I've had my T440p disassembled like this. I've upgraded the display, WiFi, storage, and trackpad, as well as a good cleaning and fresh thermal paste. Sadly, it seems all the higher-end ThinkPads have gone ultra-thin, and all but the storage is soldered in. Makes me appreciate the older ThinkPads more.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

The workstation models still have a fair bit of modularity but it mainly those customers that still really use it. I think the average person today feels the same about taking apart their laptop as they do their car's engine.

I really like the beginner friendly approach of this video! I think it is very important to encourage people to buy/repair/customize used laptops.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for the kind words! I hope it does exactly that.

Ohh my god, my favorite ThinkPad. I had at least 4 of them over the years. Once I fitted a (officially absolutely unsupported) Core 2 Quad Q9100 CPU to it, it was an extremely cool mod. Also I restored a machine which literally spent years underwater (I wrote a Reddit post about it some years ago) - I still have this one, and use it sometimes but it’s not my daily anymore. Glad you did a review of it :)

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

I'm glad I did too. Thanks for sharing your stories!

@ruxcooking

2 жыл бұрын

How did you do that? Modded bios?

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

Not sure if a BIOS mod is needed for that CPU but even if it is, very easy to do on these machines.

@winMANhun

2 жыл бұрын

@@ruxcooking Yep, it’s necessary, and you also have to solder a jumper wire to the board, and isolate 2 pins on the cpu itself. At least years ago this was the way.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

I stand corrected, a bit involved. 😁

thank you for the detailed upgrades info!

@LaptopRetrospective

10 күн бұрын

You're welcome!

The T400 is a real looker! Speaking of tinkering on a budget, I've been working on a T430 restoration project and it's going pretty well. Bought it for parts, had a lot of cleaning done, blew a backlight fuse, needed a new main board, had fun (not!) with the maintenance diskette software, and it was ready to go. FHD screen w/ a 3630qm & 45W heatsink, 16gb 1600mhz ddr3l, 2 ssds, Sparky Linux XFCE, fluorescent orange ThinkLight (seems close enough to amber) -- used transparent vinyl tape which comes in so many colors, and the thing is screaming fast. Waiting for a classic keyboard to shave down and get it in there.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

That's quite a bit of work but I have to ask, why turn your ThinkLight amber?

@potato_jesus23424

2 жыл бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective It's just more pleasing for me to look at. I like the warm color in the dark/at night. Do you like the stock look it comes with?

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

The original amber light was a cut cutting measure and isn't as nice but if you put a filter on the nicer LED to make it amber that might work.

@potato_jesus23424

2 жыл бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective Right -- aren't the ones in the more premium lines brighter than the original amber part? They look it from lots of pictures. It turned out pretty nice with the tape. Some people use kapton on theirs to make it yellow and that also looks pretty neat.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

As far as I know, the original amber light was mainly in the less expensive lines in some cases or lines that weren't previously established. Generally speaking they were always dimmer than the white counterparts.

This has been super helpful. Thank you for sharing all this info! Now I can get to it bringing it back to life. Will make a very nice Linux machine I feel.

@LaptopRetrospective

3 ай бұрын

Cheers, keep us posted.

Excellent video. Thank you.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it!

I have a T500 and that has a T9400 processor, ssd, 8gb ram, and probably the brightest screen I've seen for the era a 1920x1200 wuxga with led backlight, it's like a small cinema screen😊😊 with switchable graphics. Bought for £30.00 as it had a fan error. Took fan out cleaned it and added some oil to fan bearing and it's perfect.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

Excellent. Glad to hear you got it up and running.

@wombat1238marsupial

2 жыл бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective Yeah! I assume when some people are confronted with a fan error that causes the machine to shut down they fear the worst and sell it has either spares repair or a non runner just to get rid of it.

@beickus

Жыл бұрын

t500 here - t9550, 8g, 1280:800 (1680:1050 recently failed) - use it since summer of '09

The T400's successor, the T410, was the last Lenovo to use the 16:10 screen. I've got one in my collection and you will have to pry it from my cold dead hands before I ever give it up. Its big brother the T510 has the 16:9 screen.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

The last of that era. Now they've made a huge comeback.

Hi! I want to ask a few question, first, I curious what module you fitted in the turbo memory slot? since you only mention the WWAN and WiFi module, and second, does the WWAN card have an actual PCIe bus? I've read the schematic from ATI variant (mine is iGPU only) that sugessting there's PCIe lane going to WWAN slot, but when I put working Wireless card it's recognized in device manager but wont function properly. Anyway, love your videos!

Very cool laptop!

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

Agreed.

Thanks for helping ;)

@LaptopRetrospective

Жыл бұрын

You're welcome!

Do you have any recommendations for getting older thinkpad displays? I've got a x61 that's in perfect condition other than a destroyed LCD :( would be nice to have as a fun showpiece for when I don't have the backpack space for a larger laptop or something.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

As these machines get older and older, part supply dries up. eBay is a good source sometimes but others you'll end up hitting up recycling or eWaste places or buying "for parts" units.

so for all these years i had t400 instead of r61. thats why im so confuse because my laptop cam with r61 screen and bezel but the bottom part is t400 which makes me confuse why the screws placement is different with r61.

@LaptopRetrospective

11 ай бұрын

Sounds like you have some kind of FrankenPad there.

Hello, I love this machine, it's probably the one that served me as a daily for the longest time (I bought my first one in 2014 ans I replaced it three months ago with my T420s). It was beginning to struggle on internet, despite the 8 GB of RAM, the SSD and a T9400 CPU. But all in all, 10 years of use are enormous for a laptop. It's still functional, it'll join the rest of the family. My friend gave me two other ones last year. They were in good shape but not everything was functional. I disassembled the two ones to make one in perfect condition. It's not as "powerful" as 2014 one but still usable (SWGA screen, 4 GB of RAM, P8600). Still a PC I can take with me to go out, without fear because it's very sturdy. Disassembly is easy and the machine is well-thought. Very close to the T61 but not every component can be shared between the two (the apprearences would say it is but it's not). I have a 6-cell new aftermarket battery and the autonomy is around 2 hours. The nice thing we gain after the previous laptops is that the screen is LED backlit. On the long run, it's better than CCFL. The T400 is known also for problem with USB ports. The one just at the side of the ODD seems to frequently have troubles and the ones at the left are prone to break : if you search this laptop today, I would say to verify that. And also, for the models with the Radeon graphics, if they are still OK (if they are dead, there's still the IGP, but not as powerful as the Radeon). It's also, as you said, picky with RAM, but nothing new under the sun with machines equipped with Core 2 Duos and DDR3. W.

@LaptopRetrospective

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for sharing these excellent tips!

@wilou62

Жыл бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective Glad to write about Thinkpads. :) Watching at your videos is truly inspiring and makes me thinking : if I, too, was shooting little videos about Thinkpads ?! I have enough machines to have a decent amount of content. But if I do that, I must find a way of presenting the laptops from an angle not seen elsewhere, I don't want to do something that is already done (and I don't want they say I'm copying what exists already). There is so much to say (and I have probably at least one little personal story with each one of my PCs). I'll be on holidays in two days, I'll have a little more time to think about all that ! :) Again, thanks for the nice content !!! ;) W.

@LaptopRetrospective

Жыл бұрын

Feel free to connect with me over email, perhaps I can help.

My T400 had the Radeon that was on it's last leg and a LED panel that had the LEDs bleeding through. I cleaned it and serviced it well, then sold it off with some profit aaaand got a X200. That damn keyboard is addictive to use.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

Love the X200 form factor.

@NiGhtPiSH

2 жыл бұрын

"They don't make 'em like they used to" is more than true in the case of laptops and nearly all consumer goods these days. Thin and light is good, but serviceable and repairable is better. Actually I'm thinking of replacing my X230 with a T470, since it's really the last of the repairable ThinkPads. Keyboard, batteries, SODIMMs, NVMe drive all accessed easily. The X200 will stay always ready for emergencies.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, as the computer has turned into an appliance, the consumer that works buy one has changed. That in turn has changed the computer.

Will the T400 run Linux MX23.2 Libretto? I just got this laptop for free. I need a power adapter and the screen may be questionable. I have no idea if it has a HD or not.

Thanks following

@LaptopRetrospective

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the support Carrie!

I just bought a T400 for a very very and again very cheap price, actually the owner didnt want it anymore, So my plan is to put a linux on it with a few upgrades and some retrogames and some emulator, btw USB joystick is on the way. Its just in case if the internet goes dead.. thank you for the video.

@LaptopRetrospective

Ай бұрын

You're welcome, enjoy your laptop.

@10:51 when you take off the battery, there's a small rectangular sticker reveled on the left side. What is that? Is it always blue? I thought it was a water damage indicator, and I might have got it wet somehow, but after looking at a couple videos, this looks normal.

@LaptopRetrospective

6 ай бұрын

Are you talking about the pull tab ejector for the SIM card?

@Kovaelin

6 ай бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective no, it's further left. It's that small thin sticker that looks like it has a dark blotch but may have been entirely white at some point.

@Kovaelin

6 ай бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective it's about halfway between the sim card slot and the power jack.

I've owned a few T400's throughout the years. I can definitely say the AMD video does fail, but luckily you can switch to the Intel video in the BIOS and it will work fine. The T500 has the same problem.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, I read quite a few cases of it while reading up on this model.

@juanignacioaschura9437

2 жыл бұрын

Late 2000's post-RoHS dedicated mobile GPUs were flaky across the industry, it seems...

I have a bunch of Thinkpads from the OG Black Beauty to this T400 Boat Anchor to a i7 Creme Dela Creme. The interesting thing about my T400 is it's OEM CPU is the Intel Centrino 2. Is it just because they were using that name in certain regions of the world & not others or what?! It isn't a "UK Version". Appears North America by all means.

@LaptopRetrospective

4 ай бұрын

There are all sorts of little odd things during that era weren't there? 😂

@makaveli087

4 ай бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective It is. Apparently "Centrino 2'" is just a "Refreshed" Core 2 Duo (Or whatever!). The OEM Decal on the unit is Centrino 2 although, now that I think of it, I bet Windows recognizes it as Core 2 Duo. All around horrible CPU's by any name lol but still.

Very sharp looking machine.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

Indeed!

The Ultrabay Slim is SATA? Interesting.

Hey again, hope you are doing well, I've got a small issue with my laptop now, I think my wifi card is going off but I'm not sure wifi works very slow really, I haven't tried wifi driver solutions because I simply couldn't find any, do you think what can it be and how to solve this? and is 6% wear on battery normal on the battery after almost 2 months of usage?

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

Battery wear first, it depends if it is a legitimate battery or third party as the quality of cells used on on the third party market can vary significantly. Also knowing how many cycles it has completed in that time is essential. As for the WiFi card, which one do you have inside? Keep in mind that these early WiFi cards cannot be compared with newer ones.

@bag2963

2 жыл бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective The battery is an original but I don't know the cycle and unfortunately I don't know which car is inside either, but it is most likely stock one.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

What OS are you running?

@bag2963

2 жыл бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective Windows

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

You can run a battery report with the powercfg command. That should give you an idea of what state it's in. Device Manager for the WiFi card.

Hi, Can I put to the board more than 4 GB RAM ??

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

Max RAM is discussed in the specs chapter of the video. 😁

Oh ok. Found the HD cover thanks to you. No HD or HD carriage. eBay for parts.

What do you think is the best cheap used 14" thinkpad in 2021?

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

T470 or T480.

Sir, can an MSATA SSD be installed in the WWAN card slot?

@LaptopRetrospective

7 ай бұрын

No. That is only possible starting with the T420 era.

@BillBibler

6 ай бұрын

My t400 was built at the end of 2010. The memory setup is the same as the t420, one in front and one in the back. Would it support m Sata drives?

@LaptopRetrospective

6 ай бұрын

The T400 does not have the PCI lanes to support mSATA.

@BillBibler

6 ай бұрын

Just had to ask. My t400 is setup very different from yours. No modem jack on the side and a sim card slot. Centrino technology inside badge on the top . Also the second memory slot is next to the wifi card on the bottom of the laptop. Like the t420.

@LaptopRetrospective

6 ай бұрын

What does the BIOS say? Maybe you have some kind of FrankenPad.

Makes me wonder if upgrading my t540p cpu is an "economical" (wise or not). Ryzen processors are ridiculous prices nowadays. As an Engineering freshmen, It's an added struggles instead in our courses XD.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

Depending on the CPU, you pay quite a premium. I'd compare the cost against a P50.

@johnrenzcaballero4308

2 жыл бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective 4800mq is my choice if opportunity allows.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

About $100-120 Canadian, not bad.

@johnrenzcaballero4308

2 жыл бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective Oh I see, Hoping prices in ebay will be in my favour though. Esp I'm from asia.

can i put a intel 7260 on a t410 too?

@LaptopRetrospective

Жыл бұрын

Good question, you'd have to flash a custom BIOS that removes the WiFi whitelist to change the card.

@agustinxuentados7136

Жыл бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective yeah, i have the withelist. but idk if it fits correctly, i mean, are the pins of the pcie the same in t410 and t430?

T400 vs x220 bagus mana?

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

I love the X220 but I also don't mind smaller form factors. Some prefer the bigger screen.

the specific t400 is defective - lcd cable blows the mb in many cases

@LaptopRetrospective

Жыл бұрын

Not sure if I've heard that story before. What can you share?

@beickus

Жыл бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective very common flaw - cable blows Rs near lcd socket

Back when manufacturers made stuff that last and cared what the customer thought.

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

Intel not socketing laptop CPUs after a certain generation has a part to play as well what the consumer actually buys. Most businesses now are content to replace rather than upgrade.

@juanignacioaschura9437

2 жыл бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective The worst part was not the soldering of the CPUs since Broadwell, it was the pressure put on manufacturers to abandon the M-series chips and adopt the lower-performing U-series chips.

The T400 is the best cheap laptop in 2022 - I have a T410 and I would never pick it up if I had a T400 to choose instead. And cheap is less than $80 not $200+

@LaptopRetrospective

Жыл бұрын

Really depends on what you need your machine to do but it's certainly still usable for basic tasks.

@saraofnorthwales

Жыл бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective Sure, basic tasks like video rendering at 1080p and watching youtube at the same. Not for 4k rendering or advanced 3D gaming at high resolution.

@LaptopRetrospective

Жыл бұрын

1080p rendering might be a tough ask compared to new CPUs and their ability to handle modern codecs. If you have lots of time to render, it isn't so bad but if you have timings to meet, it can hold things up.

@saraofnorthwales

Жыл бұрын

@@LaptopRetrospective Not at all - one can render much faster than one can compose videos on a T400. It's not a bottleneck. As long as it's under 1hour 30 its a cup of tea and a lunch break, which is pretty necessary after an editing session. I am not convinced that a more expensive laptop would do much for productivity - you are in a position to test this - I am still waiting for your video about that - it wouldn't take more than a few hours to put something together and then render it on a T400 and whatever you think might be an alternative better "budget" option - i'm waiting for it so you can prove me wrong ;)

>install gentoo

Great video, as I just came across one of these yesterday on 7/2/22 while at my local recycle drop off in fairly good shape with only one damaged USB port, and a small cosmetic crack on the bottom that was from where it was thrown in the e-waste bin, but it seems to work fine otherwise, and thankfully came with it's OG charger(I will have to replace the battery, and upgrade the ram when I have the money). The specs are as follows Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 @2.4Ghz 4GB of RAM GM45 Express graphics chipset 1280X800 LCD panel with the with the keyboard light at top(honestly kind of useless if you're not in pitch black darkness with no other light, and even then the LCD itself is brighter) SAMSUNG MMCRE28G8MXP-0VBL1 128GB SSD(I'm not sure if that drive came stock with the machine, or whoever owned it before did an upgrade?) US keyboard layout with the smaller enter key, the fingerprint reader which would be nice to have working in Linux, same for the 56K modem(maily for nostalgic sake, as I have a MagicJack I would want to hook it up to see if it works on the free 10 hours a month for Netzero, and how usable it is in 2022 for the LOLs ) I whipped the drive as it had Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on it(Yuck can't stand Ubuntu these days for many reasons including SNAPS), and currently I have it running rolling release Solus Linux w/Budgie DE, and while the UI elements are just a tad sluggish, it's handling Google Chrome, and YT at 480p(although a few dropped frames) to write this comment. So over all still a great little computer for getting the basics done in 2022 with a fantastic keyboard Pro tip: don't try to install ChromeOS Flex on it, as I tried that yesterday with a direct ISO download I burned using Balena Etcher to an 8GB USB flash drive(I don't have a Windows machine, or official Chromebook to use the recovery utility, and it won't work in Chrome OS Flex aka Cloudready OS for some stupid reason), and the UI was nearly unreadable with the contrast being blown way out during the setup process with no way to fix it, so I'm guessing the Intel GM45 graphics chip was not being fully supported like it is under a normal modern Linux kernel, so much for Google's goal of keeping older computers alive, and usable LOL!

@LaptopRetrospective

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for sharing your story on bringing one back to life!