How old is X31 ?

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ggiglio · #1 Post by **ggiglio** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 12:59 pm

Hi all,
while surfing the Bay I stumbled on an ad boasting "thinkpad X31, like new conditions".
The price was acceptable so I went for it, just to gave my X40 good company.
Not counting some minor scratches the plastics were in fair shape, and so the keyboard, but when I fired it up I almost fell from my chair.
I noticed a reddish color on the display, mainly while working on battery with low brightness, no dead pixels tho, but...
Crystal disk info revealed a power on time of 25,000 hours (and counting) !
Thus I gathered the machine was on for almost 10 hours a day during 8 years, being 2003 manufatcturing date.
So my questions are : how reliable can be such an old machine ?
Is the red shift on lcd a symptom of early death ?
Has anyone experienced a greater life span ?
...all in all another demonstration of the quality of the original thinkpad project...
thanks
Ggiglio

MagicBoy · #2 Post by **MagicBoy** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 1:22 pm

My work stopped buying them in late 2004. They all finally got replaced last year.

Generally they're pretty reliable. We had a few suffer with faulty screens (multi-colour vertical stripes), and the usual knackered HDDs with age.

Brian10161 · #3 Post by **Brian10161** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 1:47 pm

The reddish tint indicates that the fluorescent backlight is starting to die.

You might be able to get a replacement display, but depending on how expensive it may not be worthwhile. I for one, like the X31 (I had 2 and just sold them to family members after upgrading the Wifi cards and ram). Size is perfect and it's graphics card is better than the X40 being a dedicated card and all.

I'd like to think that if the mainboard and hdd have that much time on them and are original, that there hasn't been a history of abuse. The computer itself may be alright, just need a new HDD and display depending.

Good luck mate!

#4 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 6:10 pm

If you decide to keep it, clean up/replace the thermal paste between CPU and fan with Arctic Silver 5.
And blow out the dust bunnies first.
Other than that, great little machines, I have 2 of those, one of which with its original box and paperwork.

Raceboy · #5 Post by **Raceboy** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 2:06 am

I love X31! I even converted one to IPS panel (XGA) and I'm in the process of swapping the 1.4 Ghz Banias CPU (yes, BGA soldered) to 1.6 GHz LV Dothan from X41. I unsoldered the Dothan already and waiting for a BGA479 stencil+solder alls to arrive.

ggiglio · #6 Post by **ggiglio** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 2:08 pm

Thanks all for the replies.
Brian: I agree with you that the red glow indicates a premature death, but why while on ac power the light is almost normal ?
Black Stuff: I downloaded the HMM and will spend the sunday disassembling the X31. After a thorough cleaning all things will (hopefully) return to their right place.
Not sure I will get Arctic Silver, otherwise I'll try a commercial heat transfer compound.
After that I'm planning a comparison between X40 (1.5 Gb ram) and X31 (1.0 Gb ram). Both machines are with stock hdd. Not sure who will be the winner...

#7 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 3:27 pm

The winner will be the X31, better CPU.

edik · #8 Post by **edik** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 11:17 am

if by the "original thinkpad project..." you mean pre Lenovo I am inclined to agree.

To me the pinnacle were those machines with the triangle corner cut-off. You know the ones... well I have owned X31 (many since '04), X32 and T30. My favourite machine oddly is the T30 with SXGA+ screen.

Day to day now is a 1.7/2GB/120GB X31 (and a spare X32 base). I *love* those machines. They are just beautiful to look at and to use.

You might like to know the decline of X31 prices over the years!

early 2004 cost me $2000 USD new
early 2007 cost me $500 USD used (ebay)
mid 2009 cost me $300 USD used (ebay)
2012 cost me $130 USD used (ebay) and X32 base stripped but working $30 USD used

That's life!

ggiglio · #9 Post by **ggiglio** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 12:03 pm

Yes, for me THE thinkpad was born in IBM.
It was a real breakthrough in the laptop arena, featuring portability, reliability and sturdy build.
Even the gadgets were useful (i.e. thinklight), while bright ideas were evenly scattered (what about the drain holes under the keyboard? , and the keys profile? and the hardware based hd lock?...).
IMHO no other machine suits a road warrior better than the thinkpad even today (consider that the original project was released GENERATIONS ago).
Once you're used to it you become addicted...

--------------------------
ggiglio collection
thinknote 386sx, 2megs ram, hd 40 megs, monochrome dispay, win 3.1
thinkpads: A21p, X31, X40, X61, X61s

petko8680 · #10 Post by **petko8680** » Sat Nov 10, 2012 6:08 am

ggiglio wrote:....
Crystal disk info revealed a power on time of 25,000 hours (and counting) !
Ggiglio

Just wanted to know about that option- it shows the power on time hours since last OS installation or since the machine was first time switched on? As mine is showing 279 hours only!

#11 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Sat Nov 10, 2012 8:08 am

That time is only for how long the HARD DISK has been running, not the laptop!
AFAIK only Panasonic Toughbooks have a proper Hours-ON counter.

petko8680 · #12 Post by **petko8680** » Sat Nov 10, 2012 2:12 pm

So, according to the info HDD is quite new, isn't it?

Brian10161 · #13 Post by **Brian10161** » Sat Nov 10, 2012 4:31 pm

ggiglio wrote:Thanks all for the replies.
Brian: I agree with you that the red glow indicates a premature death, but why while on ac power the light is almost normal ?
Black Stuff: I downloaded the HMM and will spend the sunday disassembling the X31. After a thorough cleaning all things will (hopefully) return to their right place.
Not sure I will get Arctic Silver, otherwise I'll try a commercial heat transfer compound.
After that I'm planning a comparison between X40 (1.5 Gb ram) and X31 (1.0 Gb ram). Both machines are with stock hdd. Not sure who will be the winner...

Yikes, completely forgot about this post O_o

I'm not entirely sure the reason why fluorescent lights do that, but they will go red at lower brightness levels. At full brightness, they will appear red at first light up, but then slowly go back to normal. They just progressively get worse with age. Had a couple old Palm Pilot (IIIc) PDAs do that. They went red, then got really bad.

Nprod · #14 Post by **Nprod** » Sat Nov 10, 2012 4:56 pm

X31's are pretty solid machines. You can check the manufacture date on the serial number at the bottom.

petko8680 wrote:Just wanted to know about that option- it shows the power on time hours since last OS installation or since the machine was first time switched on? As mine is showing 279 hours only!

I think it's for the life of the hard disk - i recently bought my X61T second hand and reinstalled the OS. It's showing 7253 hours and power-on count is 1279. That averages at about ~5 hours per single use, which sounds about right. 25,000 hours is pretty impressive, that hard disk must have been used nonstop.

edik · #15 Post by **edik** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 4:51 pm

I have quite a bit of experience of X31's and have found them almost without exception extremely reliable. I can also say the same with the odd X32 I have owned.

I think cracks on the bezel near the PCMCIA slot were common given that it is a weakpoint, and some power supply cap issues, but never experienced them myself.

It is my favourite TP without a doubt.

One good speedup hint (beyond maxing at 2GB) is to put in something like a Hitachi 7K60 (7200RPM) drive... I did this back in '04 and it did make quite a difference. I guess SSD's (if available in IDE interface?) now might be better options!

ggiglio · #16 Post by **ggiglio** » Mon Dec 10, 2012 5:15 am

so maybe the reddish tint on display at power-up (more evident if running on batteries) it's NOT like the machine is saying...tomorrow I'll die...
let's hope

p.s. I cannot find 2 x 1 Gb ram pc2700 for the expansion. Any guess

#17 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:27 am

Reddish display means that the CCFL (backlight tube) is slowly dying.
Over time (3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months, a year?) it will get redder, and then completely die.

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