/tpg/ - Thinkpad general

Previous thread: (Cross-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:

laptopscreen.com/English/screen-part-number/LP140WD2(TL)(G1)/
wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mpv#Fix_jerky_playback_and_tearing
youtu.be/6XFP4vbuLdI
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

uh oh...

Does the W520 have any motherboard improvements other than the 4 DIMM slots ? Is it generally a good pick over a T520 or an ultra cheap T420 ?
I can only find it at a heavy (40-60% more expensive) premium compared to the T520 in Europe.

>The x220/x230 don't have a secondary drive bay but HP's equivalents do
>The x220/x230 don't have socketted CPUs but HP's equivalents do

Why isn't the EliteBook 2570p recommended more for the 12.5" class? Often it's even cheaper than them if you're amerifat

A refirbished T530 from ebay for $250 shipped. 8gb, i5 2.5ghz, 128mb SSD, really clean.

Been using a beat to shit 9 year old Dell for way-too-long, so this thing is pimp. I should have jumped on the bandwagon a long time ago. Thanks for existing, /tpg/ . Otherwise, I may have never known this level of comfy.

I don't understand the hate for this newer style keyboard, though. This thing is boss.

It's mostly the layout, but there are some people sperging out over the fact that it has chiclets

If it's anything like my W530 was, you'll regret it soon.

I have this laptop. Very solid choice.

because "muh brand loyalty"

what's the best way to do a factory reset on the t420? I've been through installing generic windows and going back through all the drivers but I always feel like I missed something. I always buy them used so I can't just find a recovery disk from where I got it. What should I do?

I odn't like the keyboard feel or design. Plus it's aesthetics are really bad. No ips screen option.

Main issue with the keyboard is what they did to the home-end-insert-delete-pgup-pgdn cluster. On the older models, it was easy to feel which was which because they were different sizes. On this one, not so much, how do you tell home from F12 by feel? Old style seperated F keys into groups of 4, easy to tell apart. This one it's just one big long line of keys.

I use every key in that cluster regularly when typing, except insert. So making it significantly harder to do by touch is a big regresssion imo.

Open up device manager, make sure all devices are working and have installed drivers, and you are good to go. All the extra bloat Lenovo software is just that, bloat.

>All the extra bloat Lenovo software is just that, bloat.
Power Manager is important

elaborate?

I don't hate it either. Even more interest in trying it after reading an article on their blog talking about how they design it

Install gentoo.

What's the absolute cheapest Thinkpad with at least an i5 in it? I need a throw away laptop. I have my own RAM and a hard drive is not needed.

If you can make do with first-gen, X201 or T410. T420 isn't much more expensive and second-gen brought major performance gains.

Thanks.

Why don't more ThinkPads have ports on the rear? Things like power should ALWAYS be on the rear. Ethernet too. I fucking hate side ports that aren't USB.

>tfw two mint condition 2570p laptops came in my work the other day
I've been wanting to try one out for awhile. Big fan of the 87xx Workstations, I kinda like the keyboards and build quality, it grew on me, wayy better than Dells before the haswell refresh.

I guess my coworker was having issues witht he E6430 being to big, so I recommended the 2570p and she likes it alot, The Latitude E6430 had a bad battery and I had some palmrest scrolling issue.
However the Elitebooks has a HDD, so I am going to toss the SSD from the E6430 onto the Elitebook.

>9 year old Dell
>during the time when Dell's quality control went to shit vapors
wow user, big upgrade there.
I think that the only thing will bug you will be the drop of perceived toughness.
The keyboard redesign will only bug those who've had ThinkPads in the past. newcomers will not give a shit because the keyboard already feels amazimg.

I mean I feel the difference when I had the X220 for a quick minute after dailying my T430s and Pixel
But honestly people talk like the T420 keyboard is godlike.
The T420/T410 keyboard is shit compared to a T60. If I had to pick between a T60 or i7 T420, I'd pick the T60, hell I'd even pick a R60e over the T420.
When a T420 goes toe to to against a T430 the only thing it wins is the 6-Row layout (not the keyboard feel)
T430 beats it in CPU peformance (who's going to bios flash a T420?), fucking gaming performance, battery life, display, and it has USB 3.0 ports.

>factory reset
Your best bet is just burning or making a bootable USB of windows.
win 7 you'll need additional drivers to do anything, win 8/8.1 you might not to get ThinkVantage started
Just install LXLE.

Ports in the rear are kinda dumb if they end up being blocked by a dock
>lol Dell and HP

How good is OSX on the x220T?

>15" iGPU T601F
>T9300 CPU
>hits 92C after just a few minutes of prime95
>fan has to kick into secret maximum overdrive mode so it doesn't melt
please advise

Is there a better cooler I can use? I have a 14" T61 assembled from spare parts with a T500 fan and its T7300 doesn't go past 75C. I don't think I can use that cooler in an integrated GPU model, though.

Not sure but a W500 fan was a recommended fan mod...

>just get copper shims
>who cares about your prime 95 cooling benchmark

where is the scroll button

the clit mouse needs a scroll button

>Why isn't the EliteBook 2570p
cuz I can't find any for cheap, also no ips option, which is huge for me, can't stand tn panels anymore.

I do like the elitebook's desing tho.

What would be the elitebook equivalent of the t430 tho?

I have a t601f aswell with t9500 and igpu
under prime load it only gets to 65 degrees
something is seriously wrong here...

After looking at the motherboard layout I realized the T500 cooler actually would work just fine, so I swapped it in. T61 somehow broke a hinge in the process, but sacrifices had to be made in order to achieve sick cooling gains. I don't have a second cooler to put in that one anyway. Pic related was the same amount of time it took to hit 94C with the stock cooler. It's still running now and hasn't broken 80C yet.

Should I sell my T410 and buy X220 instead? Will there be any performance or battery life difference?

yes to both

i jumped from t410 to t430s, and the difference performance wise is WOAH

what are the differences between the normal t430 and the t430s?

s is slim, but afaik mainly the battery life vs portability

Why do you run hackintosh on the best compatible laptop for Windows?

I recently purchased an X200
The fan was bad and I replaced it.
Everytime the fan is not running there is a high pitched noise emitted from the computer.
Does anyone know what this is?

Check the hard drive

Do solid state drives emit high pitched noises?
How does that relate to the fan?

>Do solid state drives emit high pitched noises?
SSDs have no moving parts...

That's not what he asked.

>>Do solid state drives emit high pitched noises?
that's at least, one question...

Yeah, I know they don't have moving parts.
But neither does anything else on the motherboard. The fan stops and then theres a faint squeal.

What should I ask seller while buying used x220?

i was just tinkering around

i think it was the best linux-compatiable ? are you actually kidding me ?

Ask if he ever had his shit pushed in

Still tinkering around with Firefox setup (and may rebuild the kernel at some point), but I think I got everything how I wanted.

Behold, the X201f (f for Frankenstein).
The chassis, fan, and trackpad of an X201, the motherboard and CPU of an X201s (i7-640LM), and the screen of an X200s (1440x900, extra screen space is much needed over 1280x800), 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, all combined for the near-perfect 16:10 Thinkpad.

It's pretty much flawless; it's impossible to get the temperatures above 72C, even when maxing out CPU and GPU (prime95 with heavy WebGL). Super quiet, long-lasting battery (when it had the X201 motherboard it would get 9-10 hours 0-100%), although I haven't tested it fully with the new setup. It's fast as fuck for day-to-day use, but compiling takes quite a bit of time. The Linux kernel with default configs takes about 1.25 hours to compile with -j5. However, note that it only gets to about 60C when doing that maximum, hovering around 50-55C usually.

I'm now running musl Void Linux with dwm, st, firefox, and dmenu with GohuFont. Unless you're using a heavyweight DE, Void is actually polished as hell, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a minimalist distribution.

The only real problems I have are with the BIOS; the reseller removed the BIOS serial number, making it complain with a 2200 warning every time it boots (wasting ~2 seconds, and completely irremovable, since I can't get a service USB to boot). Since this machine is compatible with coreboot, the idea is to flash it with coreboot once I have the proper equipment and time, allowing for much faster boot times, no annoying warning, and more free firmware.

tl;dr: I highly recommend this frankenpad to any and everyone.

last sidenote: the screen has a light blue tint and uneven backlighting, which is much worse in pictures; in reality, it's hardly noticeable unless you're trying to see it. It's fine for text and web browsing, but not for photo editing.

Stop spamming this pasta in every /tpg/ thread

Some SSDs can. its a barely audible whine when doing intensive things like copying over large files and such.

I wanted to double check that the glossy version of this screen will work with my t420 once I install a HD+ cable:
laptopscreen.com/English/screen-part-number/LP140WD2(TL)(G1)/
The stock 768p screen is incredibly shit...needs to go.

Is it possible that it is my CPU emitting this sound when it is not being directly cooled by the fan?

Its not emitting noise. What you're hearing is plastic melting and cracking. What do you even mean not directly cooled by the fan?

I might try freebsd, will it work well on an x301.

Coil while. All of my thinkpads does it.

Redpill me on the newer (t440 and later) ThinkPads. If I don't care about value for money, are they good in these areas?
>Build quality
>Keyboard
>Screen
>Linux support

I get a little bit of screen tearing when I'm using mpv. I have a t420, and am using Lubuntu. Is this thing that much of a toaster, or is there some non-free driver I'm missing?

>No
>No
>No
>No

A friend has one, and it's like a constant battle with graphics support. He's been waiting on Nvidia to release official support for years now.

Also the t440 specifically has one of the worst touchpad/trackpoint buttons setups ever.

Hackintosh on x220 worth it?

x220.mcdonnelltech.com

Why would you ruin a good laptop with such a shitty OS?

Ty
>shitty OS
I've never used mac, Is that so bad?

as opposed to what? an OS that doesn't even work such as lunix?

It's a lot like Linux, except the gui parts are better and the unix parts are worse. I wouldn't use it on a non mac hardware because it kills the battery life so bad.

...

Thinkpads vs Elitebook 840?

840

Holy shit dude, stop shilling hp. Go make /hpg/ if you want to.

Not him, but chill out pal, the dude's asking on opinion on the Elitebook 840, he's not saying they are better

Also
>Other business laptops are also welcome in /tpg/ (e.g. Dell Latitude/Precision, HP EliteBook/ZBook).

upgraded my x200 to affs screen. feels good man. rarely used the x200 before, because i couldn't stand the tn shit.

Redbull me on the X240. I like that it's thinner, but otherwise how does it compare to the X230?

>thinkpads vs MacBook Pro clone #4563

My laptop just died and I'm thinking about buying a cheap laptop replacement. Used thinkpads look like a good place to start. I have a thinkpad 600E, but it is a little dated for my comfort. From what I understand, lenovo owns the thinkpad brand now, instead of IBM. Have they fucked it up? I really hate lenovo with a passion. Probably one of my least favorite companies. Their laptops feel like garbage, and the company itself is even more garbage, installing sketchy shit into their bios and such. So on one hand, I want absolutely nothing to do with lenovo, second hand or not. On one hand, I still think fondly of the thinkpad brand. Is it worth my time or did china fuck another thing up?

Shittiest ultranav you can find out there, the lack of physical buttons make the trackpoint unusable and the trackpad is a turd

Think x250 of more recent

change the trackpad on the x240 quite easy and so worth it.

easy fix 25bucks and u get a cheaper x250.
i think performance gains in one generation are negligible.

Didn't know about that, seems like I don't lurk enough sorry

By the way, is the fix something that works perfectly or does it has flaws like the T430/T420 keyboard thing?

What laptop should I get? I want the following:
>Decent GPU. Given that Nvidia and Optimus are absolute cancer on Linux, that means I basically need a modern Intel GPU like the 520.
>Decent CPU and ram. I don't really care desu. The best CPU in the t420 is more than good enough for me.
>Good (t420 tier) build quality and keyboard. It sounds retarded but I actually want something that has some weight, not MacBook tier that I'll drop all the time.
>Good Linux support
I don't care about the screen, battery or heat that much, and I don't care about price. I would get a t420 but the GPUs are too shitty.

You can by one from the T/X/W series with confidence up to the 20 models, 30 are said to be good too but I don't own anything newer than a X220t and a W520

Only thing is that it's not totally flat with the palm rest maybe 0.5-1mm higher, which doesn't bother me.
Works fine with linux, with windows 10 it works fine until you preform a update, then the physical buttons stop working and you have to edit some registries, after that everything works fine again.

My W530 was absolute dog shit. Glad to finally upgrade to T420 from it.

What problems did you have with it?

Battery failure
Random crashes when the computer was moved (probably a faulty system protecting the machine from large impacts, falling, etc.)
One corner of the keyboard was squeaky
Touchpad lost it's bumpy texture very quickly
Random power failures that ultimately rendered the machine pretty much unusable
Poorly insulation, could feel electricity by touching metal parts of the ports or the fingerprint scanner

Just to name a few.

While some of those problems are part of the risk of buying used laptops, I have to admit it does indeed not sound really appealing

Out of curiosity, why switch from the W to the T series?

I bought my W530 as new, not used. I used to own a T410 earlier so I knew the build quality of T420 would be better. Only thing I miss from the newer machines are the better screens but I can live with that.

>I bought my W530 as new
Oh shit, that really sucks then considering the price of the thing

Is there a way to optimize 1080p playback with core i5 2520M and iGPU?
I can run 720p flawlessly but 1080p casue the temps to reach 70 C.
I'm using mpv with this config
vo=opengl
demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll
ass-force-style=Kerning=yes

To be fair, it lasted me 3 years, but I wouldn't recommend the machine to anyone else.

a P70

3 years is pretty weak for a thinkpad, one of my friend is still using my old T400 which works perfectly and I have been using my X220t for a bit more than three years, and I bought it used from britbong land at that time

Are you actually experiencing stutter? Simply running hot doesn't sound all that bad and the HD 3000 struggle isn't any surprise to me. Trying to make MPV's config less taxing will quickly eat in to the quality of video output if you want to reduce heat.

I managed to get an old netbook managing decent video playback with the settings listed here if you want to play around with them.
wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mpv#Fix_jerky_playback_and_tearing

Windows, Linux? My T420 can run 1080p chinese cartoons without heating up. Have you installed the correct drivers?

Also, I just tried playing some 4k movie trailer I downloaded from youtube. It ran without stuttering but the temps peaked at 70. You're hardware should have no problems playing 1080p.

Mine plays 1080p 8bit with smoothmotion and filters no issues at all.

However if i throw a 10bit file in there the housefires begin.

i had coil whine using libreboot but was able to fix it by adjusting the pwm frequency of the backlight.

so libreboot might be a solution to fix that.

HEVC (x265)?

best ThinkPad for 1000$?

youtu.be/6XFP4vbuLdI

What's a good model thinkpad for my cat to use? He won't even use it correctly so I don't mind if it's out of date or broken.

Any X series would do.