Oh, it's real wood... pulp. It was definitely real wood at some point in the past is what I'm saying. The big box was one of the left over display boxes this Gamestop raffled off at the midnight release.
Picked up this used Thinkpad: Specs: 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR2, GMA 950(lol), 1400x1050 IPS screen, 250GB HDD Love the screen and keyboard/mouse, will much better when college starts next year compared to my crappy Acer which was falling apart on all areas.
XPS 13. Quite the upgrade from nothing. Oh and that lamp I bought recently as well since it reminded me of the gentlemen's club in Suran.
Oh God! We use Thinkpads at work, and I honestly think they're pieces of shit. Seriously, we've had so many problems that I can't believe they still use them. Bleh. Thinkpads FTL that's for certain.
Are you kidding me? Me and a couple guys I work with use them and we love them (we work at a computer repair shop). I mean, this thing has been kickin' since like '06 and runs as fast as ever after I cleaned off the old user's junk. I ran tests on the hard drive and memory and they're in near perfect health. Thats really good for a 7+ year old laptop hard drive. Like, really really good. I took mine apart and the design, while not easy to work with, was very solid, especially compared to the shitty hp, dell, toshiba, and even the few Asus laptops I've opened. Dunno, maybe you guys use the newer models which I've heard aren't quite as good, but when IBM was making them and at least for awhile after Lenovo took over on its own, they were excellent machines. Also I got mine for $275, and I would take this thing over any $600-$800 modern HP/Toshiba/Dell pc any day.
Well, our company has used the T series from the T43 and so forth. Don't get me wrong, the computers still run, and we have replaced a bunch due to company standards changing. They've used T60-T61, T400-420, and a few more I don't remember the numbers on. I mean they are definitely better than when Lenovo took over, but I wasn't around when we had those so I don't really know how bad they were and how many we had to warranty, etc. I also agree with the Lenovo claim. Lenovo was terrible when they first took hold of the Thinkpad line. I mean they were seriously awful. We've had so many 400s that we needed to warranty, a whole slew of 410s needed warrantied a few months after we deployed them to the user, and the 420s all have different screen colors and have had a bunch of hardware problems as well. Don't get me wrong, they have been getting better over the years, but these machines are more unreliable than ever.
I have a 2006 Thinkpad like Krynn, and it's simply not possible to get another laptop with a great keyboard/mouse and 1050 pixels vertical resolution screen without glare for less than 800 euro(paid 170 for mine). And then you have the glossy screens, shitty build quality etc that's common these days. Mom has a Lenovo Thinkpad Edge 13 btw, which has a matte screen and a keyboard/touchpad about as good as the old IBM models. Seems like Lenovo has improved(or de-worsened) although still most of their new laptops have a 1366x768 resolution.
I bought mine because it is light. I wasn't going to treat my laptop as a desktop computer I leave at work. I do have a problem with the resolutions, but I really think it was an okay trade off. Also I was amazed last night after an hour episode of Game of Thrones, my laptop held battery strength at 97%.
Because IBM/Lenovo makes their own harddrives and memory... How much do you charge for your expert repairs, exactly?
Its not about the hard drive, its the caddy. Its held in with rubber mounts (and screws obviously) which minimizes damage from when the laptop is moved around while on. For most things we charge $29-$79 for labor, plus the cost of any parts required. Motherboard repairs and liquid damage cleanup are usually $99-$120. Also, IBM did make their own hard drives. Though I can't say if they used them in the Thinkpads.
Fair enough. But you cited the harddrive's age, which is irrelevant to how it's mounted. Shock absorption is only relevant to how the user was treating it. A laptop can be immobile for 7 years but still have a drive die: that's the fault of the drive manufacturer, not the laptop (barring the possibility of a badly-made memory controller killing it somehow). If you argued that Lenovos are better for rough and tumble computing, I would agree wholeheartedly. But citing a drive's age as a result of screw mounting is misleading. And to the counterargument: Drives are designed to withstand multiple-G shocks. Those rubber mounts are going to protect it from traumatic shock and abuse, not 7 years of small movement and bumps. I mean sure, I suppose if the drive is rigidly screwed to the laptop's main frame with absolutely no leeway or give it'll cause issues. But I've never seen a design that bad.* IBM hasn't made a harddrive since 2002. *Who knows. We only work with laptops from 2003 onward at my place.
Every hard drive will fail, I know. But most of the laptops we get that have failing hard drives are ones that are 3-4 years old or less. Some of the Gateway computers I've seen have them directly mounted on the frame. Most Pavilions or Inspirons and etc are basically just a caddy screwed onto the superstructures of the case, with nothing for shock absorption whatsoever so even if you just put it down hard, not even dropping it from an inch, can damage the drive. I've seen thinkpads come in here a few times (and working on them is how I came to like them so much), and I believe only one of them was having issues due to a bad hard drive. I mean, I interact directly with customers, and I've seen how they handle the laptops. I have no doubt that they're failing because how they handle them, so thats why I was impressed that when I bought a used T61 (well used, according to the description) it had no drive issues. That was my point. That it likely survived usage by people like our customers who just plop their shit on a hard table and spin it around very non-delicately to show people their stupid shit. So what do you guys charge for your repairs btw? I'm curious how our pricing compares. I've looked up how much people charge for format/reloads online, and people charge like 80 bucks for that shit, like wtf.
Milk the morons, why not. I like the sleek look of the Thinkpad, but I'd prefer widescreen. More importantly, I can't stand that the keyboard is so far in like that. Haven't really used one so I'm just talking on what I see. Some guy at work bought a Vaio and the screen was some small ass 1366x768 bullshit, and it was slow as shit because of all the bloatware. My Dell has been running 7 yrs now and it's showing its age a bit, but still kickin (almost faster than the Vaio).
The thinkpad comes in widescreen format, I have one. The keyboard isn't that much further inset than most, but in Dinn's pic it seems a bit exaggerated because of the angle of the pic and the non-widescreen format which makes it seem elongated. I dont think you'd mind it while using it.
We are the Borg. All your computers are belong to us. We charge nothing on service, only for parts (and at that, pretty cheap depending on how common the part is). The only caveat is we don't support non-OSS. Not so helpful, I know.
lol, crazy Canadians and their free services. EDIT: Also, lol at all these signs We could do with putting up some of those. Especially the one about people not reading shit and blaming us for it.
My girlfriend and I just placed an order for a TV/Fireplace stand for our living room. It's being delivered on Thursday but heres a link of what it looks like. Theres also a coffee table, and two end tables that are coming with it. http://www.raymourflanigan.com/bennett-66inch-tv-console-with-26inch-fireplace-399015556.aspx
Bought a few more polo shirts for work, and five pairs of really awesome socks. Going to not use my cheap ass walmart socks for anything other than around the house wear. Even then I might not, since these new socks are so ****ing comfortable and non shitty. I got so tired of buying crappy non durable clothes a month or so back, that I'm not just going to do it anymore. I've gotten into a habit of only buying quality items for everything else, so why not clothes too. I've had too many pairs of pants rip while doing heavy lifting work on my job. And the shirts and my under armour undershirts keep me surprisingly comfortable throughout the day despite all the heat and sweat I generate doing all the physical labor I have to. The hat, knife, and not shown camelbak better bottle came free as bonus items. Hugh looks on approvingly. Disapproving of my shitty cell phone picture quality though.
Alpha nerd post incoming. Bought one of the last available Shruthi-1 4 Pole Mission synth kits last week, and finally finished building/fixing it. It's a DIY digital synth with analogue filters. The best of both worlds. Let's get started, shall we? Every part in all its glory. The filter/PSU board and the digital control board. Everything analogue is on the left one, everything digital on the right one. Page 1 of parts list in background. A closer look at the filter/PSU. You'll notice there's a lot of places for resistors. Oh god, the resistors. Despite MacReady's protests, it is in fact late spring. Hmm, the resistors took a lot less time than I thought they would. By far my favourite part. The BOM asked for 5% European polystyrene capacitors, but **** that, I got some radio transceiver-class silver mica caps. Good to 500 volts and about 70 degrees C. Sexy. Skipping ahead, here's the filter/PSU done. The metal bits on the right are all the cut connectors. Completed control board. This is where I started messing up. I accidentally put the interface pins (everything on the left edge of the board) in backward. I had to resolder all the pins and put them on the other side of the PCB, hence the excessive flux runoff and slight scorching. Resoldering pin arrays with a point iron is hell. Oh well, no one's going to see the underside anyway. The pieces of the German made, laser etched plexiglass case. Ready for dinner. The first board attached to the case. Digital Control/BDSM board filling in all the filter board's slots. Oh baby. First power on is a success. All the digital related stuff worked, which was good news. Unfortunately, filters 3 and 4 didn't work at first. I spend most of last week identifying part by part where the problem was. Today I just resoldered a few points and it finally worked. My hasty, pretty badly done solder job for the front eye LEDs. Really tough to work with an iron in an enclosure that small. Burning cable plastic smells like death. And hey presto, it's done.
Thinkpad: The Official Laptop of Valvetime.net Also neat thing you made there. Dont know what it does, but looks like you done good. I want to find something like that to practice soldering on, just need to find something I'd use.
More like official laptop of anyone who wants to get actual work done. Unfortunately mine's from the shitty SL series. Doesn't have a metal frame so there's tons of keyboard flex. It's a half-analog synthesiser. Can make a lot of cool sounds. Well, you could make your own oscilloscope, which would be dead useful... for other soldering projects. But it might take an oscilloscope to properly calibrate a home made oscilloscope. Sort of a chicken and egg thing.