How much time and money we spend upgrading our classics.

[Kaze22]

What is it about an old Thinkpad thats makes us willing to spend precious time and money on it, year after year?
Is it like an old car? What Thinkpad has made you feel this way? How much have you spent on her?

Personally for me it's my precious X301.
Had her for almost 3 years now. A year ago I had a chance to sell her for $900 and pickup a brand new X1, but decided against it.
Since then I've spend more money on upgrading this laptop then what its worth.

Current worth of an X301 is about $600 and change.
I've spent far more than that on just upgrades.

4gb to 8Gb Ram = $60
Gobi 2000 WWAN= $80
128Gb OEM SSD - Latest Kingston 256gb V+180 with TRIM = $450
Alps Garbage Touchpad to Synaptic Multitouch = $80
3 Cell Drive Bay Battery = 50$
Grand Total = $720 (Enough to buy a brand new Laptop or a used X1)

The feeling of my X301 running faster than ever, PRICELESS.

Anyways, share your insane Classic Thinkpad upgrade stories.

[dr_st]

I'm still in the process of spending money to upgrade and update and keep alive a nearly-obsolete X32 system.

Not to mention similar processes that went into my soon-to-be 8-years old Pentium4 desktop system.

[ajkula66]

My 701C has set me back at least four times more in the restoration cost than what the purchase price was, and at least three times its market value.

Do I care? Heck, no.

The same goes for my A31p and T43p...as long as I can keep them running, I will.

They've earned their keep. And then some.

[Kaze22]

Yeah, something about getting an classic to keep running well makes you feel all warm and fuzzy.
When I got the 256 Kingston SSD for my X301, the sales guy was like WTF? You gonna use that in your X301?
I'm like hell yeah. Replacing a perfectly good touchpad was also a hoot.

[Blzut3]

I found out that there's a store right around the corner from my school that stocks parts for most thinkpads (old and new). Quite a few of the parts for the 380XD were $5 each so I ended up upgrading the processor to the 266MHz P2 as well as buying a dock. (Somewhat ironically the most feature filled dock was $5, but the lesser docks were something like $70 or more. I guess they have fortune 500 companies/government buying old parts.)

Almost revived my original P1 380XD, but it turns out it was the system board that failed and not the DC-DC card as the HMM would suggest, and system board replacements are almost never worth it. (Usually cheaper to obtain a new working unit.)

Also I performed a $330 screen replacement on my X61 Tablet, but honestly I don't call that a "classic" yet.

[jdk]

Ugh. Much more money than I care to admit. I've never purchased a new Thinkpad...they've always been used, out of warranty, but any "savings" I make from this have been offset by the $$$ that I keep sinking into them.

From a cost/benefit point of view, the best upgrades I've made:
- Upgrading T41 from Banias to Dothan for about $30.
- 2GB -> 4GB RAM in my T61 (got me through an undergrad Android project)
- 7200 RPM WD Scorpio Black for $20 in my last X60s
- Windows 7 - two copies for free thanks to MSDNAA

The worst $$$ decisions:
- Paying to have my T41 and T42p "reflowed" by people who were probably incompetent. In the latter case, the laptop came back with a different motherboard and a lesser GPU.
- Deleting the touchpad from my T41. This involved buying a new palmrest back when they weren't cheap...all for cosmetic reasons .
- Deleting the fingerprint reader from my X60s...again, totally unnecessary, that $$$ could have been spent on RAM.

[Scottfish]

Very funny to come across this post as I was pondering just this earlier.

I bought an X60 for $150. Within hours, I had ordered up RAM and a dock for eighty bucks. Today I secured an extra battery for $50.

This merely means I have to ramp up my outgoing sales pile to offset the outgoing $.

I have always had a soft spot for bringing older hardware back to service. I love getting an old machine to boot my Linux distro du jour and tweaking.

[lophiomys]

The 15inch 4:3 UXGA I think are worth being maintained IMO.
Cf my signature.
Currently I exercise the SATA mod on T43 mobos.
Only the [censored] Kapton/Polyimid-tape, to stabilise the soldered wires, has cost 50,-EURs...
So Long,
/L

[RealBlackStuff]

Kapton tape on eBay starts at less than $2.- with free shipping.
The most useful (20mm x 33m/100ft) is about $4.-!
Where do you buy such overpriced items?

[wkw1]

I think the same thing that can be said about vintage cars can be said about computers.

With the two thinkpads I got are, I believe, the oldest computers I now have. I used to have a pentium 2 desktop, with a whopping 3gb hard drive. I ended up deciding to junk the board, because I had a P3 desktop, in a microATX case, and no microATX power supply. Just junked the board. Mainly, because I couldn't find video drivers for it, at all.. And the thing took almost two minutes to past POST

The case, cd, diskette, and power supply are still in good use.

That said, I do enjoy tinkering with older things. Very fun, personally. And I do think I'll end up enjoying these two thinkpads. Considering they would be functional, to a degree.

[lophiomys]

@RBS
Bitter to hear about that. Surprised I actually did swear in my previous post, I'd like to do it even more now.
I tried to find a cheap Kapton tape, I even called local electricians, but I didn't check the US eBay site.
Polyimide Tape at Conrad.at
Seems the European Market can rip off its customers.
Too late now anyway.
Cheers.

[Unknown_K]

I have a few bucks tied up in 50+ old thinkpads and upgrades for them. Working batteries for the real old models (that mostly sit on the shelf) can get pricey, but its still a cheap hobby compared to anything else.