Thinkpads Forum

I bought this A31p a couple of months back from our A31p farmer/dealer, ajkula66. It's a nice machine, but I'm consolidating my laptop usage, and I'd like to see this one find a home.

This is a 2653-R5U, original description: P4-M 2.0GHz(512KB), 256MB RAM, 60.0GB HDD, 15.0 UXGA(1600x1200) TFT LCD, 16x10x24x/8x CD-RW/DVD, Wi-Fi wireless/Modem(MPCI), Ethernet(CDC), IEEE 1394, IBM Secure Chip(TCPA), Bluetooth(CDC), TV out, Li-Ion battery, WinXP Pro. Specifications and links at Thinkwiki.

Changes from the description:
- comes with 768 MB of RAM (512 + 256; I'm open to offers if you don't need as much, but I don't have more)
- your choice of 20 GB/4200 rpm, 60 GB/5400 rpm, or no hard drive (when buying with a hard drive, XP can be installed from recovery disks if desired). Add $15 to the price for the 20 GB or $45 for the 60 GB.

The machine's two Ultrabays can be populated with your choice of one or more of:
- CD-ROM (24x), FRU 27L3436
- CD-RW / DVD-ROM (24/16/10/8x), FRU 08K9820
- CD-RW (24/8/4x), FRU 27L4297
- floppy drive, FRU 08K9607
- PATA drive caddy, FRU 08K6067
(All of these have beveled faces; the A31p appears to be designed for a flat face. If you'd like them all, you're more than welcome to have them.)

Wireless is 802.11b and works fine. I can include an Intel 2200BG mini-PCI card which gives 1802 error in my X31 for an extra $10, but BIOS flashing is your responsibility.

I can also include a 4-port USB 2.0 PCMCIA card. It's generic eBay lore, but it worked fine for me, also in Linux. The power cable it comes with is not necessary if you don't use power-hungry bus-powered devices. (USB flash memory sticks works; a 2.5" drive without an external power supply likely wouldn't.)


Notes on the condition:

Physically, the laptop is very nice. George gave it a "9 or better on a 1-10 scale" and I've no reason to disagree. I didn't use it very much, so I'll maintain that rating. The keyboard is certainly very nice, the top cover is pretty good with only a couple of scratches, nothing deep. There is a piece of plastic missing between the audio ports and the left Ultrabay - I took a picture (160 kilobytes) which should give you an idea. This does not affect structural integrity in any way, just looks a bit off if you're looking for it.

The screen backlight is getting a bit old. It has the red hue on boot which goes away in approximately 15 seconds. When at top brightness, the two bottom corners are a bit dim. The top brightness is also not as bright as my T60p, but I figure that is to be expected. Turning down the brightness causes the red hue to creep back in. (Pictures included in the post below.) As you may know from the forums, these are the symptoms of a backlight on its way out. It'll die eventually, but there's no real way of telling if it'll be next month or next year. Apart from the backlight, the screen looks very nice - no dust or scratches as far as I can see.

The GPU shows no sign of weakness. I generally turned the laptop on and off once a day (on in the morning, off for the night), occasionally twice.

I took off the CPU/GPU heatsink about a month ago, blew out most of the dust and put a new layer of Arctic Silver 5 on the CPU. As I remember, the CPU runs in 40-50s most of the time. Certainly no heat-induced instability.

I have a copy of the restore media; I haven't actually used them to date, but I have no reason to believe they won't work. I'll run memtest86 before shipping it out. Bluetooth, Firewire, and S-video in/out connections were not tested due to lack of compatible devices, but I've no reason to believe they don't work.


I haven't sold anything major through this forum; I think my experience is up to two RAM sticks at this point. I will gladly use my university e-mail address to confirm my real life ID. I would be happy to receive split payment from forum members with established feedback.

I have finals right now, which keeps me a bit busy. I probably will not be able to ship out tomorrow if you need a laptop right now. Latest date I will be able to ship is the 17th.

I'm asking 250 CAD for the laptop with your choice of optical and hard drives as outlined above. Inside Canada and U.S.: actual Canada Post shipping up to $30 (I'll pay the rest if it's more than $30), or FedEx if you pay the cost. Elsewhere: if Canada Post or FedEx go there insured, I will ship it there, but this is a 7+ lb laptop, so I will have to ask you cover most or all of the shipping cost.

Please PM with any questions or concerns.

Thanks,
--Jarek

Moderator note: Added *PICS* notation in the subject line.

I've checked the battery. It hasn't been deep-cycled recently, so it may be a tiny bit better than this, but right now it's showing full charge capacity of 18.0 WHr out of design charge of 43.2 WHr (41%). That will probably give you slightly more than half an hour of life.

I took some pictures of the laptop today. Of most importance will probably be the screen pictures, but these are also, I feel, most disappointing. I've yet to figure out how to control white balance, and taking the picture during the day meant that the difference between high and low brightness is somewhat hard to see properly.

The full-size pictures linked are around 100-150 kilobytes each.

This is what the screen looks like when starting up. The red tinge is fading already in the second picture. By the time the kernel is loaded, the tinge is no longer present.




For the screen displaying white, the first picture is taken at minimum brightness. Not sure if you can see it, but there is a red tinge to the colour. The second picture is taken as the brightness is increased. The red is more visible; it goes away in about five seconds after the picture. The third picture is at top brightness - note that the camera took the environment as much darker than in two previous picture, which is why it appears darker. The two shadows at the bottom left and right corners are permanently there, but I'm pretty sure that the darker shade you may be seeing along the left and right edge of the screen are camera imperfection.





Next up, pictures of low and high brightness screen when displaying an image. The same note about relative brightness applies. I find that the corner shadows are much less visible when a non-solid colour image is being displayed.




Yes, it is a Flexview: (A31p on left, T60p on right)



Some other imperfections:

The scratch going on an angle up from the edge of the cover is the largest on the top lid. It's the standard scratch deal, visible at one angle, virtually impossible to see at another.



I retook the picture of the missing piece of plastic above audio ports:



The IBM sticker on the palmrest is flaking off. Likely really easy to replace. See the second picture for an idea how it looks like from further away.




Entirely generic bottom cover, with XP Pro COA and all IBM stickers in good condition.



I could not resist this picture.

Bump; the base price for the laptop has been dropped from $275 to $250.

This is a great system.

Minus the LCD issue it should prove to be a good system for it's new owner. If I had the cash it would be mine, but since I do not...


BUMP!

Happy (slightly) lower oil prices bump! The Canadian dollar slipped a bit as well (wonders of a petrocurrency ), so I've changed the price to 250 CAD straight; this is currently a $10 price drop for our neighbours to the south

Google has the latest.

200 USD shipped for the system as detailed above, except with a 20 GB hard drive, any bay devices, and the recovery disks coming as is.

I've tried to put a new XP installation on it. The second recovery CD is more than likely scratched (it reliably fails to read two files), but even so, I must be doing something wrong as I've faced more problems than this is worth to me right now. The computer itself, minus the bay devices, runs Ubuntu perfectly and Vista fine if very slowly. The hard drive is reported as in good health by HD Tune, and booted Vista successfully until I wiped it, but has been giving me partitioning oddities and isn't seen by my admittedly cheap IDE-USB adapter.

Screen itself is perfect with no dust behind glass or such; it's just the backlight that's seen better days.

Valid until Thursday noon; if the box doesn't have a shipping address at 12:00 EDT on the 21st it's going in the storage.

PM sent.