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Thinkpad!

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I'm trading a desktop with my brother for a pretty nice Thinkpad this evening. He runs a hosting service and one of his machines was a bit flaky and he needed a replacement.

What he's getting:

Duron 1600 (we removed it and replaced with an Athlon 1800)

768MB RAM

Adaptec 2940U2W controller card

2 x 36GB Compaq 10k RPM Ultra3 SCSI drives (run at 80MB/sec with the provided controller card, 160MB/sec with an Ultra3 card)

Video card

Network card

Enough properly placed fans to keep everything cool

I'm rather excited myself - my current laptop is an HP Pavilion N3402 with a Celeron 500 processor, 384MB RAM, 40GB hard disk and an 800x600 dual-scan display. While it's usable, something faster with a better screen would definitely be welcomed. :)

He mentioned the model to me, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is.

 
well, hopefully the thinkpad is a T61p with 4GB RAM and a 1600x1200 flexview display.

If not a T4x or a T2x would be epic, they're so cool :)

 
well, hopefully the thinkpad is a T61p with 4GB RAM and a 1600x1200 flexview display.
If not a T4x or a T2x would be epic, they're so cool :)
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Actually it's a T30 with:

2.4ghz P4 mobile processor

1GB RAM

20GB hard disk

ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 with 16MB dedicated RAM

1400x1050 LCD panel (gawd the text is tiny!)

DVD Combo drive

802.11g wireless replacing the original 802.11b with a hacked BIOS to use it

It's much faster than my desktop is now by orders of magnitude. It also needs some cleanup since his stuff is still on it.

 
Oh my. T30s aren't exactly the best of thinkpads, they have a few problems that you should be aware of. The main one being that the bottom RAM slot will come loose and cause the entire thing to not function, sometimes putting a shim on the bottom of the thing helps, but not always.

Congrats on the SXGA+ btw, I have one on my T40 and it's fantastic.

 
Oh my. T30s aren't exactly the best of thinkpads, they have a few problems that you should be aware of. The main one being that the bottom RAM slot will come loose and cause the entire thing to not function, sometimes putting a shim on the bottom of the thing helps, but not always.
Congrats on the SXGA+ btw, I have one on my T40 and it's fantastic.
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Thanks for the heads up about that. Fortunately I work on PCs and have done a fair share of laptops. When it craps out I'll wind up being the one to repair it. Even then I still came out ahead in the trade and it's loads better than the laptop it replaces.

I've also upgraded the hard disk to 40GB and did a fresh install of XP Pro. Before XP was installed I tried PC-BSD for an evening. Not bad, but I like Ubuntu better. Unfortunately Ubuntu didn't like the wireless card.

 
There is a wealth of information over on the thinkpad forums.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/

Go forth and communicate with fellow thinkpadders.

Someday I will replace my beloved T41p. God, I miss that laptop so much, it's sad. It's the perfect laptop (minus widescreen) and it can run OS X. Yeah baby.

 
Yeah, congratulations on the ThinkPad! I've got a newer one, and one from a lower product line (R61i) but I really like it, and predict that it'll be my main mobile computer for quite some time to come. The only real bad thing I've found out about ThinkPads is that they don't run Mac OS X, but that's not the biggest deal killer ever.

Aside from the ram problem, especially if it performs pretty well, it sounds like you've got a great deal, especially if you'll be able to perform the ram slot repair yourself whenever that becomes necessary.

 
Oh but they can run OS X.

That is why I want to get another T41P.

I had my old one at:

2GHz Dothan upgraded from a 1.7GHz Banias

2GB DDR RAM

128MB ATI FireGL T2 GPU <-- very fast!

120GB Main HD

100GB Secondary HD

802.11 b/g wifi

Bluetooth

14.1" 1400x1050 LCD <--- very pretty

Dual inputs (mouse, trackpoint)

Dual 9-cell batteries to run all day long

I sold it in a fit of stupidity.

I'd trade my Ti for one...Maybe throw in some other laptops as well.

 
They can't run OS X as well as Apple laptops can, unfortunately. Lenovo isn't using EFI firmware yet, and even then, there'll always be a bunch of little bits of hardware that are a little bit different than what's in Apple's portables.

I'd probably purchase in a heartbeat if a current Lenovo T, R or X were offered running Leopard fully supported. They're definitely not bad machines under Windows though, and I find Windows Vista on mine to be even enjoyable.

 
EFI doesn't matter. Virtually nobody is using EFI except for Apple (perhaps some companies may have just started; I don't know). So any non-Apple computer running OS X will have any disadvantages, actual or perceived from running with BIOS instead of EFI.

 
Interesting that another PC vendor would start using EFI, especially prior to Vista SP1 shipment (which will support EFI officially.)

The main thing about EFI is that OS X86 can run a lot better on a machine that has real EFI, because you can use the real EFI kernel, which makes *everything* run more smoothly.

 
Interesting that another PC vendor would start using EFI, especially prior to Vista SP1 shipment (which will support EFI officially.)
The main thing about EFI is that OS X86 can run a lot better on a machine that has real EFI, because you can use the real EFI kernel, which makes *everything* run more smoothly.
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I'm guessing this is the reason that Apple had patented that WGA-style checking system to make sure that OS X is running on actual Apple hardware only. I'm sure it would make it much more simple working with pretty much the same internal hardware (now supporting EFI) to get Leopard up and running.

As for Gateway doing this before SP1, there might be a feature that allows for PC BIOS emulation to still support older versions of Windows prior to Vista SP1, as well as some older open source operating systems that still are not including EFI support. PC manufacturers are probably rolling out the system with EFI to be ready for when Vista SP1 rolls out.

 
I'm guessing this is the reason that Apple had patented that WGA-style checking system to make sure that OS X is running on actual Apple hardware only. I'm sure it would make it much more simple working with pretty much the same internal hardware (now supporting EFI) to get Leopard up and running.
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Wonderful, more FUD-ridden anti-Apple slander...

Just like that doom-mongering over the TPM chip on early Intel Macs that was going to shackle us all to our desks and make us eat gruel until Apple... oh took it out...

As for Gateway doing this before SP1, there might be a feature that allows for PC BIOS emulation to still support older versions of Windows prior to Vista SP1, as well as some older open source operating systems that still are not including EFI support. PC manufacturers are probably rolling out the system with EFI to be ready for when Vista SP1 rolls out.
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It can't exactly be hard, Apple have had it working for almost 2 years now. All you need is an intermediary boot loader in the EFI firmware ROM. PCs with true 64-bit and EFI should have taken over years ago, but alas this is what you get for being part of the most held-back sectors of tech industry in the world [:(] ]'>

 
I agree completely.

If I could buy a Thinkpad pre-loaded with Leopard and have support for it, I'd be all over it. I would love to have some T61p widescreen goodness and OS X to make it look and run the way I want it too.

 
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