I got my favorite machine back!!

[Thinkpad4by3]

I used to love my T430s when it was still alive . Maxed to the sky, fast as all get out, and I adored that machine. Well I didn't get a T430s, but a T430 a few days ago and I realized how much I loved the T430 series machines. And no...I'm not doing the 7 row swap, If I have dedicated volume keys aside from the F-row, I'm happy .

[UMPC2024]

Congratulations! My first ThinkPad was the T430 for college. I still use it as my daily driver after 5 going on 6 years. It's also what got me onto this forum.

Is your T430s repairable?

[olddog]

My first Thinkpad was a T430, just a few months ago. Superb machine - I was hooked immediately. It's since been largely superseded by a W530 and joined by various flavours of T61 and T42. Latest is an X30 in full working order.

The challenge now is to think of uses for as many of them as possible. Currently I have a T61 hooked up to the hi-fi via a DAC; a souped up T61 for web browsing, and the T430/W530 share a dock for use as photo editor/video editor respectively.

I even have Vista on one of them, to remind me of Microsoft's biggest blunder. I'll probably clone the drive onto a cheap SSD and then it might finish booting up by lunchtime.

[dr_st]

Nice! A T430 and a T430s are very different machines, despite the similar names.

A T430s is almost ultrabook category - it is rather slim and light for a 14" machine, and still has tons of expandability. A bit weak on battery life off the shelf, but quite respectable if you get the bay battery.

A T430 is nowhere near that in terms of size and weight, but you can stick a quad-core CPU in it which turns it into a workstation, akin W530, which can run circles around much newer dual-core offerings.

Enjoy your new old friend.

[Thinkpad4by3]

Thanks guys, I will enjoy this machine and it will get a good second life. I fired up Fusion 360 and found that the NVS5400M is actually quite a powerful little chip unlike the my T520's NVS4200M.

Is your T430s repairable?

Total MB failure. And it died a few years ago when i7 MB prices were still pretty high. For ~200$ it was decided that it wasn't worth it.

The challenge now is to think of uses for as many of them as possible. Currently I have a T61 hooked up to the hi-fi via a DAC; a souped up T61 for web browsing, and the T430/W530 share a dock for use as photo editor/video editor respectively.

I have my little X201 with its dead batteries sit right next to my 3D printer so that it can slice the files onto an SD card. Its a little purpose, but it gives that machine a purpose.

Nice! A T430 and a T430s are very different machines, despite the similar names.

A T430s is almost ultrabook category - it is rather slim and light for a 14" machine, and still has tons of expandability. A bit weak on battery life off the shelf, but quite respectable if you get the bay battery.

A T430 is nowhere near that in terms of size and weight, but you can stick a quad-core CPU in it which turns it into a workstation, akin W530, which can run circles around much newer dual-core offerings.

Enjoy your new old friend.

Oh yeah I know they're like totally different beasts. The T430s was basically the X301's successor in my eyes. I remember taking a X301 and T410 on a trip and I used to always take the X301 and make fun of the T410 because it BSOD from overheating a lot(little did I know). I'm actually a bit happier with the T430 because of the big battery acting as a free handle, upgraded graphics and the potential for a QC processor. It might get either an Alienware LCD or a 1080p display depending on what I feel like spending for a better screen on it.

[AndyMH]

I like them so much, I've got three. One for the other half and two for me. Can't resist tweaking them, maxed out the RAM, HDDs to SSDs, changed i5-3320M to i7-3632QM, upgraded 1366x768 screen to 1600x900 (not lenovo, glossy) and replaced DVD drives with caddies and TB HDDs. Other half is win7, mine are linux mint.