T500 General question and ask for advice

[fje]

Hi, I used to have a T42 for several years. Just today I had a severe problem with it and I have to look for as replacement.

Due to budget problems I have to look for a second hand one, and, I would like to have a Thinkpad again. I found a good opportunnity with a T500 T5870 2Gb, being its rice in my budget

Question is, even I understand iy is not an "state of the art" machine, is the T500 a good Thinkpad machine?

Are any well known problems in this machine that I should know before buying it ?

Thanks a lot and kind regards.

Javier

[ZaZ]

The T500 is very solid. I don't believe it suffers from any major issues like the GPU failures on the T4x ThinkPads.

[fje]

**** Sorry if someone find this topic as duplicate, I put previously it in a wrong place (W500)**** Now I copy it to this right place... T500*****

Hi, I used to have a T42 for several years. Just today I had a severe problem with it and I have to look for as replacement.

Due to budget problems I have to look for a second hand one, and, I would like to have a Thinkpad again. I found a good opportunnity with a T500 T5870 2Gb, being its rice in my budget

Question is, even I understand iy is not an "state of the art" machine, is the T500 a good Thinkpad machine?

Are there any well known problems in this machine that I should know before buying it ?

Thanks a lot and kind regards.

Javier

[richk]

I think they are good machines without any common problems

[mpcook]

T500 is a great machine, 16:10 screen, very reliable, excellent keyboard. A choice model to go with.

[fje]

Thanks for your replies....

Already bought (it was a two days sale offering !!!!

Hope I will be able to use and enjoy it as I have been done with my T42 since I early retired 8 years ago....

Regards.

Javier

[Jakoob]

I have T500 for 4-5 years and it is working every day since first start without any problem. Very reliable machine with lot of power for regular things.
If you have it for good price, than definitely go for it

P.s.: and enjoy it, because T500 is the last ThinkPad before Lenovo started to destroy them...

[Cigarguy]

T400/T500 are good machines. I have a few T500 and like them a lot better than my T61. Native SATA II speed, Peryn CPU and DDR3 RAM is nice as DDR3 is much cheaper than DDR2. At the same time T500 will take a lot of accessories (battery, loading dock, power adapter, etc) from the T60 and T61 series.

Around where I live T400/T500 are in the process of being replaced by corporations and government so they are easily available and available for cheap. Just as was the case for T61 a couple of years ago.

An T500 with 8 GB RAM, switchable graphics and a SSD is still a very very capable machine. They don't suffer from GPU/SB problems of the T4x series nor the Nvidia debacle of the T61 series.

[fje]

Thanks for all your answers, and very glad of listening to the goodies you tell.

I'm looking for having my "new" T500 middle next week and discovering what it is preparing to offer me.

I am sure I will have to upgrade some of the features it comes with, for instance, it comes with a 160Gb HDD that I will change (first thing to do) with a 500Gb HDD, second thing in the change pipeline is RAM, it comes with 2Gb and I will shortly increase to, at least, 4Gb, and finally I will check if the 2.0 GHz T5870 processor it has should be changed by a more powerful microprocessor.

Aditionally I will probably buy a caddy for a second HDD to interchange with the DVD, in order to have the possibility to boot from Linux and also to have some special applications and data (pictures, model train information, backups, etc. etc.) on it as I have today in my T42.

Thanks again and kind regards to all of you that collaborated to have my mind more relaxed after I dook the decisión of buying the T500. It was really a good Price what I found, surely from a corporation change of hardware as someone pointed.

Javier

[Compgeke]

I personally would swap the T5870 with a T9600, which is around $30 on ebay and will feel much faster.

The previous laptop I had was a Latitude with a T9800 and 4 gigs of ram, it started up and responded a lot faster than those cheap Core i3 systems most people are getting today, despite being "slower" in benchmarks.

[ajkula66]

I personally would swap the T5870 with a T9600, which is around $30 on ebay and will feel much faster.

I'm pretty sure that it's a typo on OP's part since I've never heard of a T500 with a T5870 CPU...my guess would be P8700...

[fje]

I personally would swap the T5870 with a T9600, which is around $30 on ebay and will feel much faster.

I'm pretty sure that it's a typo on OP's part since I've never heard of a T500 with a T5870 CPU...my guess would be P8700...

From the Service manual of the T500:

21
CPU assembly, Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5870 (2.0 GHz) 43N7739 ....... v 2089-CTO (the one I bought) ....

And I will look for the ones you suggest: T9600 (2,80GHz 6Mb cache FSize bus 1066MHz) / P8700 (2,53GHz 3Mb cache FSize Bus 1066MHz) vs the one installed T5870 (2,00GHz 2Mb cache FSize Bus 800MHz), it will depends on the eBay price I could find and my Budget ...

Thanks again!

Javier

[Tasurinchi]

If you plan to buy a HD caddy anyway I would directly swap the 160 HDD by an SSD. Change in performance will be like night and day

My 2 cents...

[fje]

If you plan to buy a HD caddy anyway I would directly swap the 160 HDD by an SSD. Change in performance will be like night and day

My 2 cents...

Thanks! Very good idea!, much more than "your 2 cents".... let say "your bunch of dollars"

The only point is that I should look for the Price of an SSD of at least 250Gb and balance with that of an HDD and my Budget

Javier

[QWERTY Andreas]

The T500 is a very nice machine.

Just remember to open the lid at the middle, since the hinges are very tight - it can cause problem after some years if not opened properly.

Or you can loosen the hinges, if you have some technical skills.

[Tasurinchi]

I think 256GB SSDs currently offer the best ratio $/€ per GB. I would really think about how much space you need in the SSD, since you move stuff to the HD in your caddy anyway. I would tend to keep the minimum in the SSD and rather go for a larger HD.

I was also of the opinion that the price difference between 500GB and 1TB is much smaller than going from 120GB to 256GB in a SSD.

[fje]

I think 256GB SSDs currently offer the best ratio $/€ per GB. I would really think about how much space you need in the SSD, since you move stuff to the HD in your caddy anyway. I would tend to keep the minimum in the SSD and rather go for a larger HD.

I was also of the opinion that the price difference between 500GB and 1TB is much smaller than going from 120GB to 256GB in a SSD.

Hi, thanks. You are probably very right, but I am not very pro 1Tb HDDs almost permanently in the system, because as one told me time ago, "Nature hates empty space" and so, as much space you have, as much number of files you end having in the HDD and Windows doesn't manage very well HDDs with too many files on them, at least this is my experience, and finally the whole system becomes slow and slow...

What I would put in my caddy will not be as an extensión of the main HDD, but things that I use time to time and that I prefer to have in "direct access" instead of having it in an external USB device, but not as much as to impact the system, let say around 80 - 160Gb. And mainly also to have the fexibility of Linux booting without the need of installing a dual boot and, of course without the need of a "must have the caddy inserted" in order to work with the system in the day-by-day use of the laptop.

So, finally, SSD is a great idea, I'll have a look to the prices I can find in shops in Spain and also in the eBay and will try to have one of them....

Thanks again and kind regards.

Javier

[fje]

The T500 is a very nice machine.

Just remember to open the lid at the middle, since the hinges are very tight - it can cause problem after some years if not opened properly.

Or you can loosen the hinges, if you have some technical skills.

Thanks! Will put a note in my mind about it.... BTW, any idea about how to loosen the hinghes?

[rkawakami]

Didn't see it until now but I've merged the other thread from the W500 forum into this one.

[fje]

Didn't see it until now but I've merged the other thread from the W500 forum into this one.

Hi, Ray, good idea , thanks for doing it....

Regards.

Javier