Death of a T400 - a story of an unwanted laptop

[TonyJZX]

One of the first T400 units I got is a 14" P8600 whatever with 4Gb ram, 1,280 x 800 screen, Intel GFX, 250Gb hdd, Intel 5300.

I got this as unit disposed by a client who just wanted it gone. It had a blanked HDD. The unit ran Win7 fine. I had no use for this machine as I had newer units. I gave this to my kid to use. My kid gets the older T61/400 units that arent useful to me any more. They sit mainly on a desk or bed and run fine for web machines.

However they do get abuse, ie. dropped off the bed etc. Usual bad grubby kids use, maybe spilled stuff on the kbd.

This one had enough. One day it refused to power on. I think the unit has a crack in the board or it sheared of a component etc. and now its met its final end.

I expect this to happen to disposable machines. This one had a harsh end after 3yrs of faithful service as basically a DTR in an office.

I will probably take the ram hdd wifi ultrabay cd and toss the rest? Its just gone too far. The CCFL screen sucks. E-waste.

[kfzhu1229]

My suggestion is if you have maxed out hardware like 8gb DDR2 RAM, Bluray, 802.11ac compatible adapter, etc, take them out and put some lower end stuff you may have lying around in there and post it on this forum for very cheap or at the cost of shipping. For something you don't want does not necessarily mean nobody on this forum wants it (unless EVERYTHING is non-functional)

[shawross]

I had a similar spec'd T400 with the ATI GPU as well and I gave it to my brother about 4 - 5 years ago. Mine had wobbly hinges but I thought the performance was very good especially for the time.
I never saw the T400 or the T60/T61's as being elegant which I blamed on Lenovo cheapening out the design. The X61 was a bit better due to its small form factor but this is my personal view only and others will obviously differ here.

How time values our old Thinkpads is yet to be truly realised. At least you got your moneys worth out of this unit and it owes you nothing.

[dr_st]

I never saw the T400 or the T60/T61's as being elegant which I blamed on Lenovo cheapening out the design.

It's not about "cheapening out". It's just that for whatever reason the design of the T61/T400 fell on someone with zero aesthetics. Things were much better before and after.

[TPFanatic]

The highlight of the '09 generation are, for me, the T500 and R500. R500 has a very sturdy case, it's plastic but very firm feeling all around. R500 and T500 can be refitted with higher resolution screen options than the 14.1" models.

Another pro is the ease and straightforwardness of disassembling a T500, however this is better attributed to the T60 or T61, since after the swisscheeseboard screwup the T500 got this one-piece metal heatsink-brace + support-plate, supposed to give the keyboard more support, but it just gets in the way of diassembling the laptop, and you have to remove the heatsink's GPU extension's braces to upgrade wireless, take off the keyboard bezel, or remove the lid -- that's just stupid. The rare T500 or R500 with a solid keyboard, or one refitted with a solid keyboard, won't have these problems and works as it should with the T61 / original two piece heatsink braces.

T5/400 also uses DDR3 ram @ 1066 mhz, which is two generations faster than T61's @ 677 - more importantly it's cheaper to upgrade to 8GB. T500 is a very good laptop in my opinion, its and T61's design are based on just a widened standard screen T-series - but T400, and 14" Wide T61 were newly fabricated and are more of a mess so and wholly surpassed by the T410, which is also designed amazingly and very easy to disassemble.

[TonyJZX]

I never saw the T400 or the T60/T61's as being elegant which I blamed on Lenovo cheapening out the design.

It's not about "cheapening out". It's just that for whatever reason the design of the T61/T400 fell on someone with zero aesthetics. Things were much better before and after.

I remember the progression from the T20/23 to T40/43 to T60/61.

Obviously it feels like IBM had its fingerprints all over the T40 and the T60 was the 1st of the Lenovo era.

IMO the T40 had a lot of art to the design.

The T60 had no art. It was a utilitarian tool.

Be that as it may, the T60/61/400 was around for 5yrs etc. so we had plenty of time to get used to the design so I dont love it but I respect it and I do like how familar its layout is.

Despite popular belief, I dont feel the 410/420 is a huge step up in an mechanical/design way. IMO the 420/420s is actually a step back in many aspects but again, I do like this period overall.

[shawross]

Yes things were obviously better before but to say they were much better after is a huge stretch IMO.

[dr_st]

I remember the progression from the T20/23 to T40/43 to T60/61.

Obviously it feels like IBM had its fingerprints all over the T40 and the T60 was the 1st of the Lenovo era.

The T60 was released shortly after the Lenovo acquisition, which means it was designed fully under IBM. It is also a lot like the T40 in many ways, especially the 15" models.

IMO the T40 had a lot of art to the design.

The T60 had no art. It was a utilitarian tool.

Oh, the T60 had art in it. It's just that the concept was different. It is very beautiful and symmetric. It does not have the extra little touches that the T40 series had, and it looks much 'cleaner' for it. But some find that "clean = dull", and that's a different story.

Despite popular belief, I dont feel the 410/420 is a huge step up in an mechanical/design way. IMO the 420/420s is actually a step back in many aspects but again, I do like this period overall.

In a mechanical way - maybe not. In some aspects it may be a step back, but I haven't found any aspect in which it's significantly so, and I have used a T410 for 6+ years. In terms of elegance, though? It's definitely a huge step up from T61/T400/T500.

[kfzhu1229]

Also I have a question: In terms of longitivity, which of the following usually lasts longer (assuming proper use) before they give up?
T2x
A2x
T30
A3x
T4x
R5x
T6x
R6x
T4xx
T5xx
R400
R500

[TonyJZX]

There's no reason why any T20 to T420 etc. wouldnt last 5yrs 10yrs given normal reasonable use.

Unless its a unit earmarked for early death like an Nvidia T61 then I have no doubt these things might even outlast me... sure you may need to fix batteries, RTC battery and fans but thats about it.

On super heavy wear units like the X300s I've had which have been dropped and abused you get wonkey ribbon cables so iffy screens and the like.

I used to run an R61 and T61 side by side at work and there wasnt much functional difference.

[shawross]

Obviously excessive heat/dust will affect any Electronic device but the main killer will be mechanical jolts from being transported/dropped IMO.

Generally this is why we chose Thinkpads because they are reasonably robust.

[TPFanatic]

I believe later Lenovo R series used cheaper, slower fans and maybe lower quality electronics and production, so I suspect they may fail sooner than contemporary T series if put through similar usage duration and conditions. However so many used, and practically mint R series remain on the market for stupid cheap to replace any failed units. R series has retained barely any value. I turn over used Thinkpads locally and everything else sells / sold faster than my one mint R500.

[kfzhu1229]

Also I think one of the things that is likely to die other than BGA desoldering, batteries and motorized stuff is capacitors. I have a 770ED which has a power board completely failed on me so it does not start anymore. But then that machine was under heavy abuse. I also have a 600 which still works but sometimes it takes 2 tries to get it to boot fine for some reason... The 600 had been dropped on the back with its stock adapter plugged in and even though the adapter connector on the charger end is completely kinked, the 600's jack still works just fine (but a bit more loose) and I am still able to use that adapter after me bending the kink back. Then after like 2 more years, the circuit board in that charger failed so now it only works for like 5 minutes every time before it stops charging. This by my experience is by no means lasting longer than myself but still infinitely more durable than something like the magnetic ones found in MacBook and Surface (the stock adapter only took two years to break apart)

[cadillacmike68]

It's not about "cheapening out". It's just that for whatever reason the design of the T61/T400 fell on someone with zero aesthetics. Things were much better before and after.

I remember the progression from the T20/23 to T40/43 to T60/61.

Obviously it feels like IBM had its fingerprints all over the T40 and the T60 was the 1st of the Lenovo era.

IMO the T40 had a lot of art to the design.

The T60 had no art. It was a utilitarian tool.

Be that as it may, the T60/61/400 was around for 5yrs etc. so we had plenty of time to get used to the design so I dont love it but I respect it and I do like how familar its layout is.

Despite popular belief, I dont feel the 410/420 is a huge step up in an mechanical/design way. IMO the 420/420s is actually a step back in many aspects but again, I do like this period overall.

Art We're talking about flat black rectangular boxes. At least the T20 and T30 (and probably T40) series had titanium reinforced cases. I took T22s and T30s on many desert combat deployments and they did fine, so their durability is top quality AFAIAC. I like the T61 because you have a lot of expansion capability. That said, the T500 has more powerful everything, but it's still a flat black rectangular box. Keyboards, I am fine with T20, 30, and 60 series (never had a T40 series). I've only one T500 and it like my Yorkshire terrorizer will not stay shut off. I'll eventually solve that and might grow to like it. Not interested in T400 because i never liked the 14: WS T61s screen is too small, especially with a WSXGA+ panel.

As for anything later with the too short 16:9 screens - no thanks.

Also I have a question: In terms of longitivity, which of the following usually lasts longer (assuming proper use) before they give up?
T2x
A2x
T30
A3x
T4x
R5x
T6x
R6x
T4xx
T5xx
R400
R500

Any T-series is going to be better and more durable than anything else of the same time frame. Them and the earlier 700 series have always been the best Thinkpad models.
As far as Which T-series, they all have some faults, T20 series with a possible problem in the internal power converter (I never had this happen to me); T30 with its AM slots (most of my T30s have this), T40 series, Northbridge / Southbridge chips, T61s with the infamous nvidia GPU & weak hinges), but overall they are all sturdy durable systems. If I had to say, I think the T20 & T30 series are the most durable.