I have a thinkpad in the late 90s and it still boots up till this day. I added more memory and added an SSD and a fresh set of batteries. This shit just won’t die.
The actual IBM ones from before Lenovo bought the company, the fat ones, those were fucking tanks. I remember using them in middle school, they were the best.
Using a generator to power a computer is a really bad idea. You’ll significantly shorten the lifespan of the power supply. Ask me how I know.
I’m trying to figure this out at the moment.
What is the best way to power a laptop in an off-grid setup? Mine will be primarily solar + AGM battery.
I think the simplest “just works” set up is to get a “pure sine” inverter and go:
solar > battery > inverter > power supp > laptop
The thing is, if I understand correctly you have a big inefficient inverter to AC only to transform back to DC, with the only benefit being that the plug fits in the socket.
I’m curious to know how a generator ruins a power supply? Is it something to do with the arcane sine wave magic from the inverter?
There should be options avoiding AC depending on your scenario. Most laptops charge off of DC. Easiest way would be if all your things support USBC or similar.
The “best” would be some kind of DC to DC converter, but I’m not sure there’s anything plug and play atm because there’s a wide range of specs laptops want. If your laptop happens to change with USB c PD or whatever the spec is that’d be the most efficient that I’m aware of. No sense in going dc->ac->dc if it can be helped.
But why would it? Is the output not voltage controlled?
I’m guessing the cheaper ones don’t have sine-wave inverters (they use a dressed up square wave which can be produced by purely digital electronics) so quality of the output waveform is bad. The power supply of the laptop (or PC) ends up having to work harder to cut out the extraneous bits of the waveform (that is it’s job) but all that extra crap is just turned into heat. Laptop PSUs are small , so have less heat dissipation and likely aren’t built for this. The ideal use case for these cheap inverters are purely resistive loads (like heaters) but even some less sophisticated electronics would probably be fine. Computer however, are generally designed for clean power.
If it’s a sine-wave inverters and the generator is working properly then idk why it would matter.
Use an inverter-controlled one and you’ll be fine. Our emergency communications shelter runs off one of those just fine, with a cheap offline UPS in there.
Yes, those that control frequency using the engine rpm aren’t that great for most switching power supplies.
Ask me how I know.
Ok. How?
Because I killed a PSU by plugging my PC into a gas generator once
Always use a UPS when you connect a PC to a generator. The UPS will protect it against surges and also smooth out the power
To be fair, laptops have those bricks on the cord that help protect it from power oddities.
And that one weird slimline computer I had once that didn’t have a traditional PSU and had a laptop charging cord, lmao.
Thnx!
<airplane>By typing the question in the comment box, but that’s not important right now</ariplane>
I ran a full sized office photo copier off a generator once, it ran fine, but you could really hear the engine chugging when the fuser started to heat up.
Best power yours off solar then, cos everything else is generators.
Ah yes, great post in the year 2010 when thinkpads weren’t complete crap, yet.
Who cares about scratches on the outside?
ThinkPad is a work tool. MacBook is a fashion statement.
Not where I work. My thinkpad is managed by the understaffed IT department, and is severely crippled by clownstrike and other garbage and bloatware. Linux is not allowed, only windows.
But my colleagues who chose a MacBook don’t have all that crap because said IT department haven’t figured out how to remotely manage Macs yet…
It was sad when my work figured out how to lock down the Mac’s. It’s not too restrictive, but it’s more than nothing.
Yeah, the firmware lock is some crazy bullshit. My old job was dissolved which means I get to have a perfectly usable iMac but… oh wait. I can’t do anything with it because of the firmware lock and I can’t return it because the company literally shuttered. So, I keep it for the day that MAYBE I will be able to use it. LOL
I mean, if it was a computer that your job gave you to do your job, they have every right to lock it down.
Now, unlocking it when the company dissolves is another story.
Maybe go butter up one of the old IT guys for the password.
I have a pretty recent thinkpad that supposedly has “military grade durability”. The plastic is literally falling apart at the corners after 2 years, and my fan grille is gone.
Fucking lenovo
Military grade is bullshit marketing. Basically anything is military grade
I guess aircraft-grade aluminum isn’t good enough anymore.
In Ukraine nowadays it means “anything that can survive up to one assault”. I hear they take donated cars that no-one sane would drive or even pronounce street-legal.
“Military grade” means that it went through one extra round of inspection before it was sent out as far as I’m aware. This round of inspection is basically just putting it through certain weather conditions to simulate “will this survive a deployment”
literally Military Grade is just marketing fluff with no standard. Mil-Spec is the real term for meeting military specifications. think ceramic and gold instead of plastic and tin for computer chips.
Okay I just double checked and you’re totally right. When I was in the military someone had told me there was actually regulations around “military grade” and they were just different from milspec. Technically military grade is supposed to refer to milspec but in the private world they don’t check if it’s actually true or not
Military grade is code for “cheapest bidder”
Military grade means literally nothing. Actual military equipment is “mil spec”, and not something the average consumer needs, or can afford, in most cases.
Even when military spec equipment is made by the lowest bidder, this stuff still has to be blast proof, bullet proof, work from -60°C to +85°C, be water/dust resistant, and many other requirements depending on what is being made.
You can definitely get plenty of Mil spec shit, just not what you really expect. My hat is a Swedish army cap worn by some dude named Albert Kempf in Tunisia circa 1991.
Is it possible to show the hat? I kinda wanna see that hat and how it looks after such a long period of use.
Note it probably hasn’t had constant use cause I only got it a couple months ago, before that it was at a surplus store in Idaho falls. Now it is in SoCal, before Idaho though it could’ve been in a crate for all I know.
That looks like a good hat! I’d be happy with that.
So I googled the name and first thing that came up was Albert Kempf Mützenfabrik, which means hat factory in German. I don’t think herr Albert personally wore this.
Fair enough, I was thinking more in the direction of electronics, mechanics, etc
I also have a 1960s wire field phone that they would use in Vietnam. I am still trying to figure out how to get it working with an Aux jack.
It depends, sometimes milspec is very demanding. For example, crayons need to be non-toxic even if you eat the entire box.
Specifically in electronics there are actually milspec versions of some microchips, different from the consumer grade ones (they have a wider range of operating temperatures plus I also believe higher resistence to electromagnetic radiation and mechanical vibration, similar to microchips “for
automobileautomotive use”), but I suspect that when it comes to actual consumer electronics devices the words “military grade” are not a protected tag (as in, electronic devices said to be “military grade” are not forced by regulation to have certain characteristics) so those words are generally marketing bullshit.
I was in the Marines and I had to buy some of my shit on my own, so yeah, agree 100%.
I have a 16 year old T420 that’s survived numerous falls drops spills and still ticking to this day and I love it. It’s the best damn keyboard to type on. Only Thinkpads for me.
IBM would’ve never
Sell their product to lenovo?
No? They did that.
Sorry, if you were making a joke it flew right over my head, lol
I think it was a joke.
Which Thinkpad do you have? The “Thinkpad” line has been expanded to basically all professional grade laptops now.
the x131e is definitely not professional grade
No, none of the X line are. I really like the L line of Thinkpads. Those are still pretty solid and reparable.
The L series is the economical line.
Not to say they aren’t solid and repairable, but the t and p series are the designed to be the most robust, while the L series is designed to be robust with lower end components
nah the old x series (e.g. x61, x201) were good, they’re basically just a t series with a smaller display and no disk drive
Sounds military grade to me.
11/10, that’s so hot! I can fry eggs on it!
Eggs too expensive, command aborted
Never regretted a purchase more than my macbook after visiting their subreddits.
I got a MacBook for free and I regretted even that. Someone spent money on it, what a waste, even if it wasn’t me. I have a refurbished ThinkPad now and I love that one.
That’s all I’ll buy laptop wise. I’d be a fool to buy a new laptop for my use case.
Give me an off lease Thinkpad with no SSD
I’ll furnish my own drive and OS.
I thought of getting a laptop from tuxedocomputers, the original reason I got a mac was I was fed up with windows, my last laptop was toast, and needed something asap, that i didn’t need a time investment to use since uni courses were starting soon. Learning there’s a company that makes fair priced, built for linux machines with their own distro, that now seems like the perfect device for me.
The one good thing about macs is they don’t loose that much value, so I can resell it and buy something other than a mac
I bought a MacBook Pro in 2011 to play games when I’m not at home (installed Windows on it) and it still works amazingly to this day. I did swap the DVD drive out for a solid state drive and increased the RAM to 16GB. It lasts 1.6 playthroughs of Beetlejuice on maximum brightness on the original battery… but the battery only has like 26 cycles cuz I always had it plugged in.
Zero regrets.
I hope they used the official Apple cleaning cloth that’s certified compatible with that model of MacBook
You mean the iRag?
Is that little red thing a dead body?
Saddam Hussein
Comes as part of the iRack.
Goddamn, thank you. I needed the laugh this morning, so I went back to watch the video.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/saddam-husseins-hiding-place and a word-play on Iraq.
Thanks, I needed these references. That was enjoyable.
Oh you crafty SOB.
The cleaning cloth pictured is the one that comes with the particular brand of screen cleaner that Apple recommends using.
299.99$ and can connect with the cloud
No they actually cut that feature in the latest model, which retails for $499.99
*Will not work without an active internet connection.
Apple Cleaning Cloth Pro, coming this October
Normal: too small size to be useful, have apple logo
Pro: super expensive, includes 6 gallons of cleaning fluids, is enormous, logo in gold
Actual gold, so it actively scratches your device; Apple Support blames you for it.
Also now you have to buy a special cloth from Apple to clean the gold logo on the Offical Apple MacBook Cleaning Cloth Pro without scratching it.
(It’s cleaning cloths all the way down!)
Well maybe you were cleaning it wrong
My work gave me an HP piece of crap laptop, I’d rather have a MacBook.
HP consumer equipment is pretty trash to be honest. Even their “business” models. Servers are solid though.
I can’t stand Lenovo due to their Fn and CTRL key swapping places, dell is my go to for last 10 years.
you can swap their locations on bioslevel and never think about it again (unless one of your colleagues actually reads the labels, gets it wromg and you have to explain it to them)
I know, but I don’t want to have to. Why can’t they just match every other keyboard I’ve used my whole life? Wouldn’t cost them anything, in fact I’d argue it was more effort to put a bios setting for it. CTRL is always bottom left key, no question. This is akin to changing homerow keys and telling you how to fix it in bios although the keys will still physically not match. Just wasted energy.
They went back to the correct layout on newer models
Damage was done. I don’t use Lenovo anymore.
MacBook user:
omfg, my MacBook got that big scratch. Gonna buy a new one then
ThinkPad user:
draws ThinkPad logo on the back using scratches
Love it
Essentially average MacBook fan vs average ThinkPad enjoyer
Mine is covered in stickers.
The stickers hold it together!
Structural stickers
If your Thinkpad isn’t covered in stickers, is it really a Thinkpad?
The hot rod flames make it go faster
My MacBook survived after I left it on top of my car as I drove off. It was flung off into a pedestrian area at the first intersection and has a nice dent on the corner.
Lol I drove at least a mile with my Thinkpad on top of the car. Some dude next to me at a stop light honking and miming saved me. Got up to 40mph with it still on top though!
Also did this with my cell phone and numerous water bottles. I really need to stop considering the roof a viable temporary storage location.
It’s so funny to see how macbooks are either super durable, or die from the smallest dust particles. My dad’s macbook fell down 3 flights of stairs, and embedded itself into the wood floor boards at the bottom floor. There’s not even a scratch on it even though if fell from pretty high up.
And my mother’s macbook dies every year because dust ends up in between the display cable which then punctures it when the lid is closed
That’s Apple engineering for you: 60 percent of the time it works every time. I grew up with Apple products and the company’s history is lined with head-scratching design choices. It’s been like that since the Lisa.
I like repairable, self-built desktop PCs myself. But for work, the MacBook has been a tank.
I gave my old macbook air to my kid for Minecraft and he dropped it several times, still just fine with no problems. Also my 10 year old macbook pro still works perfectly fine with a quad core i7 and 16GB RAM for anything I need a laptop to do. Still has the original battery with decent runtime too.
Nobody cares about thinkpads getting scratched up because the shell shows fingerprints like a motherfucker.
I love my Thinkpads though…namely because I use Linux at home and I’m cheap about laptops…used T-series is probably the best cheap Linux laptop, in general.
i don’t worry about scratching them because they already came scratched used
sterileness is the aesthetic of rulers
Nah. Authoritarians love gaudy, showy, shit. They hate minimal modernist design. Hitler famously shut down the Bauhaus movement, and Trump is doing similar shit and pushing Classicism.
Look at the residences of Kim, Saddam, Assad, Chávez, etc. Columns, ornate gold shit, etc.
ye ur right, how about this sterileness is the aesthetic of the yuppies
Think(pad) different.
