Thinkpads Forum

I've been asked to get a used "Internet laptop" for a family member.

Naturally I lean towards a ThinkPad.

I wonder if there is any useful diagnostic software I could put on a USB thumb drive to give me a quick indication of the specs -- and especially, of the battery condition, number of cycles, etc., when checking out machines in local secondhand shops.

I notice a lot of ThinkPads for sale have had a vanilla OS installed, without the ThinkPad utilities, so I can't depend on finding these installed.

Also good to get the processor, RAM, etc., listed.

Not all the details you want, but the main ones you are looking for. And only if the system has an OS installed you can use Belarc Advisor. It's free, but will not give you any battery info. Second, it will install the software on the computer and does not run from usb stick. Hope this helps.

vanaya wrote:Not all the details you want, but the main ones you are looking for. And only if the system has an OS installed you can use Belarc Advisor. It's free, but will not give you any battery info. Second, it will install the software on the computer and does not run from usb stick. Hope this helps.

Thanks, but I really want the battery info -- it's half the value of an old laptop. I bought one with a dead battery a few years ago and still feel burned....

There is such a program: Mobile Meter.
It's small, free, and is just one .exe that you can run from anywhere (USB stick), or you can just open it straight off the website. It has a simple interface that shows you graphs of your current battery drain, as well as your CPU frequency, and temperatures. If you right click on its interface and choose Options, you can look at your battery information, which includes the current wear level, the battery's original maximum capacity, its current capacity, and how much charge it has at the time. Some batteries will also give additional information. MobMeter does NOT run under Vista!
Other info could be obtained using such programs as: Aida32, Astra32, Everest, SystemInfo.
I prefer SystemInfo which also runs off a USB stick.

"MobMeter does NOT run under Vista!"

Unfortuneately!

Excellent utility.......use it on all my laptops.......

Ron

I also use MobileMeter on many machines, unforturnately, it also does not accurately report Core Duo CPU speeds, it just shows them constantly at full throttle.

Great utility that hasn't been upgraded in 5 years!

Obviously, the BIOS has quite a bit of info, like CPU, HDD model, memory, etc. However, you can't see wifi or battery info.

I supposed you could boot from a USB disk with Win XP on it or even a Win XP USB memory stick, even the 16GB sticks aren't that expensive any more. If you add the generic XP IDE drivers to the registry, you should be able to boot up XP on many ThinkPad models this way. (Maybe I'll build one of these memory sticks and try it, too!)

I'd prepare an Ubuntu boot thumb drive. You can view battery stats in gnome-power-manager and all installed adapters/chipsets in lspci and hwinfo.

RealBlackStuff wrote:There is such a program: Mobile Meter

Thanks, that does it.

I tried "MM" on a 600e, and didn't work. Never tried it again. Hopefully you wont go that much older.

Harryc wrote:I'd prepare an Ubuntu boot thumb drive. You can view battery stats in gnome-power-manager and all installed adapters/chipsets in lspci and hwinfo.

As an alternative to shopping second hand stores for a good laptop, and to take Harryc's suggestion one step further, you might price on auction sites a laptop that does not have an operating system installed (because the hard drive has been removed by the seller) and that has no battery.

Why?

1. These "carcass" systems are sold in large quantities and the price reflects lack of operating system, hard drive, battery, etc.
2. Batteries and hard drives are the most likely failures at this point in its life. So buy these trouble-prone parts new and install them along with a free operating system. This way you have a better chance at getting a reliable machine at reasonable cost.

As an example, I am assembling an R52 with a new battery and new 80 gigabyte hard drive for ~$200, including the "carcass." That may be more than you would want to pay "second hand" but it is an IBM Thinkpad with new parts replacing the ones most likely to wear out/break. A good quality/price relationship.

bajaman61 wrote:As an alternative to shopping second hand stores for a good laptop, and to take Harryc's suggestion one step further, you might price on auction sites a laptop that does not have an operating system installed

I'm in Hong Kong, and while we do have a few online auction sites, there aren't many carcass laptops offered, if any.
http://hk.search.auctions.yahoo.com/sea ... =-curprice
And while there are some bargains offered, there are a couple of shopping malls full of second hand and not-new computer goods, (which presumably fills the same market niche) where I can buy a laptop at a not much higher price and get a guaranteee for anywhere between a month and a year. The price of used laptops has fallen a lot in the last year, probably due to the introduction of netbooks.

bajaman61 wrote:As an example, I am assembling an R52 with a new battery and new 80 gigabyte hard drive for ~$200, including the "carcass." That may be more than you would want to pay "second hand"

Actually, I'd be happy to do the same, it's good value, but this is a different market.

If someone was selling a laptop here that was only missing a drive, I'd suspect that there was more wrong with it, otherwise they could just spend $20 on a used drive (or if they're a dealer, zero from spare parts) and sell a working machine.