Bought used ThinkPad... not sure why

sweefu on 30/04/2013 - 23:11

So..

After having my notebook die, I was looking on ebay for a new thinkpad. I saw an old x200 that was about to end for what looked like a low price, and for some reason bid on it, and won.

link: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/LENOVO-IBM-THINKPAD-X200-2-4GHz-2…

I was planning on buying a new X series, but if I can make do with this for a few months it would be cool. Can anyone tell me what I could do to make this laptop useable? I will only use it for the regular web browsing/microsoft office/movies etc. I do use metastock a fair bit, but I believe its pretty resource light. I don't want to spend much money on it, because it's old, and i will probably upgrade soon.

Tl;dr Bought old thinkpad on ebay, what programs or hardware do I need to make it useable?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Computing

Comments

  • leonheart1 on 30/04/2013 - 23:20
    -3

    Seems like your problem is not just this laptop but your whole buy everything attitude.
    /analysis

    That'll be five thousand dollars.

    Seriously though, maybe an SSD would help but the 1.5 hours battery life (when it was brand new) means it has to be connected to a socket at all times.

    • sweefu on 30/04/2013 - 23:33
      +4

      Cheers for the character analysis, maybe you could tell me how my diet is next?

      But seriously, battery life when new seems pretty good (http://www.cnet.com.au/lenovo-thinkpad-x200-339291481.htm)

      • leonheart1 on 01/05/2013 - 00:25

        Maybe it is then, I only got the 1.5 hour value from your ebay link.

        Lithium Ion 6 cell - estimated to 1.5 hours* (no warranty on battery - see notes below)

        A note regarding used batteries: While we do our very best to accurately describe the battery condition within our listings, batteries can be unpredictable. We test batteries and while they do not leave our office without being in working order, on the extremely odd occasion, they can fail without warning. As such, we do not offer a warranty on used batteries at all.

        Looks like they tested it. I have to say, that's very thorough of them.

  • toomuchdogfur on 01/05/2013 - 00:34
    +1

    Shit me that's cheap! I still remember paying $2k for mine brand new…

    Anyway agree with leonheart, an SSD is all you'll need to get it running pretty quickly. IMHO anything Core 2 and newer has plenty of grunt for web browsing and word processing, which is what these laptops are usually for.

    On the 6-cell battery, these laptops can eke out over 6 hours on light usage - so that 1.5 hours is probably what it can do right now in its worn out state. You can grab a cheap chinese replacement for under $30 (example here) which will do roughly the same amount of time but die completely after six months (true story)… but hey, it's 30 bucks!

    Oh and you'll probably want to get Windows 7 for it. You might be able to score a free license through work or uni, but if not it might be a bit expensive…

    • DrStinge on 01/05/2013 - 07:45

      I've had bad experiences with eBay batteries, best to err on the side of causation there

      • No on 03/05/2013 - 12:09
        +2

        Your typo made me read that as err on the side of caucasian for a second there.

    • nickj on 02/05/2013 - 11:06

      Yeah I've had eBay replacement laptop batteries die after 4 or 5 months too. It seems unlikely to be a coincidence that it happens soon after the 90 day Paypal refund deadline.

  • DrStinge on 01/05/2013 - 07:44

    If you're trying to do it on the cheap, just upgrade the ram (check if possible) and install Windows 8 / Windows 7.

    If you have the money to spend on an SSD put it in but I think it negates buying a cheap laptop in the first place.

    • ericeric on 01/05/2013 - 12:37
      +1

      get a good ssd now and move to new laptop if getting a new one in the future.

      • ESEMCE on 01/05/2013 - 16:07

        Reasonably Good advice provided you really are upgrading soon.
        But if you're planning to keep it for longer than 6 months, I'd save and go for an older, slower (but still way fast enough to saturate the Bus) and therefore cheaper SSD and onsell it when you do upgrade.
        That way you ought to at least break even on the price you paid for the x200.

    • ESEMCE on 01/05/2013 - 16:03

      +1

      I put an SSD into my wife's Core2Duo Dell and it has a new lease of life. Cold boots in 30 seconds and wakes from sleep instantly.
      Hers is a 17" so has 2 drive bays. As a result I was able to cheap out on a $80 120Gb Lite-On SSD for the OS and all her files are still on the HDD.

  • sweefu on 01/05/2013 - 18:28

    Thanks for all of the advice, I really appreciate people taking the time to comment.

    I believe I will buy a decent SSD for it, which I will put into my new laptop when I upgrade. And also load windows 7, and maybe chuck a bit more ram in there.

    i still want to upgrade to the X1 carbon, but this deal looks pretty appealing: http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/101663

    I believe this was a bit of an impulse purchase fail…:(

    • [Deactivated] on 04/05/2013 - 13:16

      Maybe by the time you upgrade all laptops will have SSDs anyway - or most of them. Keep that in mind.

  • tonyjzx on 01/05/2013 - 20:03

    i dont see why people hate this idea so much

    its ~$110 laptop

    add a $100 ssd

    err… where else can you get a $210 12" laptop?

    if it lasts a year or two years and carks it, what have you lost exactly???

    • sweefu on 01/05/2013 - 22:51

      That's a good point…if anything it stops me spending $1200 on an X1 for a while

  • altomic on 01/05/2013 - 21:29

    I think its a reasonable purchase with tweaking install 8gb RAM and a SSD -

    buy a couple of these for $17 each-
    http://flingshot.com.au/collections/end-of-month-slashathon/…

    • sweefu on 01/05/2013 - 23:00

      would they work in the laptop?

      • scrimshaw on 01/05/2013 - 23:52

        Nope. Your laptop runs DDR2.

        • sweefu on 01/05/2013 - 23:54

          I don't know much about computers, but I'm guessing DDR2 makes it very old.

        • scrimshaw on 02/05/2013 - 00:04
          +4

          Actually I made a mistake… it does run DDR3 memory (some sites say it runs DDR2, but the official spec sheet mentions DDR3).

          You can try some DDR3 PC3-8500 memory (1066mhz speed is the maximum).
          For $13.25 you can upgrade your Lenovo to a total of 4GB
          http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-2GB-DDR3-Memory-PC3-8500-1066…

        • sweefu on 02/05/2013 - 00:05
          +6

          Hah! Thanks for your help mate.

          Appreciate you going to the trouble of looking up the official spec sheet for someone you've never met.

  • EnALup on 02/05/2013 - 10:43

    I have the same laptop, but with a 7200 RPM HDD, slower Core2 Duo 1.7 Processor and 4 GB RAM and it works great on Win 7.
    I am not sure, if adding a SSD will make a difference and these ones have SATA1 or 2 and they wont be fast enough, if you have a 7200 RPM HDD.

    Best upgrade would be 2 GB extra RAM (DDR2). I am not sure if they support DDR3.

    • ESEMCE on 02/05/2013 - 11:33

      SSD will make a difference. It will saturate SATA2 pretty much instantaneously wheras a 7200rpm drive might get up to 150mbps at best.

    • _Bruce_ on 02/05/2013 - 11:53

      Even on SATA1 an SSD makes a huge difference.

  • Mikinoz on 02/05/2013 - 11:38

    As others have said,

    2gb mem upgrade

    SSD hdd upgrade

    Win7 upgrade nothing else needed.

    You have a great little laptop at a bargain of a price, i know i sell them and use this model for myself.

  • SteveOh on 02/05/2013 - 12:42

    Hey, why is everyone advising to upgrade to Windoze 7 or 8?!

    Won't that slow the machine down and accomplish the opposite of what the OP wants (to breath new life into an older machine)?

    I'm not trolling, I actually follow the OP's approach myself. I.e. I often buy an older laptop and upgrade it a little thinking if it breaks while traveling or gets stolen then I'm only out a couple hundred bucks instead of a couple thousand. I then spend my money on my desktop at home where you get more bang for your buck anyway when it comes to things like CPUs and video cards.

    I've always found that each new release of Windows has higher hardware requirements so the time to upgrade Windows is only when it comes pre-installed on a new machine (with the licence price built in at a bulk OEM rate).

    For an older laptop I'd stick with XP (but do update it to SP3 if it isn't already) or even consider installing a version of LINUX unless you really need particular Windows applications. As far as I've seen all the major 3rd party programs and games continue to support XP and XP drivers continue to be available. True, this will change in a year or two but the whole strategy of buying a cheapo laptop is to only keep it for a year or two.

    • Mikinoz on 02/05/2013 - 12:47
      +2

      No win7 wont slow it down, there will be a slight speed increase.

      Win 8 that will just annoy you.

      Win 7 was the first operating system that did not really require higher specs except 64bit version.

      Xp is not usefull to run anymore its too old.

      staying with xp or linux is not a good idea for the non tech user

      • scrimshaw on 02/05/2013 - 15:33

        Once you install an SSD you're going to want to use W7 or W8, since TRIM doesn't work in XP.

        This laptop isn't that slow…it has more than enough grunt to run Windows 8. Windows 8 I believe is actually lighter on resources than Vista, which was what this laptop originally came with in 2009.

        • tonyjzx on 02/05/2013 - 16:36

          wow a lot of you guys are really hopeless

          at the time a machine with a p8600 2.4 ghz cpu and say 2-4Gb ram and a normal 5,400rpm hdd would run Windows 7 out of the box from the factory…

          this is a typical 2009 machine… Windows 7 was released in 2009

          it will run Win7 fine

          i hazard a guess that either it has slic 2.1 onboard or its available

        • Mikinoz on 02/05/2013 - 17:45

          Yeah its either all of us or just you ;)

  • SteveOh on 02/05/2013 - 13:27

    Oh yeah, I was thinking of the 64 bit version of Win7 that I have on my desktop for gaming.

    That is really amazing about Win7 32 bit. I know MS was touting it as not having higher hardware requirements but I didn't quite believe it. But if real world users such as yourself have found it to be the same or even slightly faster then I guess MS really did achieve this for once and I stand corrected!

    But I really disagree about XP being too old (although I admit it will be too old in another 1-2 years when it falls off the support list the way Win98SE did last year). Every peripheral I see still includes XP drivers and even the latest cutting edge games still support XP SP3.

    I'm currently running XP SP3 on my workhorse laptop (an HP/Compaq 6910P 3GB RAM/120GB HDD/Centrino/approx 2GHZ CPU) which I picked up a couple weeks ago from MetroPC in Melbourne for $230. (My newer Thinkpad X220 had just had its HD die and I needed a short-term replacement while my Thinkpad was away at the repair shop.)

    I popped an OCZ 120GB SSD in the 6910P and it's working great even for the latest release of COREL VideoStudio X6. I had the OCZ SSD lying around and couldn't use it in my Thinkpad because it's 9mm instead of 7mm :-( but that's another story… Anyway XP for me is running the latest Firefox, latest Open Office, VideoStudio X6, wifi with my new D6300 router and NAS works fine, Citrix works for accessing MS Office at work when I have to. In short I just can't find anything that I can't do due to XP. True it won't run the latest video games but that's a hardware issue not an OS issue.

    As for LINUX, MINT has gotten very newbie friendly but yeah I have to admit that it does require a little bit of technical knowledge… but not much.

    • cheng2008 on 02/05/2013 - 17:35
      +1

      Believe me, software developers support XP because they have to due to the huge amount of people on XP, but none of them would choose to explicitly support XP because they want to. It's just too much extra work to support XP and have to go out of the way to do extra testing on top of the bugs they already have to fix.

      So stop the vicious cycle of XP users thinking they can stay on XP because software developers can support them and software developers supporting XP because of users not upgrading. Just upgrade.

  • sweefu on 02/05/2013 - 18:38

    Ok, laptop has arrived!

    Cosmetically, it's in decent condition. It has a few biggish scratches on the exterior that were not listed on ebay, and the hinges have a slight amount of play in them (also not listed). I believe the photos in the ad are not actually of this laptop, because it is missing the small sticker that says centrino or something. But, once you open the case it looks pretty tidy.

    Battery life is far better than I expected. It arrived fully charged, and I have had it on for 5 straight hours now, battery still shows 13%. This is on the performance setting, with the brightness on full. I think it has a 9 cell battery, becasue it sticks out the back a bit. It is running XP pro SP2, not SP3 as it said in the listing (no big deal though).

    I have opened up the ram cover, and there is a spare slot to put another 2gb in. Game plan? I'm definitely going to add more ram and load windows 7 (my brother is still at uni and can get a cheap license), but I'm unsure what to do about the hdd. General consensus seems to be that it is worth spending the money on an SSD, but which one? And if I were to upgrade in 6 months, would I be able to just take the hdd out of this laptop and put it in the new one?

    Big thanks to everyone taking time to help me out with this.

    • scrimshaw on 02/05/2013 - 20:38
      +1

      And if I were to upgrade in 6 months, would I be able to just take the hdd out of this laptop and put it in the new one?

      Yes. For that reason I would buy a decent SSD (128GB or 250GB), try Shopping Express for some good prices or your local MSY store. Samsung, Intel and Crucial M4 SSD's are one of a few of the reliable brands out there.

      Someone mentioned that Sandisk Extreme's didn't play nice with SATA2 controllers, so I would avoid Sandisk for now.

      Keep the original hard drive, don't discard it.

      Any sort of SSD should be compatible with the laptop, but it's best to buy a 7mm SSD (for example Samsung 840) just in case the drive bay doesn't take 9mm thick drives.

      • scotty on 02/05/2013 - 20:55
        +1

        Yes I think Lenovo X series uses 7mm SAD do those Samsung ones are good fit. Just make sure don't pick up a 9mm one.

  • linkpng1975 on 03/05/2013 - 21:24

    Have you considered the Linux option? Simply download an ISO (DVD image) file from a well known Linux distribution. This will give you a full working environment. Linux will run very well on your hardware. During the installation you are given the option to make it dual boot, so that you can keep the existing software setup and data unchanged. Personally I would suggest: download a copy of Linux Mint Cinnamon and install that dual boot.

  • sweefu on 06/05/2013 - 23:06

    Just a quick update..

    I have put windows 7 64 bit on it completely stock, and it's running surprisingly well. I have some more ram coming to upgrade it, but so far, so good. Thanks to everyone for the help.

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