T30 - Upgrade or Dump?

[themaster]

I've had my T30 getting close to two years now.. and I bought it used 1 year into it's life..

But a couple of things are eating away at me for using it.. I'm a pro computer user and I use this laptop primarily for business and my business is computer repair..

The things that are bugging me are mainly
- USB 2.0 (surprisingly this is important)
- Bluetooth
- Battery Life (I get 1 to 1 1/2 hours with two battery's)
- [censored] proprietary mini-pci wifi card thingy can only go to 802.11b
- Burner doesn't read my DVD Burns..
- Warranty is up in 3 months..

My solution is getting a new one.. I assume a new t43 or some kind of quality manufactured laptop with your standard 3 year warranty is what I'll shoot for..

I know just about every thing but battery life can be upgraded with say PCMCIA cards or adapters but it's really annoying to have dongles sticking out while traveling.. but I don't know much about the internal upgrade options.. I have heard recently that I can fix the wifi card thing by hitting escape (I've seen the message as I've tried putting in 2 wrong type of G cars already.. but I'd think I've had tried escape when I tried this ) but this prompt to me is annoying in nature.. and I don't consider it a good thing to see when booting..

Any way just wondering if people can point out how I can upgrade/justify keep using this or if I should upgrade? I'm a little worried about the hard drive prompt I've read about in the t4x forums as that prompt I would find annoying.. (like the wifi one above) I put my own hard drive in this laptop and plan on keeping it if I dump it.. it's a Hitachi 60 Gb 7200 rpm probably with about 1+ years on the warranty left..

[K. Eng]

Like you, I have about 3 months left on my ThinkPad and am thinking about buying a new computer soon.

In January, Intel will be releasing a completely new 3rd generation Centrino platform (Dual core Pentium M, 945xM chipset, 3945ABG wireless). Do a search on Google News for "Intel Napa" for news stories. The short of it is vastly superior multitasking performance and better battery life than the current crop of Sonoma based notebooks.

If you can hold out until your warranty is up, there should be a bunch of new machines to choose from

[LtTPfan]

The WiFi deal is easy to take care of with the no1802 fix but you'll have to live without the annoying blinking WiFi light. Google it or I can email it to you. USB 2.0 will require a PC card. You can add Bluetooth; check out wireless4laptop.com and his eBay ads. Are you using the highest capacity batteries available?

[Guest]

Looking over his store.. I don't see any thing that specifically says it's supports T30.. he mentions T30 with a bluetooth item but says only select models have a button.. mine definatly does not that I know off..

Be cool if one of those mini-pci 11/54/108G mpbs with bluetooth could work.. however again he doesn't mention T30

(didn't find much on google.. maybe I didn't search right about.. no1802 fix however a .com of that name was mentioned.. and links back to this forum)

[LtTPfan]

The no1802 fix is a .com file. It is a small program that must be run in DOS, not a DOS window (i.e. you must create a DOS boot disk and run the program from there), which patches the BIOS so as to avoid the 1802 compatibility error - hence the name no1802. You can (DOWNLOAD IT HERE).

I don't believe wireless4laptop lists every compatible machine in his ads as I'd imagine they would get awful long. He does have email and is a member of this forum. When you click his email here it comes up as wireless4laptop@hotmail.com. You could email him and ask about compatibility, etc.

On second thought, you shouldn't bother upgrading your machine. It's a dinosaur, which has reached it's usefull lifespan and has become dangerous and will likely catch fire and burn your house down so you should send it to me for proper disposal as I am fully qualified and willing to accept such risk - and, because it's almost Christmas and you are a member here I won't even charge you my normal hazardous material handling fee.

[RRHODY]

If "It's a dinosaur," it won't become combustible for several million years, so there's no worry about his T30 starting a fire just yet.

[tfflivemb2]

Looking over his store.. I don't see any thing that specifically says it's supports T30.. he mentions T30 with a bluetooth item but says only select models have a button.. mine definatly does not that I know off..

Be cool if one of those mini-pci 11/54/108G mpbs with bluetooth could work.. however again he doesn't mention T30

(didn't find much on google.. maybe I didn't search right about.. no1802 fix however a .com of that name was mentioned.. and links back to this forum)

FWIW, I have used the no1802.com fix on my T30 and it worked like a charm on an Intel B/G card, and it works at the G rate.

[andrey]

The things that are bugging me are mainly
- USB 2.0 (surprisingly this is important)
- Bluetooth
- Battery Life (I get 1 to 1 1/2 hours with two battery's)
- [censored] proprietary mini-pci wifi card thingy can only go to 802.11b
- Burner doesn't read my DVD Burns..
- Warranty is up in 3 months..

USB 2.0 is the only thing that would require PCMCIA card, other components can be upgraded internally. Replacing WiFi card, for example, takes 30 sec and is really easy to do. I had T30 where I was using Intel 2915ABG and it worked wonderfully.

However, in my opinion, it will be better to upgrade. I went from T30 to T42p and I'm very happy I did. The difference in price was about $250 (I sold the T30) and it was very well worth it. With T42p I can watch a few movies on the entire flight from Phoenix to NY without battery dying, the laptop is much thinner and lighter and has pretty much every feature I need. I also bought Logitech V270 mouse (bluetooth) and it made the entire laptop experience with no wires and nothing sticking out at all.

My advise is to upgrade to newer T4x if you're ready for it and have a few extra $$. You will not regret it!

-- Andrey

[carbon_unit]

I went from T30 to T42p and I'm very happy I did. The difference in price was about $250 (I sold the T30) and it was very well worth it.
-- Andrey

WOW! You must have fetched a good price for your T30 AND found an exceptional deal on the T42P. Good Job!!