/tpg/ - ThinkPad General

Previous thread:

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 IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T, X, and W/P Series if you want the Real Business Experience™

Recommended IBM models:
X60, X61, T60, T61, 860, Transnote, PC110

Recommended freedom models:
xx00 series, IBM xx0 series
Check libreboot.org for details.

Recommended modern models:
X220 - 12", 768p, cheap and light
T420 - 14", 900p, widely avaiable, socketed CPU, Ivy Bridge installable w/ Coreboot
W520 - 15", 1080p, Desktop Replacement, 32GB RAM on quadcore models, USB 3.0

T440p, T540p, W540 - last ThinkPads to have replacable CPUs, IPS displays avaiable, chiclet

P-series - reminiscent to old build quality, top-of-the-line specs, better than most current mobile workstations, but very expensive

Why ThinkPad?
>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 (most models), upgrade & maintain thanks to readily available service manuals for every model, spare parts easy & cheap to obtain
>The best TrackPoint, 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

New guides by xsauc:
dankpads.com

ThinkWiki - Info on ThinkPads & running GNU/Linux on them:
thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki

ThinkPad service guides w/ tutorial videos:
lenovoservicetraining.com/

EPP discount for new ThinkPads:
pastebin.com/JVwVGVTW

Other urls found in this thread:

ebay.com/itm/T420-T430-FHD-KIT/162718125848
linuxbios.org/Board:lenovo/t60
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

I think I'll just be direct about asking for purchasing advice.
looking for ThinkPad to use at my local coffee shop and whenever I travel so I can be irredeemably autistic Wherever I Go. want it to have the following

>1080p display how to tile more terminals together and better viewing of chinese cartoons
>large storage,booting off modest-sized SSD with hard drive for bulk storage of shows.
>able to comfortably run Dwarf Fortress, the only gaming Benchmark I truly care about.
>long battery life because I have OCD about battery life.
>able to faithfully serve my autistic needs through the reign of Emperor Trump (which is 8 years, fuck you Reddit)
According to /dfg/, the only important factors are single core performance, cache size and RAM speed; likely in that order.
ntertainment won't be the only thing I use it for but I use i3 so I can otherwise get by with meager hardware.

Willing to spend 600$ to $700 on-base machine. Willing to spend a little more on upgrades. I'm leaning towards buying refurbished directly from Lenovo.

Macbook

3rd for kemonopad

Slow monday, my dudes.

The T430 with the keyboard mod is the definitive thinkpad right? does the 3rd gen cpu have significant more battery life then the second gen?

>no trackpoint
>can't upgrade or service
>non-standard layout of modifier keys, not good for i3
>ugly and somehow still makes me look like a faggot
you better be joking

Sorta a newfag for Thinkpads (not computers though)
Looking for Thinkpad in the 300$ range with LOTS of headroom for upgrade, direct meh plez thinkpad lords of Sup Forums

t420 or t430

Pretty sure CPU's dont have battery life

But the 3rd Gen (Ivy bridge) consumes less power than sandy bridge did

is a thinkpad t60 enough to watch anime?

can I modify it to be bETTER?

yes you can!
i love you user!
and i love all of you!

are you a neet with disposible income?
look up a t70
not all chinese people are bad I suppose.

can i mod an IPS display into my t420 yet?

Got any recommended sellers from ebay or aliexpress for the T440p 3-button trackpad replacement? Or will any work just fine?

t520 i72860qm high gamut tn panel masterrace checking in

How much is a thinkpad with an i7 and 32gb ram going to cost me?

posting from a recently purchases x230, feels good to be on a thinkpad again. should have never left my t60 with my parents

Rip x201

I was removing the screen and somehow torn off the metal connector from the panel.

I bought an x220 tablet but had to return it because the audio was busted. I tried win 7, 10, and linux.

Saw this posted here the other day, not sure if anyone here has tried it yet

ebay.com/itm/T420-T430-FHD-KIT/162718125848

i guess ill have to buy a new panel and lcd cable or scrape the x201

Sup /tpg/

So pretty recently my mum's laptop fried and she's asking me a lot of questions about what she should get. Usually she'll go into a electronic store and buy a $500-600 one, but I'm thinking about getting her a used Thinkpad instead.

She only needs something capable of web browsing, shitty Facebook games and emails. I'm not super familiar with Thinkpads, but I've got my eye on:

T430 240GB SSD: AUD$299

T430S 180GB/240GBSSD: $275/$315

She's interested but is worried about lack of warranty or wear and tear from a preowned product. Are these decent options?

here, I'm starting to like using this comfy outdated piece of shit

what the fug

Get her a T431s or T440s or something like that. Your mum won't care about an ULV cpu, but she will care about the ugly, shitty displays that are available for T430 and older. T431s upwards has very nice 1080p IPS options (1080p @ 14" really is good enough for the coming few years) and you can still upgrade the RAM and SSD and replace the keyboard in case you get a gunky one.
Should you decide to get a 768p model and upgrade the display yourself make sure to get the replacement display from AU Optronics and not the one from LG.

T440p w/ msATA SSD, SATA HDD, 16GB memory, 1080p IPS display and 6 cell battery.

If you care about portability and can live with an ULV cpu get a T440s.

Can anyone point me in the right direction for instructions on corebooting a T60 with an ATI Radeon card? Documentation online seems to be incredibly limited and rather vague, but from what I can gather I need to extract the proprietary VGA blobs from the stock Lenovo BIOS and make a custom coreboot ROM to flash with. Is that correct?

Is it worth getting a mid range customised T470

Yeah go for it

Okay so my research told me that df is still single thread so you're better off with a dual core cpu
I'd recommend a ULV i7 plus extended battery so
Normal T series maybe like a T450 plus extended battery

This Or W520/W530

Sure

Which i7? ULV over clock i5 """""" i7""""""" or full fledge quad core i7

Pretty good user

Depends on which customizations you get
Personally I'd say
Upgrade
>screen
>battery
>storage if you want m.2
>keyboard
>ram if you're not paying but if you are buy your ram separately
And leave everything else stock

Can a T430S take a slice battery? I can't find any ultrabay ones

Probably not
I don't see anyone selling it mentioning it as compatible

>T420 build (original keyboard etc.)
>USB 3.0, HDMI, VGA, etc.
>Coffee Lake i5, Intel ME disabled
>16GB DDR4 RAM, upgradable to 32GB
>2560x1600 IPS screen
>optional discreet graphics, upgradable
>1TB SSD, 4TB HDD
>atheros wifi card
>fully documented repair manual, everything is replaceable with no whitelists
>however, it's $2500+
Would you buy it?

How should I upgrade the keyboard? Can I do it in the online store?

Buy a compatible one and change it

I don't want to void the warranty though, and I have not problem with the newer keyboards

Removing the keyboard is simple and as far as I'm aware will not void the warranty.

Can you recommend me a keyboard then?

Is there anyone who can help me with this at all?

To do this look up the pci id using lspci and adapt CONFIG_VGA_BIOS_ID in menuconfig accordingly. e.g. "1002,7145

Ordered an ANSI keyboard replacement for my x220. Finally can leave this ISO shitkeyboard behind.

Also ati has open source drivers

Thanks, but you've copied that word for word from this link: linuxbios.org/Board:lenovo/t60

The problem is I'd already seen that, but it's as vague as fuck and I was wondering if anyone could elaborate or at least point me in the right direction.

Every piece of documentation I've read says that they do not. They are strictly proprietary and will not work with libreboot. They will work with coreboot after some configuration.

Macbook. Will last her 5 years at least and you won't have to "fix" it.

stop falling for the trannyboot meme. it will fuck up your system more often than not. especially with amd cards.

Notice I asked about COREBOOT, not Libreboot. I was asking about Coreboot precisely because ATI Radeon cards are not compatible with Libreboot.

You can install ivybridge CPUs in a t520, correct? Would installing one help the battery life?

learn how to read

my bad. should care more about autismboot but somehow I don't. guess the NSA sniffs my panties now.

There's nothing autistic about coreboot or libreboot. And could you fucking retards stop falling for the "NSA" meme? Vulnerabilities in proprietary software can be exploited by anyone, not just intelligence agencies.

>come to tpg
>shill macbooks

>5TB storage on a laptop inc. spinning dicks in 2017
>16GB RAM
>fucking atheros wifi when intel exists
>needing a manual
come the fuck on pajeet

What's vague about it?
Use lspci to find the pci id.
Change CONFIG_... in menuconfig according to your results.
You need to flash coreboot first. Probably would.

If you like the one already on board, just keep it. You are not forced to change it if you don't want to :3

Is the battery life of the t440p good as the t430? And it is possible to change the 1600x900 screen with a 1920x1080?

x250 with 2,6GHz and 1600x900. yes or no?

I'm not advanced enough to follow that without more information about each step.

is it wise to invest in:
ssd
a replacement latch
a battery
a x6 tablet dock
for my old and broken X61T?

no
ya

Will I be able to use it for about 6h with the extended battery? Or it's easier to use two batteries and switch them?

I'm currently using a slice battery in my ultrabay.

Does anyone know a good upgrade from the x230t? I'm looking for a 12-14" laptop/2-in-1 with stylus support. My x230t is starting to feel a bit sluggish when video editing.

yes

thinkpads are very comfy to use thanks to the tit point

>coffee lake

>>Don't buy anything OTHER THAN IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T, X, and W/P Series if you want the Real Business Experience™
HP user here :^)

I'll take my A10 E545 over anything from HP

Why are t60s so expensive?
What sane person would spend ~200$ on such an old laptop?

How about Panasonic or Getac

someone on ebay will probably buy it anyway user. no point in throwing it away at least.

i could just buy 15 regular t420('s) and swap over the ram and hdd every time one breaks.

so, no

>>however, it's $2500+
no

i guess
yes, ips fhd

It would work, but it may have flickering issues if they have not been resolved.

Christ I regret getting an E470. This thing is so shit.

Currently on an X230t, same laptop for over 5 years now. Gonna swap out the fan for the second time. I honestly don't see myself replacing this laptop for at least the next few years. How long are these things supposed to last for? I'm on my 3rd phone in the same period.

is there anything special needed to replace the spinny-drive of a w520 with an ssd? will just a plain as fuck 2.5in ssd work? I bought the meme and it's arriving today so hope it works out.

What should I put in the expresscard slot of my memepad?

Hi /tpg/

On this

Hell yea

why user

X220 with stock 1366x768 TN LCD here, should I upgrade to 1366x768 IPS($50) or 1080p IPS with the mod($130)?

>wifi stops working out of nowhere
>can't even enable it in network adapter settings
>reboot
>still doesn't work
>have to go through trouble of putting realtek drivers on usb stick from desktop
>stick it in thinkpad
>doesn't even detect the usb stick
>reboot again
>wifi is now magically working without me doing anything
I'm having shitty problems like this ever few weeks.

1366x768 is the resolution of business professionals

Price range:
$500 - $650 (USD)( I'd be willing to go a bit higher if it is really worth it)
Ideal:
a decent think pad that will hold up for a few years
8Gb of ram because I like having a million tabs open
720p or up screen res
hard drive at 500 gb or over
Upgradable(the more stuff the better)

Usage:
Linux is going on this thing so I don't need an OS installed at purchase
Programming(I need to be a koder like Karlie Kloss)
Web browsing
Some gaming(not anything insane but try to keep up with 4/3 year old games)
A place to put stickers to show I'm a Sup Forumsentooman
Does not need to be supper portable but a good battery life is ideal

Stipulations:
Needs to be bought for amazon(yes I know I should buy used)
Ideally amazon prime

Extra:

I'm open to really anything and just want to get a new laptop.

Thank you very much. I'll buy it!

the fuck can you even do on OS/2

Why? Why not.

No what does it do that wangbows and linux can't

Nothing. Its a novelty on an old thinkpad.

why not just use the old thinkpad, a light weight linux distro could still put it to use

Because I have enough useful computers, I wanted this one to be period correct.

How the FUCK do you autists deal with the absolutely DISGUSTING audio static and buzzing from the headphone ports on memepads

You idiots deaf or something?

Fuck off Sup Forums music is for children and niggers