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Thinkpad A22p with Dock II (and external GPU) (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 1 month ago by lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de to c/thinkpad@feddit.org

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[–] lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I am really proud of this machine, I made sure to build the best variant possible:

modded IPS display from an A31p
dual boot with Windows 98SE + XP
BIOS downgrade for DOS compatibility
undamaged base cover from an A22m
original software from an A20p recovery CD that eggi36 recently uploaded to archive.org
hinges sanded down and made smooth again
nearly unused keyboard without any shinyness from an A21
replaced ADP3421 (the device originally had blink of death)
ThinkPad Dock II with a silent Noctua fan and an ATI Radeon 9250SE

It took me several years to make this machine as "perfect" as possible with various parts. While I have several other ThinkPads that I really like, the A22p was the very first notebook I ever bought and therefore has a special nostalgic value.

The only thing I'm missing is a 1GHz Mobile Pentium III, this one only has the 900MHz variant (for now).

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

Beautiful

[–] PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Are the Lenovo Think range any good? I was thinking about getting a ThinkPad from ye olden days to smash a Linux distro into it because they seem to have kept a lot of the aesthetic.

I was even drawn to the ThinkPhone a couple of years back but I couldn't see past the lower-than-midrange specs.

[–] lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

Most old Thinkpads are really sturdy and reliable and worth getting. I wouldn't recommend getting any devices from the A series, though. All of them have some pretty major flaws. The A22p has a faulty power delivery chip which often fails and makes it not turn on anymore (it will blink green for a second and nothing else, which is also called "Blink of Death"). The A31p has bad cooling on the GPU which makes the GPU die when you're stressing it out too much. The RAM slots also wear out over time and lose contact, so they need to be resoldered.

A series Thinkpads are really cool workstations, but it's also a pain to keep them in good shape.

For retro gaming, I'd recommend the T series (T20, T21, T22). Not the T23, it's a bit too new and has some compatibility problems. The R52 also works really well (and can be modded with a UXGA display from a T43p).

The 770 series is also really good, compatibility-wise, but they have a rubberized surface that tends to turn back into oil, which is really messy to get rid of. I also have a 560X, which is good for DOS and very early Win9x games. The 560X does not have any rubber on it.

Linux does not run well on all of these older devices. They often have S3 Savage and ATI Rage GPU's, which are not supported on modern distributions anymore. Even if you put Linux on it with an old Mesa 7.x driver, their OpenGL drivers are very rudimentary.

For Linux, I'd recommend T400 upwards. The ATI and Intel GPU's in those machines are well supported by Linux.

[–] PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk 2 points 4 weeks ago

That makes a lot of sense - I seem to remember wanting the T480 a fairly short time ago.

Thank you for the comprehensive rundown though, that's really really helpful. I wasn't sure if the Think range had died with IBM, but it seems not!

Cheers!

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ooh, that's an old Beastie. When's it from?

[–] lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's from 2001! :)

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 2 points 1 month ago

Nice!

I still have a 1999/2000 Latitude that surprisingly booted last I tried (a year ago) running Windows 2000!

And a ThinkPad X series from 2010 sitting in a box waiting to be reassembled with the new fan. Love the X series.