How long will my T430 be good to use?

[rjsrjs]

Can anyone answer this question? Looking to acquiring T440p and add it to my laptops. Linux Mint 19.3 is my daily driver on the T430, 180 GB SSD 8 GB ram. Any comments will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you:

[axur-delmeria]

It really depends on what your computing needs are. If its just web browsing or other simple tasks, the T430 is more than enough. Since you're using Linux, obsolescence due to a lack of drivers won't be an issue anytime soon, in contrast to Windows 10.

[dr_st]

A T440p is not a major upgrade to a T430, though.

[TPFanatic]

T430 will never be obsolete.

[T410]

Can anyone answer this question? Looking to acquiring T440p and add it to my laptops. Linux Mint 19.3 is my daily driver on the T430, 180 GB SSD 8 GB ram. Any comments will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you:

Copycat.

viewtopic.php?f=45&t=129996

[Jake.Werecat]

T430 can handle 3rd generation Core i7 quad core, with 35W TDP, and up to 16GB of RAM, it can handle fast SSD's on SATA III port, mine has additional 2TB HDD storage drive instead of CD-ROM, and a backlit keyboard. It's a perfect daily machine. Most, let's call it "standard computers sold in supermarkets" these days are still way below that specs, when being almost 7 years younger. The tempo of changes in PC specs slowed down hell lot of throughout last years, newer CPUs and RAM stick are mostly just a change architecture with slightly increased efficiency and lower power consumption. Thus I cannot see T430 becoming obsolete any time soon!

[rjsrjs]

Thanks Jake for your reply, very informative. So I guess I'll keep it for a while and maybe up grade it even more in the future although in it's current state, it's more than enough for my family's daily use.
Oh!, is there a good site I can go to to find what is up gradable and what I can put in this machine?
Thanks again.

[zugu]

You can upgrade pretty much anything in a T430. I upgraded the CPU (to a 35W quad core i7), the RAM (to 16 GB DDR3L for slightly better battery life), the battery (to a 9-cell), the keyboard (to a backlit one with US layout), the display (to a 900p, also required an upgrade to a HD+ cable), and the storage (an SSD in the primary slot, but you can also replace the optical drive with a SATA adapter, and/or use an mSATA SSD in the mPCIe slot). At some point, someone dropped it and I had to replace the magnesium frame and the backplate. I bought a dock for $6 and now I can also use it in my home office as a desktop replacement.

Now that 1vyrain is out, I flashed a modded BIOS. I can now upgrade my WLAN card to Intel 7260 AC for faster wifi, and put a LTE WWAN card in the mSATA slot, pop a SIM card in and have 4G data on the go. I further plan on flashing the EC so that the machine will accept non-genuine batteries. Maybe I'll even buy an extra slice battery.

I looked into upgrading this whole setup and I honestly believe there is no reason to upgrade. Unless you really, really need the extra battery life the newer Intel CPUs can offer you. I truly believe my T430 will be usable as a daily driver at least two-three years from now. I'll probably upgrade when the current Ryzen T-series Thinkpads will be 1-3 generations old.

[rjsrjs]

I'm sorry, I have no idea what 1vyrain is, could you explain please.

[Jake.Werecat]

My T430 specs:
-Intel i7 3632QM cPU (which is the best intel cpu with 35W)
-nVidia NVS 5400M GPU
-16GB RAM
-120GB SSD + 2TB HDD in the UltraBay
-Intel 6300 802.11n WLAN card
-H5321 3G/HSPA+ WWAN card
-Backlit US keyboard
-1440x900 TN HD+ Dispaly
These are the specs that can be obtained plug&play with NO mods what so ever, and pretty cheaply too.

But with a bit of more involvement you can do more:
-upgrade the screen to 1920x1080 FHD IPS Display (you need to buy and install an adapter board)
-classic 7-row keyboard swap, if you like it more then the new island-type one, however older ones were not backlit (you need to insulate 1 few pins in the connector with nail polish or something similar and flash the EC)
-update WLAN to Intel 7260 802.11ac and WWAN to Sierra MC7710 4G/LTE (you need to flash the custom BIOS)

Now a bit more about flashing the BIOS and why.
Most ThinkPad (I'm not certain enough to say ALL), have a wwan/wlan card whitelist, which means that only certain certificated cards are allowed. If you put in different one, your machine will start screaming, will spit out 1802 error and refuse to boot.
This is how it looks:

To overcome that, you can flash the custom BIOS. On T420 and older machines, that was easy as walk in the park,but since x30 generation (x230/t430/w530 etc) the BIOS is... locked down to accept only signed firmware. So, what was needed was a hardware flash, requiring disassembling the computer, clipping in the hardware flasher directly to the chip, dumping the old image, modifying it, formatting the chip and uploading new one. So not that easy, as you need some equipment and some skills. But not so long ago (a month? 5 weeks?) "1vyrain" mod was realeased, which uses a recently found vulnerability in firmware, making it available to soft-flash custom BIOS image without taking the machine apart.
Hope that helps

[RealBlackStuff]

See the Ivyprep and 1vyrain threads at the top of this page.
Do Ivyprep first, then 1vyrain.
Carefully read everything first.

[kiterunner]

You can upgrade pretty much anything in a T430. I upgraded the CPU (to a 35W quad core i7), the RAM (to 16 GB DDR3L for slightly better battery life), the battery (to a 9-cell), the keyboard (to a backlit one with US layout), the display (to a 900p, also required an upgrade to a HD+ cable), and the storage (an SSD in the primary slot, but you can also replace the optical drive with a SATA adapter, and/or use an mSATA SSD in the mPCIe slot). At some point, someone dropped it and I had to replace the magnesium frame and the backplate. I bought a dock for $6 and now I can also use it in my home office as a desktop replacement.

Now that 1vyrain is out, I flashed a modded BIOS. I can now upgrade my WLAN card to Intel 7260 AC for faster wifi, and put a LTE WWAN card in the mSATA slot, pop a SIM card in and have 4G data on the go. I further plan on flashing the EC so that the machine will accept non-genuine batteries. Maybe I'll even buy an extra slice battery.

I looked into upgrading this whole setup and I honestly believe there is no reason to upgrade. Unless you really, really need the extra battery life the newer Intel CPUs can offer you. I truly believe my T430 will be usable as a daily driver at least two-three years from now. I'll probably upgrade when the current Ryzen T-series Thinkpads will be 1-3 generations old.

AGREE AGREE AGREE

i even just bought T430 last week, with i5 3320M/HD+/8GB/512GBSSD/DualGPU and 9 cell genuine battery that amazingly still in a full charge capacity ( 90.500mWH) and 5% wear level only, the laptop itself is perfectly MINT, looks like someone just buy it, use it couple of times, then put it inside the draw untill last week lol
tbh i just stop by to the computer shop to buy new HDD enclosure and ended buy this unit because its too perfect to pass, and its only 250$ USD also, so i think its cheap consider the condition.

now i just need to explain to my wife, what im gonna do with this T430 within another T520, W530 and T450 lying around my desk "_"

[cadillacmike68]

Well, I'm still running T61s, but I did recently get a T530.