Re: What is your system advice? Solved.
Thanks again for all the helpful input in response to my recent question: "What is your advice to update my system?" After much research, I finally decided that, for my needs, the best option was a used T420 Thinkpad. I've had excellent results with IBM Thinkpads and never had one fail. Now they are all Lenovo, of course; and I found one from a private party on Craigslist for $200 that looks absolutely brand new, like it has never been used, and with 8-Gb RAM. Lots of them on ebay for as little as $99 with no OS and priced all over the map up to $500 and even more. Now just need to flush the 500-gig hard drive and install Linux Mint and I should be good to go for the next 5 years or longer. --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: What is your system advice? Solved.
You'll enjoy that Laptop a lot. I just picked up a T420 myself a few weeks ago and everything works perfect right out of the box. I did add 8 gigs of ram for a total of 12Gig and installed a 240Gig mSATA SSD that I installed the system on and that's an addition to the 320 Gig spinning drive that I put /home on, and that made a huge difference in the speed of all the apps loading. It's nice having a laptop that doesn't weigh a million pounds. I picked it up so that I would have something light(er) to take to SCaLE, but I have to admit that I'm hauling it all over the place because of it's size (compared to the monsters that I usually use). Brian Cluff On 10/06/2015 04:02 PM, j...@actionline.com wrote: Thanks again for all the helpful input in response to my recent question: "What is your advice to update my system?" After much research, I finally decided that, for my needs, the best option was a used T420 Thinkpad. I've had excellent results with IBM Thinkpads and never had one fail. Now they are all Lenovo, of course; and I found one from a private party on Craigslist for $200 that looks absolutely brand new, like it has never been used, and with 8-Gb RAM. Lots of them on ebay for as little as $99 with no OS and priced all over the map up to $500 and even more. Now just need to flush the 500-gig hard drive and install Linux Mint and I should be good to go for the next 5 years or longer. --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: What is your system advice? Solved.
I have a T500 that I bought years ago. I begged and begged and Lenovo support sent me the better hard-backed keyboard which I promptly replaced. It was originally a core 2 duo 2.8GHz with 4GB of ram and a 160GB 7200 rpm drive. The fan went out a week after the warranty ended and I never had the extra 60 bucks to replace it, so it has lived on with the dual cores disabled in bios and powermanagement forcing it to run at 800MHz. I replaced the hard drive with a Samsung 840 Pro SSD and still use it with a single core at 800 and that laptop is faster than HP zBook with a fancy new core i7 and 16GB of ram. Well, it was until I put the same SSD in the zBook... but that's a different story. Long live Lenovo Thinkpads! On 2015-10-06 16:02, j...@actionline.com wrote: Thanks again for all the helpful input in response to my recent question: "What is your advice to update my system?" After much research, I finally decided that, for my needs, the best option was a used T420 Thinkpad. I've had excellent results with IBM Thinkpads and never had one fail. Now they are all Lenovo, of course; and I found one from a private party on Craigslist for $200 that looks absolutely brand new, like it has never been used, and with 8-Gb RAM. Lots of them on ebay for as little as $99 with no OS and priced all over the map up to $500 and even more. Now just need to flush the 500-gig hard drive and install Linux Mint and I should be good to go for the next 5 years or longer. --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss -- Nathan England (480) 559 - 9681 nengl...@nmecs.com http://www.nmecs.com/ Web Developer, PHP Programmer, Lamp Administration, and Information Security Specialist --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: What is your system advice? Solved.
you bought it an SSD instead of a fan? On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 10:43 AM, Nathan England wrote: > > > I have a T500 that I bought years ago. I begged and begged and Lenovo > support sent me the better hard-backed keyboard which I promptly replaced. > It was originally a core 2 duo 2.8GHz with 4GB of ram and a 160GB 7200 rpm > drive. > > The fan went out a week after the warranty ended and I never had the extra > 60 bucks to replace it, so it has lived on with the dual cores disabled in > bios and powermanagement forcing it to run at 800MHz. > > I replaced the hard drive with a Samsung 840 Pro SSD and still use it with > a single core at 800 and that laptop is faster than HP zBook with a fancy > new core i7 and 16GB of ram. Well, it was until I put the same SSD in the > zBook... but that's a different story. > > Long live Lenovo Thinkpads! > > > > > On 2015-10-06 16:02, j...@actionline.com wrote: > >> Thanks again for all the helpful input in response to my >> recent question: "What is your advice to update my system?" >> >> After much research, I finally decided that, for my needs, the best >> option was a used T420 Thinkpad. I've had excellent results with IBM >> Thinkpads and never had one fail. Now they are all Lenovo, of course; and >> I found one from a private party on Craigslist for $200 that looks >> absolutely brand new, like it has never been used, and with 8-Gb RAM. >> >> Lots of them on ebay for as little as $99 with no OS and priced all over >> the map up to $500 and even more. >> >> Now just need to flush the 500-gig hard drive and install Linux Mint and >> I should be good to go for the next 5 years or longer. >> >> >> >> --- >> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org >> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: >> http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >> > > -- > Nathan England (480) 559 - 9681 > nengl...@nmecs.com > http://www.nmecs.com/ > Web Developer, PHP Programmer, Lamp Administration, and > Information Security Specialist > > > > > --- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > -- A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button. Stephen --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: What is your system advice? Solved.
My current customer threw me a t440 with a dock to use internally. Decent - light, but sorely underpowered. I slaughter 8gb of ram on the t440 with win7 seemingly like nothing, and the i5 proc will haaang visio forever doing complex edits of groups of shapes for sometimes 30sec. Windoze is still a pig I think, maybe the hardware would be ok with linux. I ended up jiving a virtual image out of them, and simply run it on my linux dell e7240 on the road or desktop as another vm under parent ubuntu, works wayyy better than that i5 t440 lenovo does native. The screen was total low-def crap too on it. Not sure if it was just the working econo-class laptop for employee drones, but anything less than 1080p on a 12" or bigger laptop should be scorned and made fun of. With my vbox vm fo the corp image, I give it 3 virtual monitors I run full screen across 3 monitors, and even win7 runs great under linux in virt with all their bitlocker, virus scanning, with the bloated microsoft os. I have to give it 12gb of my 32 to keep it happy though, causing me to oom more than a few times in my parent system. Before buying my dell, I looked at lenovo, and wasn't terribly impressed to find a powerful, lightweight laptop with a docking station. With dell I found I could get a 12" 1920x1080 touch screen laptop, backlit keyboard, 16gb of ram, i7 (ulv, dual-core, meh), dp/hdmi out, and even with the crappy intel video runs ubuntu great. The t440 sits on a desk now, I'm not at all impressed with it, at least with windoze on it, but the screen makes it a non-starter at all. Oh yeah, that f'in Fn key should never replace a ctrl in the bottom left-most corner. It infuriates me to almost throw it across a room. They really need to make a not-lame keyboard option. -mb On 10/07/2015 10:43 AM, Nathan England wrote: I have a T500 that I bought years ago. I begged and begged and Lenovo support sent me the better hard-backed keyboard which I promptly replaced. It was originally a core 2 duo 2.8GHz with 4GB of ram and a 160GB 7200 rpm drive. The fan went out a week after the warranty ended and I never had the extra 60 bucks to replace it, so it has lived on with the dual cores disabled in bios and powermanagement forcing it to run at 800MHz. I replaced the hard drive with a Samsung 840 Pro SSD and still use it with a single core at 800 and that laptop is faster than HP zBook with a fancy new core i7 and 16GB of ram. Well, it was until I put the same SSD in the zBook... but that's a different story. Long live Lenovo Thinkpads! --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: What is your system advice? Solved.
Oh yeah - best part was dual ssd in that e7240 dell laptop for being all that and like 2lb too. I'm very fond of raid 1 with ssd's. Great little powerhouse, at least until one with a 4k display comes around. On 10/07/2015 07:03 PM, Michael Butash wrote: Before buying my dell, I looked at lenovo, and wasn't terribly impressed to find a powerful, lightweight laptop with a docking station. With dell I found I could get a 12" 1920x1080 touch screen laptop, backlit keyboard, 16gb of ram, i7 (ulv, dual-core, meh), dp/hdmi out, and even with the crappy intel video runs ubuntu great. -mb --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
RE: What is your system advice? Solved.
Funny rant. :) As for this: "Oh yeah, that f'in Fn key should never replace a ctrl in the bottom left-most corner. It infuriates me to almost throw it across a room." Completely agree. But I've found BIOS settings that can swap the Fn and Ctrl key functions. You should take a look around in there and see if you can find that. Cheers. -Original Message- From: plug-discuss-boun...@lists.phxlinux.org [mailto:plug-discuss-boun...@lists.phxlinux.org] On Behalf Of Michael Butash Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2015 22:04 To: plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org Subject: Re: What is your system advice? Solved. My current customer threw me a t440 with a dock to use internally. Decent - light, but sorely underpowered. I slaughter 8gb of ram on the t440 with win7 seemingly like nothing, and the i5 proc will haaang visio forever doing complex edits of groups of shapes for sometimes 30sec. Windoze is still a pig I think, maybe the hardware would be ok with linux. I ended up jiving a virtual image out of them, and simply run it on my linux dell e7240 on the road or desktop as another vm under parent ubuntu, works wayyy better than that i5 t440 lenovo does native. The screen was total low-def crap too on it. Not sure if it was just the working econo-class laptop for employee drones, but anything less than 1080p on a 12" or bigger laptop should be scorned and made fun of. With my vbox vm fo the corp image, I give it 3 virtual monitors I run full screen across 3 monitors, and even win7 runs great under linux in virt with all their bitlocker, virus scanning, with the bloated microsoft os. I have to give it 12gb of my 32 to keep it happy though, causing me to oom more than a few times in my parent system. Before buying my dell, I looked at lenovo, and wasn't terribly impressed to find a powerful, lightweight laptop with a docking station. With dell I found I could get a 12" 1920x1080 touch screen laptop, backlit keyboard, 16gb of ram, i7 (ulv, dual-core, meh), dp/hdmi out, and even with the crappy intel video runs ubuntu great. The t440 sits on a desk now, I'm not at all impressed with it, at least with windoze on it, but the screen makes it a non-starter at all. Oh yeah, that f'in Fn key should never replace a ctrl in the bottom left-most corner. It infuriates me to almost throw it across a room. They really need to make a not-lame keyboard option. -mb On 10/07/2015 10:43 AM, Nathan England wrote: > I have a T500 that I bought years ago. I begged and begged and Lenovo > support sent me the better hard-backed keyboard which I promptly > replaced. It was originally a core 2 duo 2.8GHz with 4GB of ram and a > 160GB 7200 rpm drive. > > The fan went out a week after the warranty ended and I never had the > extra 60 bucks to replace it, so it has lived on with the dual cores > disabled in bios and powermanagement forcing it to run at 800MHz. > > I replaced the hard drive with a Samsung 840 Pro SSD and still use it > with a single core at 800 and that laptop is faster than HP zBook with > a fancy new core i7 and 16GB of ram. Well, it was until I put the same > SSD in the zBook... but that's a different story. > > Long live Lenovo Thinkpads! --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: What is your system advice? Solved.
Good point! Actually, it was an extra SSD I had that I was not using. I figured it might make it a little quicker and I won't have to spend any money on it. One of these days I would like to replace that fan. On 2015-10-07 11:34, Stephen Partington wrote: > you bought it an SSD instead of a fan? > > On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 10:43 AM, Nathan England wrote: > > I have a T500 that I bought years ago. I begged and begged and Lenovo support > sent me the better hard-backed keyboard which I promptly replaced. It was > originally a core 2 duo 2.8GHz with 4GB of ram and a 160GB 7200 rpm drive. > > The fan went out a week after the warranty ended and I never had the extra 60 > bucks to replace it, so it has lived on with the dual cores disabled in bios > and powermanagement forcing it to run at 800MHz. > > I replaced the hard drive with a Samsung 840 Pro SSD and still use it with a > single core at 800 and that laptop is faster than HP zBook with a fancy new > core i7 and 16GB of ram. Well, it was until I put the same SSD in the > zBook... but that's a different story. > > Long live Lenovo Thinkpads! > > On 2015-10-06 16:02, j...@actionline.com wrote: > Thanks again for all the helpful input in response to my > recent question: "What is your advice to update my system?" > > After much research, I finally decided that, for my needs, the best > option was a used T420 Thinkpad. I've had excellent results with IBM > Thinkpads and never had one fail. Now they are all Lenovo, of course; and > I found one from a private party on Craigslist for $200 that looks > absolutely brand new, like it has never been used, and with 8-Gb RAM. > > Lots of them on ebay for as little as $99 with no OS and priced all over > the map up to $500 and even more. > > Now just need to flush the 500-gig hard drive and install Linux Mint and > I should be good to go for the next 5 years or longer. > > --- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss [1] -- > Nathan England (480) 559 - 9681 [2] > nengl...@nmecs.com > http://www.nmecs.com/ [3] > Web Developer, PHP Programmer, Lamp Administration, and > Information Security Specialist > > --- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss [1] -- A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button. Stephen Nathan England (480) 559 - 9681 nengl...@nmecs.com http://www.nmecs.com/ [3] Web Developer, PHP Programmer, Lamp Administration, and Information Security Specialist Links: -- [1] http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss [2] tel:%28480%29%20559%20-%209681 [3] http://www.nmecs.com/ --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: What is your system advice? Solved.
On 10/07/2015 07:03 PM, Michael Butash wrote: I slaughter 8gb of ram on the t440 with win7 seemingly like nothing, and the i5 proc will haaang visio forever doing complex edits of groups of shapes for sometimes 30sec. Windoze is still a pig I think, maybe the hardware would be ok with linux. I ended up jiving a virtual image out of them, and simply run it on my linux dell e7240 on the road or desktop as another vm under parent ubuntu, works wayyy better than that i5 t440 lenovo does native. If it's RAM that is killing you, upgrade it to 16Gigs. If it's anything like the T420 I have, it says that it will only take 8gb total, but it will in fact use 8Gig chips with no problem. I added an 8Gig chip to the 4Gigs that it already had and have now have 12Gig in mine, which has been fine so far. If I need more, I'll replace the other 4gig chip as well, but I doubt that I will any time soon for what I plan to use this system for. It sounds to me like Visio is a total pig if it's eating up 8 gigs or ram. It would have to be an insanely complex shape(s) to really use that in any of the vector based software that I have used. Oh yeah, that f'in Fn key should never replace a ctrl in the bottom left-most corner. It infuriates me to almost throw it across a room. They really need to make a not-lame keyboard option. I agree, the Fn key is in a really weird place and it takes some getting used to, especially when you switch back and forth between computers but, Look in your BIOS. If it's similar to mine you can swap the Fn and CTRL keys and make it into a similar layout to most other laptops. Brian Cluff --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
