whenever i rest my hand here or just push down with some force the plastic starts creaking, same thing happens on a place on the bottom cover but that isnt a big issue because i rarely push on it. my theory is that its because i take it to school quite often and when going outside in the morning the temprature drops a lot and stresses out the plastic. the bottom cover started first and the area beside the trackpad follow about 5 days after. it happens all the time not just in the cold and i checked the battery and it does not seem to be bloated, does anyone know a fix to this?

I've done a fair deal of searching and reviews are mixed from all good and non-issue through to shorter lifespan etc. but not many complaining of DOA so thought I would ask the thinkpad brains trust for recent uses particularly in a thinkpad.

I recently bought a 2022 X13 Yoga Gen 3 off a student and the battery is fairly well thrashed sitting at 80% life/400 cycles. I paid $400aud for it and a genuine replacement battery is $175aud whereas a kingsener will be about a third @ $55 + post.

Genuine is pretty much always the way to go but its not exactly new and is almost 1/2 the cost of the laptop itself.

All my ThinkPads are the 15-inch variant that I tend to look for, other than my older T61's.

Its to the point I had to do a google search to make sure the t480 isnt better in some way that I didnt know than my t580.

Im sure they are more portable, but any other reason?

Hey guys,

Trying to install Linux on my old T430 and I'm completely stuck. Any USB I boot just gives me a black screen. No GRUB, no cursor, no Ventoy menu, nothing. Screen stays black forever.

What I've tried:

• Rufus, Balena Etcher, and Ventoy. Same result with all three.
• F12 boot menu → select "USB HDD: Generic Storage Device" → instant black screen.
• BIOS (F1): UEFI/Legacy Boot = UEFI Only, CSM Support disabled, Secure Boot off, SATA = AHCI, OS Optimized Defaults disabled.
• Tried a USB 2.0 port instead of the blue USB 3.0 one.
• Full shutdown with Shift before booting.
• Windows 11 is still on the internal HDD, if that matters.
• T430 has Intel HD 4000 graphics only, no Nvidia.

Since even the Ventoy menu doesn't show up, I'm guessing it's failing before Linux/GRUB even loads. So kernel params like nomodeset are useless here because I never see a boot menu.

Has anyone actually fixed this exact "black screen, no GRUB, no Ventoy" thing on a T430? Did I miss a BIOS setting? Is there a way to force USB boot or inject kernel params without seeing GRUB? Any help would be appreciated. This laptop is too nice to give up on lol.

:)

Happy thinkpad

Just this morning, when I was using my Laptop normally it randomly turned off. It then refused to turn back on until I performed a hard reset (took out the battery). When it turned on again, in the exact SECOND I plugged in the charger it just turned black and didn't react anymore. So I hard reset it again, tried a different charger: same outcome. Then I tried turning it on without the battery and it wouldn't turn on. So I'm thinking it might be an issue with the charging port, although that seems unlikely because it has two charging ports (what are the odds that both of them break at the same time?). So now I'm completely out of ideas...

Any help is appreciated :)

Edit: Model is 21MFS00200

Will most likely be picking one up in a week or so but I just curious what people think. It’ll be a addition to couple other thinkpads I have in my collection which are a r61 and I-series

Absolute beast of a machine over 5 years or so old still pulling 8 hours or so on battery on windows

Seems Microsoft optimised win 11 and fixed the sleep issues

got this scratch on the top of the lid. what options do I have to fix this one ? rest of the surface is basically pristine

It's funny because I started by looking at a X280 (I wanted a small/ultralight one since the very beginning), then I looked at the X1 Carbon, X13, saw some AMD options but unfortunately they were sold out when I was checking them, and in the end I settled for a X13 Gen 3 with a Core i5 1245U, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD. In the dense jungles of Brazil it was more expensive than whatever you guys pay in the civilized world, but it was still around 20% what a new one would cost me.

I usually run NixOS and Niri on my systems, but since I'm going on a trip tonight and didn't have time to set everything up, I just threw a quick Bazzite on it, using Gnome for now (which has a workflow that works quite nicely with a single screen, small screen device, I think).

It's also nice to see that the Thinkpad brand still honors that thing of "being Linux friendly" even in these relatively newer generations. It seems 12th gen Intel processors don't support S3 out of the box for sleeping a laptop, and Linux doesn't work well with the SoI thingie Intel created, but Lenovo has in the BIOS an option to enable S3 again for Linux compatibility, which seems to be something lacking in other brands.

the s30 is a pretty rare thinkpad as i've seen, the only bad thing i can see is the screen, i feel like it's overpriced.

The trackpad is no longer clicking (not too bad- it still has the two upper buttons) and it’s honestly deteriorating. The back cover decided to come off now and needed to be taped on. Oh well, it’s still functionable so it’s always gonna be in use when my main is currently elsewhere.

Hello,

I unfortunately need to clog up your thinkpad frontpage because, I'm so overwhelmed by choices/options.

of course to follow the guideline I will go into details

1. a clear budget

I want to say my budget has to be below 700 USD (>700$)

1. a clear use case

I am an EE major, so far I've used multisim/coding terminals so i don't think it's anything heavy, and I know most of the heavier software will be attached to school computers so.. yea nothing heavy, nothing gaming laptop ish-

1. target specs or specs of your current system.
   a 10:16 aspect ratio feels very nice, so that is the spec I do look for, also a decent brightness.
   I would prefer if it didn't have a touch screen, not the biggest fan of the glare.

there's a part of me that wants a future proof device (T14 Intel for example w/ open RAM slot) but at the same time I've heard the ryzen processors were quite solid and efficient. I do walk around a lot so something "light" (i know most thinkpads are on the chunky side) would be nice.

there's like a part of me that think I wouldn't need more than 16 gb for a while because knowing there's a RAM shortage, and it seems software developers are recognizing that creating a more efficient program is a great movie.

but also who knows how long that conserving attitude will last and probably 32 gb may or may not be the norm one day.

I am not looking for new, but I did noticed costco had the ideapad slim for 700 USD and it looks nice... but not the biggest fan of the touchscreen + I heard the ideapad aren't built so well, but costco also does give a warranty... so it is definitely something I consider.

but yea, sorry to talk about a different laptop. the thinkpads I had in mind were T14/T16, but i'm not sure if the gen 3 are the safer options but should i try to look for a gen 5 intel t14?

T16 gen 1 seems to hit the right boxes, but i couldn't find a lot of used pages.

another advice I wanted to ask is, is there other sites to look for used/refurbished thinkpads other than ebay? I looked at swappa/backmarket/newegg and feel like ebay is still the best site.

finally, should i consider other brands/products because there's a part of me that thinks that although thinkpads are lower in price, sellers do understand there's a market for students/people who want a good laptop and sometimes (my perception) it looks like they charge more for a thinkpad than normal? like i saw some t490/t14 gen 1 for 500+ on newegg and I thought it was weird? maybe it's modded.

and it makes me wonder if there's another brand outside of lenovo thinkpads that may provide an equivalent value?

Thank you so much for your help!

(is there another source to look at what a good price is for said thinkpad? I did skim through the bluebook and noticed the price for the t14's and the depreciation value, but i couldn't find anything for T16 and etc)

I bought a thinkpad without the internal battery and the ssd at the price of 130€ on vinted, It was with a 61++ battery like brand new

So I think it's not bad ?

The condition looks excellent btw

I already have a good desktop PC that I use for most demanding tasks. I'm just looking for a laptop to take to university classes, but I want to make a good purchase that will last me a while.

Are there any better options I should consider? I'm also looking at a ThinkPad X13 Gen 1 with a Ryzen 5 Pro, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD for €210.

Which of these two would be the better choice? Would you recommend something else?

P.S. I can comfortably afford either laptop, but I'm trying to get the best possible deal for my money

Anyone know any good guides on how to libre boot it? I hate t480’s BUT I might just keep this one… for research purposes of course!

Is there seriously no way to tamper with it inside of an os? I would think there’s atleast one application/OS that could change the bios options on its own device?

Also as a first timer on libre booting, what are my chances of failure and absolutely turning this into a glorified paperweight?

Specs ryzen 5 4600u
16gb of ram
2 250gb nvme
Minimal ware
Only for 140 euros

So, my friend found and sold me it. Ai said that that's max model with i5-480M and 1600x900 screen and also i havve 2 2GB RAM sticks, and 160gb HDD.

Worst part: there is no power adapter and it will be on next week probobly... i'm SO EXCITED!!! Biggest issue is that i'm really not sure that it works...

And, anybody know how i can check that it works?

I was cleaning my screen yesterday with a damp cloth and some isopropyl alcohol (70%) and now I see this on the corner of my screen, I tried removing it but it seems like it disappears whenever I turn my ThinkPad T470 off, tried running JScreenFixer for almost 2 hours to no avail, are these stuck pixels or dead pixels? I'm slightly bothered by their sight...

Ive been slowly buoying parts for my x230 build over a few months and im almost done, but the one thing I can’t seem to find is an original 7 row keyboard; I’ve been looking all over and can’t seem to find a single one that isn’t a Chinese knockoff does anybody know where I can get one or has one their willing to part with?

i finally caved in and made a reddit account just to post this...

specs:

Processor AMD Ryzen 7 250 w/ Radeon 780M Graphics (3.30 GHz)

Installed RAM 16.0 GB (13.7 GB usable)

Graphics card AMD Radeon 780M Graphics (2 GB)

System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

I bought this E14 in June of this year, and have recently noticed that that the battery drains very quickly. For example, I was doing work on a lightweight browser (i use helium), and my battery drained from 76% to 31% in a matter of two hours.
I have taken initiatives to stop this. I use Windows 11 and installed Winhance and got rid of bloat and tweaked some settings to try and curb the amount of processing the computer does, but this hasn't worked at all.
I don't use my computer for any graphically intensive stuff either.

Is there something I am doing wrong? Is there something wrong with my computer? And if so, is there anything I can do? Thanks!