ThinkPad

Hey, Lemmy. I've recently broken my ten-year-old MacBook in a mishap involving some ionic cleaning fluids, and I am looking to replace it with a ThinkPad.

I am currently at uni, studying cybersecurity, and this particular course also has a lot of software development at the start. I also would be looking to play some videogames (nothing too taxing though; really just Minecraft, Terraria, Stardew Valley, etc.; assuming I don't go for FreeBSD instead of Linux), watch some videos, and do a bit of video editing.

The device being replaced was a mid-2014 MacBookPro11,1 A1502. Compared to my other hardware, though, this is a powerhouse.

I have already looked at a few models (namely the T450 and the X1 Carbon Gen. 10), but these have always had a snag or two that are a deal breaker.

Of course, I will be running either Linux, BSD, or some other *nix.

In terms of specs, I would be needing:

• At least 8GB of RAM (or upgradable to/past)
• A CPU equal or better than the i5 in the Mac
• At least 256GB of storage (SSD preferable, but not essential)
• 1400x900 resolution or higher
• WiFi drivers available for BSD
• Decent battery life
• Screen must be less than 17", or it won't fit in my bag
• Ideally no more than five years old; although an older ThinkPad could be doable
• Either AMD-based or made after 2018 (to prevent Meltdown attacks, should I decide to run Linux-libre or something else without microcode updates)

Unless a device is ridiculously expensive, the cost shouldn't be a problem. Also, I live in the UK.

So, any suggestions?

So, I've dug up my corebooted t440p and decided to check if it'll work with the battery from my t480, and it did! Well, sort of.

Since coreboot also replaces the embedded controller firmware (mb sometimes they keep blobs of it, idk, but certainly not in case of t440p), we won't get those nasty "battery not supported, pay me" messages even if they've changed the verification since then.

However, I suspect some batteries may be unprepared for the power draw of earlier models. I've tested it on 2 batteries, one was a 22wh → 72wh conversion with BMS built on top of a cheap controller with rather unpleasant feedback from battery repair people; the other one was a more trustworthy 72wh clone powered by bq8050. The latter one worked ootb, while the former somewhat worked: fine in uefi, fine in grub, drop voltage to 0 as soon as the os starts loading → poweroff. If the power supply is plugged in during boot, the battery works fine (may drop voltage again under load, haven't tested it myself).

Soo, basically the use case is that you can try to retrofit the guts of a newer battery into older thinkpads if those run core/libreboot.

In an effort to keep my X230 snappy for a few more years until I find/make a newer laptop to my liking, I finally caved in and bought an i7-3612QE board. Posting some observations and thoughts based on the questions I had prior to buying. Previous CPU was the i5-3320M.

Setup

• Debian 12
• XFCE
• 16GB DDR3L
• Two SSDs
• Hyper-threading disabled
• 1vyrain BIOS with classic keyboard EC patch

Performance

• Not literally twice as fast, but the improvement is quite noticeable
• CPU no longer seems to struggle while loading Javascript-laden websites
• Rarely hits 100% CPU usage, even on Youtube (sadly bloated enough to be a sort of benchmark)
• Single-core tasks are only slightly better than before

Thermals

• High 40s at idle to mid 60s when busy
• Feels cooler compared to previous CPU, which I assume is due to the CPU usage being lower across all tasks.
• Did not upgrade to the AVC cooler. Toshiba cooler works well and is quiet as ever.

Battery

• About 4.5 hours of office tasks and light browsing from full to empty with an aftermarket 55 Wh 6-cell at 98% health
• Wattage in the mid 9's at idle with brightness at a comfortable level for a well-lit room. Increase from low 8's with the i5-3320M.
• When doing actual work, wattage hovers from 11 to 15 watts
• 16 to 18 watts watching Youtube videos
• SLT1 IPS display does consume ~1 W more than TN. I installed tlp but left it on default settings.
• 65W Lenovo charger only works when in sleep mode or shut down. In normal use, however, it will not draw the full 65 W. A 90 W charger or a 65 W GaN charger that the X230 believes is 90 W will both work (my 65 W GaN charger worked well and did not overheat, YMMV)

Other

• Make sure to enlarge the cutout on the black sticker on the underside of the cooler since the 3612QE die is larger
• EC flashing will require a 90 W charger or a 65 W GaN that the X230 believes is 90 W.
• Factory CPUs have BGA package underfill. I have not checked for myself, but it is likely that the upgraded CPU does not have underfill. This should not affect day-to-day use, but the lack of underfill will make the BGA solder joints more susceptible to fall and vibrational damage. Liquid may get trapped underneath in the event of a spill.

Value

• With shipping and taxes, the upgrade costs about 200 USD and takes 2 hours. The total cost-to-date on my X230 built from parts is around 500 USD.
• Do not think of this upgrade in terms of how much performance you get for the price. Think of it like upgrading and daily-driving a classic car. If it brings you joy to daily drive an X230 as it does for me, then it may be worth it.

Just bought thinkpad t480 and have some problems with my usb devices: with my mouse and keyboard. Mouse and keyboard just don't work for 1 sec randomly. Fresh installed arch linux.

I was thinking about something like the P73.

My use case is a stationary and docked laptop connected to an external monitor. I would mostly be using it conjunction with my desktop PC for torrents, watching 1080p videos, and browsing the web.

Being able to have large amounts of storage is nice. The T440P with the disc drive to SSD upgrade was nice for dual SSDs.

I don't think I really need to upgrade that much but it would be nice to be able to do some light (2010 era) gaming when I travel or have less lag when I fire up GIMP.

Easy reparability, eGPU support, USB C ports, and upgradeability/modability are things that I would consider bonuses but might not be needed depending on the system.

Anyone here use an X230 with the quad-core mod? I'm looking into it and was wondering about the reliability and battery life compared to the stock i5-3320M.

I have an X61 Tablet and I'd like to get the original Lenovo recovery media for XP tablet edition (I think version 2005) mostly so I can get all of the drivers and functionality working.

I currently have an XP Pro install but that doesn't have any of the special tablet features. And my xp tablet edition install decided it doesn't want to work anymore and BSODs on start, and I don't feel like dealing with the hunt for old drivers.

Does anyone know where or how I can acquire isos or even the actual recovery CDs for this machine?

I was thinking to buy a e16 gen 1 with either amd ryzen 7 7730u or intel 7 1355u.

Which one has a better battery life? and Which one has better performance?

If anybody has any knowledge it would be great help. Thanks in advance!

Hello good folks in the Lemmy Thinkpad community!

I have recently built a T420 from parts. Things have been running well. Since it's mostly from scraps, it's far from perfect, but it works.

One of my pet peeves is some discoloration along the edges and corners of the top cover. I am guessing this is the part where the paint got worn off from bumps and frictions. Is there a way to restore it? I honestly don't care about the rubberized coating, but having that consistent matte black would be really great.

I was thinking of that plastic model paint. Would it work well?

Also, the back part of magnesium chassis that's supposed to be painted black seems to have its bare color exposed.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18205906

I have an old ThinkPad T42 coming my way. I plan to use it alongside my daily driver mainly for reading, emacs, and retro gaming. I will be dual booting a lightweight flavour of Linux (TBD) and Windows 98 on it.

However, I am a bit concerned about its ability to handle today's internet, with all of its heavy websites.

I would love to hear from those of you who are still using old ThinkPads (or other vintage laptops) in 2024. How do you make it work? Do you use lightweight browsers, specific configurations, or lightweight websites to get around the limitations of older hardware?

Are there any specific tips or tricks you can share for getting the most out of an old ThinkPad on the modern web?

Looking forward to hearing about your experiences!

I've replaced cells in my fake battery a few days ago, and while recalibrating the bms I noticed what looked like it trying to overcharge the cells -- the voltage went up to above 12.6v and stabilized at around 12.9 (which amounts to ~4.3v per cell and is 0.1v above what cell manufacturers generally recommend). Idk if that's the intended behavior or clone manufacturers trying to shorten the lifetime of said batteries, so if the owners with genuine batteries can provide that info, I'd really appreciate it.

On linux, you can check this with cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT*/voltage_now (as your usual user, those files are world-readable); not sure about windows, tho.

Hello everyone. I just got a new battery for my T480 from my work supplier. It is a Greencell LGC 11 Model: 01AV424 and I get a BIOS message before my bootloader:

The battery installed is not supported by this system and will not charge. Please replace the battery with the correct Lenovo battery for this system. Press the ESC key to continue.

Once I plugged it in and booted up the battery had 74% charge, and I let it discharge until 6% without the AC adaptor plugged in as per the instructions, so that I could then fully charge it (and repeat the process 3-5 times). However, once it reached 6% and I plugged it in it wasn't charging and ended up dropping to 1% where it remains even now. Below I'll include outputs from some commands.

Everything I read online mentions flashing the EC chip to whitelist the battery, or changing the BIOS to something like coreboot. I'd like to avoid flashing any chips unless absolutely the only option, in case something goes wrong and I brick my motherboard. I've tried also resetting the EC chip by pushing the button in the pinhole at the bottom of the laptop with a paper clip, but with no effect.

$ upower -e          
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/line_power_AC
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT1
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/line_power_ucsi_source_psy_USBC000o001
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/line_power_ucsi_source_psy_USBC000o002
/org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/DisplayDevice

$ upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT1            
  native-path:          BAT1
  vendor:               LGC 11
  model:                01AV424
  serial:               14050
  power supply:         yes
  updated:              Tue 11 Jun 2024 12:46:25 EEST (19 seconds ago)
  has history:          yes
  has statistics:       yes
  battery
    present:             yes
    rechargeable:        yes
    state:               pending-charge
    warning-level:       none
    energy:              0.41 Wh
    energy-empty:        0 Wh
    energy-full:         22.23 Wh
    energy-full-design:  22.23 Wh
    energy-rate:         0 W
    voltage:             10.296 V
    charge-cycles:       1
    percentage:          1%
    capacity:            100%
    technology:          lithium-ion
    icon-name:          'battery-caution-charging-symbolic'

As you can see the state it is stuck in is "pending-charge"

Any help would be appreciated. Also, if you need any additional info please let me know and I will provide it.

EDIT: Supplier will pick it up from my work in a couple days and try to solve the issue. Hopefully that works, otherwise I'll have to see about flashing the EC chip with the patched firmware to remove the whitelist.

Battery is dead – otherwise fully functional.

I plan of having a maxed-out T420 for fun. Thinking that Firewire isn't particularly useful these days, but a second LAN port might. The Sub Card of T430 has a LAN port along with the USB and I was wpndering whether or not it's compatible with the T420.

I'm thinking of buying myself a ThinkPad to run Linux on it. I've never owned one, and never ran Linux on anything. What are the differences between these two besides the size and numpad? Should I know something?

I am looking to get a secondhand ThinkPad as my secondary laptop. Im currently undecided between X1 yoga g3, or x280.

I want a lightweight laptop to replace my old t440. I like yoga because it's a convertible and this may be useful to watch movies in tent mode or use it as a tablet to browse internet. My main concern is the power button which I hear is easy to break and impossible to fix.

X280 is more lightweight and compact, but the screen resolution is lower than x1.

Both have soldered ram, so not upgradeable. I would be getting an 8GB laptop as 16gb is hard to find around here. Does cpu make a big difference? I will be installing Fedora on it.

I recently purchased a 2nd hand Thinkpad X1 Carbon with i7-7600U, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD and a 1440p screen. I installed EndeavorOS on it and I noticed, in plasma 6, that the scroll in Firefox is a bit sluggish; after I installed hyprland and, with a lot of effect active like blur, it does feel sluggish too. Is that normal for this type of hardware? Is there some settings I could tweak to improve the performances?

I recently bought a Lenovo L440 Thinkpad. Keyboard backlit and touch pointer arent working. Have installed Linux Mint. Can anyone help?

Intel Core Ultra processors up to Core Ultra 9 185H

Up to 64GB LPCAMM2 LPDDR5x 7467MT/s

2 x PCIe 4×4 M.2 2280 SSD

Integrated Intel Arc

NVIDIA RTX 1000/2000/3000 Ada Generation GPU

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060/4070 GPU

16-inch 16:10, 91.7% STB ratio FHD+ IPS, 400nit, 100% sRGB, Low Blue Light

QHD+ IPS, 500nit, 165Hz, 100% sRGB, Low Blue Light

UHD+ OLED Touch, 400nit, 100% DCI-P3, Low Blue Light, HDR400, Dolby Vision

@thinkpad :vinyl: rip for my funkwhale 🎵

Installed a sticker on my ThinkPad X1 nano.

Debian stable install, everything working pretty well.

Not sure if it matters but I have Libreboot installed. It's the slot located next to the drive slot.

Also any other upgrade recommendations while I'm at it? I have maxed out the RAM and have an SSD. I am wondering if I should upgrade the WiFi card. I don't know if there are any limitations there.