Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

[linuxguru]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

I scored a T420 with nVidia Quadro graphics and 1600x900 screen (only reason I bought it) long story short 2 days later my coworker broke it (we were trying to replace the panel which had lines in it)...

I snagged a T61p with nVidia Quadro FX 570M, 1920 x 1200 WUXGA panel, T7700 Merom C2D, 7200 rpm 16 MB cache HDD, new 3-cell battery, 90W adapter, Targus carrying case - not free, but inexpensive enough ($65 for everything) to take a crack at restoring it. The trackpoint buttons weren't working, and the hinges have some slack. I swapped keyboards and fixed the trackpoint, and will need to invest another $10..15 on new hinges from EBay and an additional 2 GB DDR2 DIMM. Everything works fine, including the Quadro - I know that it's prone to bumpgate, but if it has survived for 9 years, it will probably survive a bit longer - I'm not running intensive gaming or 3D apps on it. It could be upgraded to a Penryn C2D with 6 MB cache, but I don't really see the point. I could cut the dissipation a bit with the P8xxx-series Penryns, but they're mostly 3 MB cache or smaller.

Upgraded HDD to 320 GB and installed Fedora 21, XFCE, FireFox, etc. I also have a spare SATA caddy that can be installed in place of the DVD drive, allowing a dual-hard disk configuration (which could be an SSD as HDD0 and a large conventional SATA drive as HDD1). After I fix the hinges, I'll use it as my primary E-CAD setup for running Eagle, LTSpice, etc.

1920 x 1200 is great for seeing the big picture when optimizing PCB layouts, but the 4:3 1920 x 1440 displays available on some earlier Thinkpads are even better for CAD/CAM. Those 4:3 UXGA panels are pretty scarce, though.

To whoever originally owned and discarded this machine (most probably in Singapore), a big thank you from a friendly third-world neighbour across the bay at Chennai! I can really use these hand-me-downs ...

[linuxguru]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

Who needs Bluetooth? Useless! Both my Lenovo T420s and new Lenovo ultrabook have it. Never used it once!!

I rarely use it, but it's the easiest (and sometimes the only) way to browse and get files in and out of a Nokia smartphone (mostly a dinosaur now, but I still use an X2-01 for its 2-week standby time and QWERTY keyboard).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_X2-01

The X2-01 also supports GPRS/EDGE Dial-Up Networking (DUN) over Bluetooth, which allows connecting to the Internet from anywhere where there is a GSM phone signal. This can be a lifesaver in those parts of the world where ADSL penetration is relatively low, but with ubiquitous GSM connectivity (India is an example). The normal use-model for this is to access the net with a browser on the phone itself, but Bluetooth DUN allows you to keep the phone in your pocket and access the net with a full-function browser like Firefox on a full-function notebook - a huge difference in usability for most websites.

[shovenose]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

Who needs Bluetooth? Useless! Both my Lenovo T420s and new Lenovo ultrabook have it. Never used it once!!

[linuxguru]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

Okay..I have an question. How come a C2D Thinkpad,WITH SATA (so a pretty newer one) does not have Bluetooth ...

Bluetooth was an option on most Thinkpads. I have a T42 (Centrino) with Bluetooth, and another T42 without. I also have a T400 (C2D) with Bluetooth. In general, if you're not going to use Bluetooth frequently, you're better off without it pre-installed - it saves some power and also reduces interference with WiFi, giving better Wifi browsing bandwidth. There are very small USB add-on bluetooth adapters that are just as big as the USB plug, which are widely available on EBay, which you can use on notebooks without built-in Bluetooth.

[Dan81]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

Okay..I have an question. How come a C2D Thinkpad,WITH SATA (so a pretty newer one) does not have Bluetooth,but my ol' Acer Travelmate 800,that uses Centrino (and a S479 one at that!) has both Bluetooth and WiFi?

Just my 2 cents.

[goodpsusearch]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

i wish we had that problem of plenty here. Iirc, the d620/630 are also magnesium-shell units with slightly smaller displays than the d820. The d630 is socket-p, so it will accept a variety of penryn c2ds as upgrades, including a few with 6m l2. I would not consider it obsolete. It can certainly run a recent 64-bit distro just fine, especially if the ram is maxed out and the display is the 1440x900 option.

+1000

[Compgeke]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

It goes to show how cheap computers are in California. I seen plenty of D820\830s being thrown out even a couple years ago, and better systems aren't necessarily expensive either. Most people don't consider a D630 worth the effort of refurbishing being as they're not even worth $120. You can go in Craigslist and grab T410s for $150 or less.

[linuxguru]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

On the other note we scrapped a pallet full of D620s and D630s at work as they are simply useless crap now. We kept the nicest few for the $100 linux machines.

I wish we had that problem of plenty here. IIRC, the D620/630 are also magnesium-shell units with slightly smaller displays than the D820. The D630 is Socket-P, so it will accept a variety of Penryn C2Ds as upgrades, including a few with 6M L2. I would not consider it obsolete. It can certainly run a recent 64-bit distro just fine, especially if the RAM is maxed out and the display is the 1440x900 option.

[shovenose]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

I scored a T420 with nVidia Quadro graphics and 1600x900 screen (only reason I bought it) long story short 2 days later my coworker broke it (we were trying to replace the panel which had lines in it)... so he gave me a t420s in trade (because it was his fault it broke) which only has 1366x768 and Intel graphics so it SUCKS.... :'(

On the other note we scrapped a pallet full of D620s and D630s at work as they are simply useless crap now. We kept the nicest few for the $100 linux machines.

[linuxguru]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

I also have an X200 with a 2.4 GhZ ULV Core 2 Duo and a small SSD running Fedora 21 with XFCE. It's an extremely nifty browsing machine (nearly identical to the X201, except for the processor/platform). Right now, I'm waiting on a battery replacement for that machine and enjoying using the Dell D820 magnesium brick while that arrives.

I recently passed on buying an X61 with a 4:3 display, but it is workable if it has the 1400x1050 SXGA+ display option. It wasn't very common, but it was available. The X61 is even nicer than the X200/X201, except that the processor is limited to a Merom C2D, IIRC.

[chowder]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

I love old Thinkpads, they are some great laptops. I agree that the 4:3 screens on the older ones are a bit dated now though.

I use a 2010 X201 as my primary machine these days. 1st gen Core i5, 4GB RAM and an SSD. 1280x800 resolution, Bluetooth, pretty lightweight but solidly built, metal hinges, decent battery life. Great machine, and very quick. You can pick them up for peanuts nowadays, they retailed for ~$1500 when released

[linuxguru]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

I just got a pre-owned Dell Latitude D820 with the WSXGA+ 1680x1050 screen and a Yonah Core Duo installed in the Socket M. It's about 8 years old, but still in mint condition.

I must say that the D820 is a huge improvement in build quality over the earlier D6xx Latitudes. Perhaps I'm speaking too soon, but the solidity of the cast magnesium construction is impressive. These were procured and sold under a Govt. student laptop program 8 years ago in India, where one of the criteria was structural ruggedness. Here's a Youtube video of the Firewalk Test that the qualifying laptops underwent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5TF3gA43wA

If the hinges can withstand a 90-kg sales dude stomping on the lid, it's probably good enough for me. The only concern is the NVidia NVS110 GPU which was part of the bumpgate recall, but if it has lasted for 8 years, it has probably survived infant mortality and hopefully won't die that easily now.

I flashed the BIOS to the latest A10 from the Dell website, upgraded the processor to a Merom Core 2 Duo T7200, maxed the RAM to 4 GB and HD to a 320 GB 7200 rpm, and I'm happily accessing the net and typing on it right now. Huge props to Wistron or Quanta or whoever engineered this magnificent piece of machinery! It reminds me of old-school Mercedes or Nikon or a Boeing 737.

[ratdude747]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

There have been machines with all-magnesium cases from the dawn of the laptop age. Grid, which has the patent to the clamshell laptop design dating back to the late-'80s, used them in the Gridcase, 15xx series and many others. Toshiba used magnesium reinforcement in their plasma-display T31xx, T51xx, etc. Tadpole used cast magnesium-alloy cases for their Sparcbooks and RS/6000-N40 models.

Thinkpads have had magnesium and carbon-fibre reinforcement for many early models, including the 7xx series (which began at 700 and ended at 770z or something). They switched to Titanium reinforcement somewhere along the way, maybe with the T20. The T60 started with a Yonah Core Duo, and later switched to Core 2 with a second-gen refresh. I'd probably go with an X61/T61 over a T60. The former is incredibly compact, but packs much more power than an Atom-based netbook.

Personally, I prefer Thinkpad T-series machines over Dells, but that may be because the Dells I tried about 10-15 years ago were very plasticky and failed easily. I still have a Latitude D610 with a 1400 x 1050 screen, and while it still works, it has a numerous small cracks all over the place, and the keyboard had to be replaced once. I'll probably nuke the Ubuntu distro it's running now and install Fedora 21 or 22 in due course. In general, Dothan Pentium-Ms have lower TDP and longer battery lives than the Yonah, Merom and Penryn cores that followed, but Dothans are only 32-bit (which is fine with Fedora, if all that's needed is a browser machine).

The main machine I'm using to type this is a Thinkpad T400 with a Penryn C2D 2.4 Ghz/3 MB cache, 1440x900 widescreen, 8GB DDR3 and 320 GB SATA2, and the complaints I have are relatively minor - battery life of only 3 hours with an aftermarket Chinese 6-cell battery, and the white Thinklight (I prefer yellow or amber, which is less harsh). Both problems are fixable, though the Thinklight requires surgery and soldering. My next upgrade (eventually) would probably be to a T430 or similar, if it has the same 1440 or 1400 widescreen display.

BTW, if you ever use an aftermarket AC adapter for any notebook, you may want to crack it open and replace the secondary capacitors (usually 470uF/25v) and one primary auxiliary supply capacitor (47uF/50V or similar) with more durable ones. My current preference is Rubycon ZLH/ZLG. Also check the primary-side snubber circuit for more durable components.

I meant the first Dell Latitude with a belly pan like such.

I hate aftermarket laptop bricks with a passion...

[linuxguru]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

...The magnesium belly pan (the first model to have it, the D600/D800 used plastic with a Magnesium internal frame) scuffed a bit...

There have been machines with all-magnesium cases from the dawn of the laptop age. Grid, which has the patent to the clamshell laptop design dating back to the late-'80s, used them in the Gridcase, 15xx series and many others. Toshiba used magnesium reinforcement in their plasma-display T31xx, T51xx, etc. Tadpole used cast magnesium-alloy cases for their Sparcbooks and RS/6000-N40 models.

Thinkpads have had magnesium and carbon-fibre reinforcement for many early models, including the 7xx series (which began at 700 and ended at 770z or something). They switched to Titanium reinforcement somewhere along the way, maybe with the T20. The T60 started with a Yonah Core Duo, and later switched to Core 2 with a second-gen refresh. I'd probably go with an X61/T61 over a T60. The former is incredibly compact, but packs much more power than an Atom-based netbook.

Personally, I prefer Thinkpad T-series machines over Dells, but that may be because the Dells I tried about 10-15 years ago were very plasticky and failed easily. I still have a Latitude D610 with a 1400 x 1050 screen, and while it still works, it has a numerous small cracks all over the place, and the keyboard had to be replaced once. I'll probably nuke the Ubuntu distro it's running now and install Fedora 21 or 22 in due course. In general, Dothan Pentium-Ms have lower TDP and longer battery lives than the Yonah, Merom and Penryn cores that followed, but Dothans are only 32-bit (which is fine with Fedora, if all that's needed is a browser machine).

The main machine I'm using to type this is a Thinkpad T400 with a Penryn C2D 2.4 Ghz/3 MB cache, 1440x900 widescreen, 8GB DDR3 and 320 GB SATA2, and the complaints I have are relatively minor - battery life of only 3 hours with an aftermarket Chinese 6-cell battery, and the white Thinklight (I prefer yellow or amber, which is less harsh). Both problems are fixable, though the Thinklight requires surgery and soldering. My next upgrade (eventually) would probably be to a T430 or similar, if it has the same 1440 or 1400 widescreen display.

BTW, if you ever use an aftermarket AC adapter for any notebook, you may want to crack it open and replace the secondary capacitors (usually 470uF/25v) and one primary auxiliary supply capacitor (47uF/50V or similar) with more durable ones. My current preference is Rubycon ZLH/ZLG. Also check the primary-side snubber circuit for more durable components.

[ratdude747]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

half the time the slop is in the screen (annoying) but half the time the screws that hold the hinges into the base are loose and that's an easy fix.

Yeah the loose screw issue is annoying... that's not it this time. Then again that D630 has been to hell in back... not to mention it's one of the few D630's with nvidia graphics that isn't subject to bumpgate (it had a 2010 chipped mainboard installed under warranty before I bought it).

[shovenose]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

Dropped mine a couple times while open. Hinges not broken. They're a bit wobbly though (I have a pair or two I can pull from my bin of dead laptops)

half the time the slop is in the screen (annoying) but half the time the screws that hold the hinges into the base are loose and that's an easy fix.

[ratdude747]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

Dell Latitude d630 --> prone to breaking hinges confirmed

Dropped mine a couple times while open. Hinges not broken. They're a bit wobbly though (I have a pair or two I can pull from my bin of dead laptops)

[goodpsusearch]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

Dell Latitude d630 --> prone to breaking hinges confirmed

[shovenose]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

I'm surprised. At work we still sell d630s (only really cheap under the computers for the community program) and they come back all the time after being dropped. The hard drive is always bad and the hinges break.

[Compgeke]

Re: Old laptop Review (well, RANT): Lenovo Thinkpad T60

I've also dropped a non-toughbook off a car: my T410. Stuck it on the roof to go unlock the house and forgot it was there. No damage other than a couple nice scrapes and another chipped corner.