

And so I've worn it thin. The L412 starts to fall from the abuse, shitting its pants like the first X220t. The X61t which has taken tumbles down multiple staircases still chugs happily though a duo2cuo just isn't enough. I think it's time to find another member of the family, probably a cheapie like a T420

It is driver related. The same thing happens in wangblows on other models too if the drivers decide to be fucky

that laptop is the same size as the w510 which I've had no problems with

blue board

I did it, i bought a T520 just now, came with a fresh battery, happy camper right here

Am I banned?

hmmm
NEW Telegram group

t.me/thinkpadgeneral

90's thinkpad owners wanted

mods are asleep

>enter bios
>middle touchpad button does not work anymore and instead changes the pointer to this

I think I've fucked up

T420 just came in. It's top comfy.

Thanks lads!

Heh, another guy who fell for the meme.

your whalecum.

where did you get it? how much? how's the fan speed/settings?

is it possible to swap out the t420s motherboard and put in a t430s one? they seem to have the same size and shape. The only difference is the one port at the back.

I'm actualy suprised how solid and well built it is. Totally not a meme.

Bought it from a classified ad site. Only paid 150 euro for it.

I'd get one of this to replace my x220t but the tn panel is holding me back. Really hate those color shifts.

Is there anything with a numpad for 200-250€(in france)?
Mostly for writing code with maybe a bit of indie game

The W series seems to have a numpad but I think they're a bit too big for what I'll use them.

This fucker must weight a ton.

>5 lbs is a ton

for a laptop it is

modern laptops are 2 lbs

>Is there anything with a numpad for 200-250€

A cheap dualcore Ideapad maybe.

gr8 b8 m8 i r8 it 8/8 and i aw8 more b8

I'm about to buy an used Thinkpad L440 from early 2015.
The owner wants €280, a little to much for my purpose.
I want a solid Notebook for my hobby shop that is not too slow. It will be treated badly in dirty conditions with gloves on.

- Type: 20AT004VGE
- CPU: i5 4210M 4.Generation
- RAM: 8gb
- Display: 14", 1600x900
- HDD: 500gb, 7200rpm
- Interfaces: VGA, 3x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.0, Card Reader, Bluetooth 4.0, 3G/UMTS, WLAN, Webcam

Why shouldn't I?