I actually don't know for sure, but I can tell you this: When my UPS gets overloaded, it beeps. It never beeps when hooked up to my Celeron D desktop, but beeps quite often if the Pentium 4 desktop is plugged in. Granted, that doesn't necessarily indicate that Celeron D uses less power than P4, since many other components are different between these computers. In my last message, I was really just saying that I am using the more power efficient of these two desktops at home to save electricity. At work, electricity is free (for me) and so I use the higher-power computer.

BTW, I am still enjoying all the three non-Thinkpad laptops that I bought recently: the HP Mini 5101, the Dell Latitude D820, and the Sony Z1A. Thinkpads really aren't the only decent laptops out there.

surprised at seeing so many here with desktops more than half my age

somehow I don't develop any attachments to desktops the way I do with laptops... maybe it's cuz I always build my own desktops and never think of a desktop as a whole in the first place, where as with laptops, old or new, I look at them as a complete machine...
anyway, here's my list:

Desktops(all self built):

My workstation:
C2Q q9450 on an Asus mobo, housed in an Antec P182
currently functioning as my primary workstation/file server

My HTPC:
Core i7 860 on a Gigabyte mobo, housed in an NZXT M59
works as both an HTPC and gaming rig

Laptops(all 2nd hand with exception of X60t):

380ED
found in a friend's garage, dead cmos batt, never found the time to replace

D400
Found this Latitude at work that was about to be trashed.
Also has dead cmos batt, which I've yet to find a replacement for. Mom's asked me for a travel machine to compliment her current one, so this will likely go to her once I get it up and running.

T22
used for fooling around on Ubuntu
ex-coworker's bf was about to trash it over a dead HDD had I not save it

X41
My ultraportable baby I use for all extended domestic/international travels. Who needs a netbook?

T42
On permanent loan to mom as her primary machine. With RAM maxed out and a decent HDD, I've received no complaints from her for over half a year.

T43
Used as a semi-mobile workstation for light travel.

x60T
Perhaps my most controversial purchase to date, and the only new Thinkpad I've ever purchased, directly from Lenovo. I can't seem to find any justification for this purchase anymore, since the tablet/pen input features are extremely under utilized. I try to get as many games as I can that specifically requires pen input, but I hardly have time to play them these days. I alternate this between the X41 and the T43 sometimes when I travel. I'm not allowed to retire/sell this machine cuz gf got herself a X61t so we can have "matching Thinkpads"

T61(or what's left of it)
entrusted to me by a friend who, after whatever he did to it, could no longer resurrect it. Will have to part it eventually.

I used to have an X31 in place of the X41, but that went to mom for a while, and eventually sold that to a coworker. I must say however, that X31 had a much better keyboard than my X41, something I kinda miss every now and then.

Mom's T42 is being replaced by a Z61p very soon, something she's very much looking forward to, and the T42 will be sold to dad, which is actually going to his gf

I have only 4 that are currently operational. I use my tablet pc the most. The first is my desktop, a Dell optiplex 320, pentium 4 HT @ 3.2ghz, 2GB in ram and an ATI Radeon HD 3470. The best computer i own so far. With windows 7.
A laptop, dell inspiron 6000. Pentium M @ 2ghz, 2GB in ram and an ATI Radeon Mobility x300. With windows 7 too. But it has a problematic screen which prevents me from using it for everyday things.(i mostly just connect to it remotley when i need something on it or to do a task on it)
A second desktop, oldie, compaq(cant recall the model) with a 1ghz celeron and 512mb of PC133 memory. Has windows server 2003. I use it as a server for experimenting with various things. And also stores an old backup of my primary HDD.

And my tablet PC, thinkpad x41 tablet. I had gotten it for christmas. isn't very new. But it suffices for me. Has a 1.5GHz pentium M and 1.5GB in ram. Recently ive hardly been using my desktop or laptop as ive had the tablet pc. but i do have both loaded with quite a bit of programs i used quite often.

I leave all of my computers on 24/7. They're near dead silent anyways. So they don't bother me.

Haven't logged in a while, but mostly lurked reading threads instead of logging in.

I still have my R31 Thinkpad, though in pieces since I migrated the 1gb of ram on it to a Dell latitude c610. I let my brother borrow it for a weekend baseball tournament, when he got back the hinges were destroyed, not sure what he did I repaired it, but realized the Dell C610, I got from a relative for free was slightly quicker and had less issues than the R31. Im not sure what I am going to do with it, but now, but the weird issues I had with it, it was time to lessen its use, since it had issues running XP with minipci wireless, and odd issues with plugged in USB components.

The other laptop I use at home mostly has a desktop replacement is yet another Dell, this time a Latitude D600 I got for free on its second mobo b/c the ram slots died on the first one. First mobo/laptop I got it for free from the same relative saying it didnt turn on, when it was the power brick and battery was completely, dead. Add in a 100gb hd, 2gb of ram and a 1.7pentium m, it does everything i need it to, and not waste as much power as my Pentium 4 3.2HT desktop. But I would love to upgrade the CPU to a pentium m 400mhz fsb 2.0ghz, but I cant justify paying the price for one.

The Pentium 4 3.2ht/Pentium 4 2.8 desktops, I got free computers from friends from school who didn't want them anymore, it came with a pentium 4ht mobo with a celeron cpu, got a cheap 3.2ht, put windows 7 on it and 2gb of ram, it runs hot, uses a lot of power, has too many hard drives in it and its only used for gaming like half life 2/left for dead 2, yeah the pentium 4 still does a decent job! The 2.8ghz desktop is for my mom, but its rarely used and using my old motherboard with blown caps, but still works, just going to keep using it until it completely dies since its only used for emails and internet usage.

I got a good deal on a Toshiba T115d with AMD neo X2, ideally I think I rather have an x100e with similar specs, but mostly b/c of the trackpoint, but it work well and the portability is nice to have. Been switching between my ssd 64gb and 320gb hd, still not sure what to do since I do have a lot of music and movies on the 320gb along with some light gaming.

Other parts, I have a junked HP tx1000, currently waiting on the class action information on it, I attempted to do a reflow job to repair the GPU, but it didnt work, still a poor design and hoping I can get it replaced since it was my sisters laptop.

Astonishing, all these people with all these computers. Blimey. I have always had one, but it definitely needs upgrading. there are just so many to choose from I really do not know. Its a matter usually I walk into a shop and thats it.

For me, three is the absolute minimum, four is much better, and five is ideal. Let me explain why:

1) I find that desktops are far more comfortable to use than laptops. And since I can't move a desktop to and from work, I need one at work and another at home. In my case, I have a Dell OptiPlex GX280 at work and a Dell Dimension B110 at home.

2) But of course desktops aren't mobile, and so I need one laptop at the very least. Hence, "three is the absolute minimum".

3) But having just one laptop is very inconvenient, because I need mobility both at home and at work, and in order to do this with just one laptop, I would need to carry it to and from work everyday. That is very inconvenient, and laptops that get lugged around over long distances daily are highly susceptible to damage. Thus, it's good to have one laptop that stays at home and another that stays at work, i.e. "four is much better".

4) I want these home-only and work-only laptops to be fairly large so that they are comfortable to use continuously for long time periods, and to have optical drives so that I can watch DVDs sometimes. At work, I have a 15.4" 1920x1200 Dell Latitude D820 and at home I have a 14.1" 1400x1050 Sony Vaio PCG-Z1A, both of them with built-in optical drives. But such laptops aren't easy to travel with. So, I like to have an additional laptop for traveling, and for this purpose I have a 2.86-lb 10.1" 1366x768 HP Mini 5101 netbook. Therefore, "five is ideal".

I do have a sixth laptop -- the Panasonic ToughBook CF-Y4 listed in my signature -- but I bought it just for fun.

@pianowizard "but I bought it just for fun"

Even though you may "work" on some of your computers, I think you make all your computers "just for fun"

I currently have around 1,500 laptops.

I had many more but 2 days ago I had an 18wheeler take several away recycling. I had around 1,000lbs of ThinkPad motherboards!

Most are used for parts. I have a small museum brewing of rare machines including a ThinkPad W-Note which I will be posting pictures of shortly.

My daily driver is just a 14" T60p, T7200, 64GB SSD, 3GB.

(No, I'm not a hoarder, I own a laptop repair center.)

Wow!

So I've just updated... My count is up to 10...

I have a new corporate-issued laptop.

Primary work laptop (T410 2537-R46, Core i5-540M, 4GB RAM, 160GB SSD, Running Win7 Enterprise 64bit)
It was time to refresh my machine, so I got this one. I feel so lucky that I skipped the T61/T400 refresh cycles, as this machine is so much prettier and nicer. The company does not allow foreign machines on its network, so all work-related tasks are done from this machine, whether when actually at work or working from home / cafe / whatever via VPN (which I actually have been doing less and less nowadays, that I live close to my work. On my desk this is generally attached to dual almost identical 19" MVA monitors - IBM L191p and Lenovo L192p.

Secondary work laptop (T60 1952-F76, T7200, 2GB RAM, Running XP Pro)
This was my first corporate-issued laptop, now 3.5 years old. I like it so much that I insisted and they let me keep it as a secondary machine. The SXGA+ screen has advantages over the WXGA+, and while it's not nearly as fast, It is still plenty fast enough with the 7200RPM HDD and with me taking care of it. Sometimes I work on it from home (where I have a docking station for a T60, but not for a T410).

Update from my side. My HP NC4400 is gone, I have two new T6's, a Z61m as desktop replacement for my wife, a X41T that is now the official "couch surfer machine" (I love the screen it has) and an IBM 240.

Final count is 10 (+ the X40 borrowed on permanent basis), the replaced desktop is still around and will be probably converted to an HTPC.

Happy New Year!

For the second time after I started this thread in Oct 2006, I have fewer than 5 computers, assuming that I manage to sell this Dell Precision M90. After selling this Dell, I will have a Panasonic CF-Y5 laptop and a Dell OptiPlex 760 desktop at home, and a Dell Latitude D820 laptop plus a Precision 390 desktop at work. The other four desktops listed in my sig are used by my students in my lab and so, while they belong to me, they are no longer my personal computers. It feels great to have only 4 computers!

I don't think I'll ever have less than 5 computers at home. The prospect is simply inconceivable.

Out of curiosity anybody here have more cars then computers, TV's etc? Hoarding is common, but the objects hoarded are different.

As you can see from my updated signature I really started hoarding laptops, LOL. It would be hard for me to hoard anything physically larger without getting a larger apartment.

I was destined to be a hoarder, back in high school (1980's), at one point I owned over 20 cars all running at minimum... 69 Mustangs, 68 Camaro, 10 or so various VW bugs/buggies, 64 Fairlane 500, a Fiat, 77 camaro, 79 Monte Carlo, 70 Ford F100, 72 Maverick Grabber, various 50's/60's chevys, there is a thread here I posted some old polaroid scans...

http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=633335#p633335

These days it computers (do game consoles count? ),,, And if it counts, computer parts... I don't so much hoard them as I just don't sell/get rid of old stuff... within arms reach is an original Sound Blaster and an AST SixPackPlus... but I have crate upon crate of stuff dating back to the early 80's

Computers take up less room then cars, but 23 years later, I WISH I still had some of those cars

I have a few boxes of "vintage" software too hoping it may become collectible someday. One example is "Monty Python's A Complete Waste of Time" which is truth in advertising if ever there was any.

It just got sold locally! I love Craigslist! Now I really own only 4 personal computers.



I have close to 6,000 music CDs. I stopped buying two years ago



Wow, 7 Thinkpads! I don't think I have ever had that many Thinkpads at the same time.

Well. You have to understand that two of them belong to my workplace, one to my wife (I don't maintain it), and one is on a permanent loan to my sister. This leaves three, two of which are collectibles, without a defined purpose yet. So really, I have only one personal Thinkpad.

If I were you, I would include these two (i.e. the A31p and the X32) as personal computers. So, you have three personal Thinkpads, plus several personal desktops if I remember correctly.

BTW, I just changed the title of this thread to make my question clearer.

I don't feel guilty in the least about having unused machines. If I did I woulda gotten rid of my IBM 5160 (8088 XT machine) or Commodore SX-64(Commodore's "portable" 20lb computer with color screen). My list is quite endless and these machines were at one time daily drivers that I didn't utilize. i.e. kept the 8088 even though I had a nice shiny 286, the SX-64 was replaced by a C128 (both the 286 and 128 I still own). Now these 2 machines in particular are heading back up in price (I Imagine my kids will be able to make a nice profit on them eventually).


On a side note, I finally had to replace the Dallas Real Time Clock battery in my Acer/Smith Corona PC110 (286 @ 10MHz 4MB RAM 40MB HD) which I've had since the early 90's

I have an IBM ThinkCentre M52, ThinkCentre A60, IntelliStation M Pro, IBM ThinkCentre M50, IBM ThinkPad T43, IBM ThinkPad T21, and a System X3400 server tower. I try to use them all, I would say that my least used would be the ThinkCentre M50, just because it is very slow.

IBM

Over the last year or so, I've recycled about 6 systems that were simply not worth saving. I have decided that anything in a short tower or a proprietary case is junk because a generic MB or modern CPU fan won't fit in it under the PS. That is, a modern CPU fan that doesn't whine like a 747. I still have a few "collectible dinosaurs" (see earlier post). One of the greyboxes is essentially junk, as it's role as a disk prep mule has been replaced with one that has both IDE and SATA. The "HP Lemon" (one word) is in the scrap heap, having been replaced with a Sony. I still have 3 (?) 21" glass-tube monitors, not counting the hernia-inducing IBM behemoth. One of those goes with the new mule. The 2 Thinkpads rotate in and out of active use depending on when we need a spare or an entertainment device. Daughter's old HP laptop still viable, but has been replaced with a honking speed demon from iBuyPower. I still have an old monster tower (~ 30" high) with dual P-Pro CPUs (Yech!) that will boot Debian, provided you don't mind going and fixing dinner and eating it while it boots. Don't know what to do with it other than wait for the next recycling opportunity. Youngest daughter's school didn't have an eWaste event yet this year.

Even when I finish with the current and ongoing cleanup, I'll still be at five or more...

Butterfly which is not going anywhere. I might get to finally setting it up the way I always wanted to this summer...

A31p which I'm enjoying more than ever now that it's back from GPU re-balling.

Two T43p units - stock for me and SATA-modded for my better half.

Modded R60e for my boys.

HP 6220 for my daughter - most likely on its way out, replacement is TBD, but will likely be a Mac of some kind...

I guess you can say that. The total number of desktops under my maintenance is 4, out of which one is my primary desktop, one used to be my primary desktop in my parents' house, and I still use it every time I'm there, but it is also used by others, one is used by my family, and almost never by me, and one is the old DOS/W98 box, which used to be used extensively by my mother and now is only use by me when I'm utterly bored and have a nostalgia attack.

So I would say - one personal, and two half personal desktops - to a total of 1+2*0.5 = 2.

I stopped feeling guilty a long while ago

Now the word spread around among my friends that I'm collecting Thinkpads and a friend of mine brought me a T41 and a T42 from her company that were heading towards the E-Waste container. They came with no hard drives but in very good condition. So even if I would stop buying new ones, friends of me will still bring me some

Jeese, you trying to load KDE on that thing or what? I have a 760XL (P166 w/104MB ram) that is running Debian Sid with JWM that hits the desktop in under a minute after POST

The world is changing fast. By next year, with Windows 8 in the wings, everything will be 64-bit. I finally took all my old computers to the recycle yard (minus the hard drives).

I have two working computers at home in production, both IBM. both 64-bit, both Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, one M90p Desktop and one T61p Laptop.

I have a T41 in the basement with a CD-ROM in it. I want to see if my Windows 3.1 machine will see that CD (It won't see my DVD writers) and finish off that machine. Then I will ditch the T41.

Long way to say: I no longer collect computers. .... JDH

Yep, something like that. Just to see if I could do it. A more lightweight set of options would have been appropriate, if I actually wanted to use the thing. I think the dual CPUs are 180 Mhz. A dinosaur, but nothing noteworthy.

We had an Itanium box at one company I worked. After it was determined to be "less than useful" Intel *insisted* we ship it back on a pallet. "Don't bother wrapping or protecting it," we were told. Intel had destined all the Itanium loaner machines for the crusher. I was tempted to try to hold onto it as a curio, but they would have none of it. Intel did not want something that embarrassing falling into enemy hands. A 750 Mhz P3 benchmarked faster than that dog. I wanted to attach 4 little smokestacks to the top of it for the trip back, but was again overruled. Think Itanic...

Try booting with CDROM God (cdgod5_5.zip).. it has 58 different DOS cd drivers on it, haven't found an optical drive yet that won't be seen by DOS with it. (You prolly already know that Win3.1 doesn't see any optical drives, it relies on DOS to show em)

If you can't find it out there, PM me.