ThinkPad T41 Date of Manufacture

[Callahan]

I have always wondered if I could get the 'exact' date of manufacture of my three ThinkPads. The last two days I have spent time on Google working with my T41. This is not any information that I really need at this point, I am just curious.

I found several links with IBM - Lenovo for some information but the links no longer work. They would probably just tell me that my T41 is 'out of warranty' and nothing else. I finally did find one working link and that is the exact information it provided.

I have Everest and AIDA64 on my machine but I see nothing looking like a date of manufacture. It says 'Made in China' on the bottom and the BIOS shows a serial number of: 23738RU99PZVTC.

With Everest I get this Motherboard Properties information:

Motherboard Properties
Manufacturer - IBM
Product - 23738RU
Serial Number - J1W8S48523

I found this information on the internet about a date at the end of the serial number but I have nothing like that.

"Ok, looking at some other laptops that I have and checking the warranty lookup on IBM,
it seem that the date is at the end of the S/N, last 4 numbers

Example - S/N L3-HL576 07/04 (this laptop was manufactured in Apr 2007)."

I also found this 'batch file' ... which I made but I did not see anything looking like a manufacture date. This was a response to someone asking the same question from an old, closed posting.

echo %computername%
wmic csproduct get vendor,name,identifyingnumber
WMIC BIOS Get Manufacturer,Name,Version
WMIC BIOS get buildnumber,releasedate,status,serialnumber
WMIC OS LIST BRIEF
WMIC printer get name,availability,status,sharename
WMIC printer get portname,deviceID
pause

Put that in a batch script and let me know if that works for you. Also, you might be able to go into the BIOS and check. Let us know. Thanks.
---------------------------------------------------------------

So I am asking, does a manufacture date really exist somewhere in my T41 or something close to a manufacture date?

[RealBlackStuff]

Unless you have the IBM/Lenovo sticker with the date after the S/N, there is not really any good date-guess, other than the likes of Wikipedia.
AFAIK most -if not all- T41 were made in 2004.
Also, on some Thinkpad models the date is YY/MM and on others (newer ones) it is MM/YY.
Also T41 is not necessarily a Thinkpad.
I am the proud owner of a rare Bugatti T41 Royale.
Unfortunately mine is only a scale-model in a display case.

[Callahan]

Well thanks for the reply and the 'nice joke' ... I only read the very small-small-small fine print after reading the article at the link.

First of all, I'm pretty old but I never heard of that car. It really is a nice looking car but with only seven cars made and only six still in existence ... I looked at the ownership of each one and figured you must be the 'proud owner' of Car # 41141 - Kellner car, which states: Ownership is presently unknown, but it has been shown in recent years by Swiss broker Lukas Huni.

The others are in museums or accounted for. From the article ...

"Ettore Bugatti planned to build twenty-five of these cars and sell them to royalty as the most luxurious car ever, but even European royalty were not buying such things during the Great Depression, and Bugatti was able to sell only three of the seven made (six still exist, one destroyed in wreck)."

Not being sure about what I just read, I then caught the extremely fine print in your post ... I was not aware anyone could print something that 'small'.

Of the three ThinkPads that I own ... the T41 and two T42s ... one a 14in and one a 15in. Only the T42 - 14in actually still has a S/N sticker on the bottom with a date of 05/01.

"Type 2374 -- E88 S/N 99-7C49H 05/01" ... so it must have been made January 2005 ... nothing like a T42 in May 2001.

Too bad the Bugatti didn't catch on with the super rich at that time but everything was headed for the Great Depression ... bad timing.
...