Got one for $27.50 a couple years ago, was incredibly clean. Needed some things but has a 1440x900 Panel, Switchable graphics (HD 3470), and it now has a C2D P9700 (2.8, 6M, 28 watt) dual Samsung SSD's (850 Evo and my old 840 in the Ultrabay slot)
The Lenovo ThinkPad T400 and the Dell Latitude D630 (with Intel Graphics not Nvidia) are Hall of Fame laptops. Still very usable 10 years after release, and extremely affordable.
You beat me to the chase on the ThinkPad Advanced Dock! I’m filming a video now about how far you can push the T60 as a daily driver and as a “gaming” laptop and part of that is how far I can push things with the Advanced Dock (I just received mine and am so excited). Great video as always!
Oh man, I am soo looking forward to that video. I still use a T60 as my main computer (heavily modded), and have an advanced dock too, but I haven't got around trying out the dock yet (have been using the mini dock with the laptop for years now though, which is awesome, but no space for graphics card in that).
I bought a used T400 for just over $200 back in 2013 for college. I put a 128 GB SSD in it and ran Windows 8. The screen hinge was a bit loose and the LCD wasn't very good, but the performance was super great. I remember it being extremely quiet, cool to the touch, very quick to boot, and always responsive.
Im still using this laptop. Got it from my office a few years ago for free, but in a bad condition (scratched up, battery's spoilt, no HDD). Spent 30 bucks on battery, 30 bucks on 128GB SSD, and put my 2 x 2GB PC12800 Macbook pro RAM in it, works well until now. It had major overheating issue so I had to put new thermal paste and its good to go. I use it for document processing because the keyboard is superb, this thing is built like a tank
Just bought my first Lenovo, x230t with 8gb for $95 shipped. Thanks for this channel and all the work you put into the videos. This little computer is great !
Why are thinkpads always soooo insanely cheap in the US of A? Over here in Germany you hardly even find one from that generation for less than 100 bucks. Unless it's broken or for spare parts. >_>
Benjamin P, "At least in the US, if any technology is older than 2 years old, we will throw it away." That statement is VERY true here in the US. In fact, I went dumpster diving, and I found some completely working 100% Haswell i5-4590 computers and some working HP ProBook 6560b and 6570b laptops. Now for the Haswell i5 desktops, I'll probably give them to some less fortunate friends of mine. I have a friend that calls his OptiPlex 755 (Core 2 Quad q6600 @ 3GHz, 6 GB DDR2, GTX 750) a gaming PC. It is the best PC that I could have sold him for the price of $90. This guy will probably get the Haswell i5 system, as the i5-4590 is a good few times better than the q6600. Now for the ProBooks, I am sorting through what works and doesn't. Some of the ProBooks are half working, others are dead, and some work 100%. I am still unsure what doesn't completely work, and that will take a bit of time to find out. By the way, this comment was written on a dumpster laptop. It was a ProBook 6570b (i5-3340m, Intel HD 4000). This one ProBook works 100% and will be replacing my Dell Latitude e5430 (laptop will sometimes freeze if picked up) for school work and stuff.
it also came with 1440*900 display, LED, that very bright even for outdoor usage. and T400 is the last T series that still using top magnesium rollcage. :) im writing this comment from my T400-T9400-8GB RAM-250GB SSD-1TB HDD-WWAN-9 Cell Battery and Windows 10 PRO 64 that works like charm include the dual graphic, fingerprint, bluetooth and even hotkey :)
It all depends on your usage. T400 is still great if you are using it for business or light personal uses. For gaming, NO. For memory intensive workload that require much more than few GB of memory, NO. I am using it to run virtualbox 64 bit, and it works great despite antiquidated core 2 duo 64 bit processor. The biggest upgrade you can give it is SSD drive. it makes everything go so smoothly, and even old laptops are pleasure to use.
I've bought my T400 3 years ago, and is the best laptop I've ever had up to this date. No weird all in one mouse-pad, fantastic keyboard and with 70$ of upgrade (SSD and ram) is silky smooth, even after a horrid 5 feet fall into the corner of a step in a staircase.
I was working nights last week and stumbled onto your videos. Binged watch almost all of them. Ended up getting a t60 locally and was semi- pleased with the basic browsing ability even though it struggles a bit. The cpu maxes out while browsing some sites. Ordered a t400 off ebay for $35 plus shipping, popped in a ssd and this thing is awesome for "daily driving". Cpu is around 10-25% browsing. Thanks for the great content. Patreon coming your way
The T400 is great system, just often overlooked by the popular T60/T61, because they're almost identical. The T400 supports 1022mhz fsb CPUs out of the box which is very nice, although there's less support for it, and there aren't those bios mods that allow quad core Core 2 Extremes like on the T60/61. I don't think I agree about thinkpad screens being bad in general, they just have a wide range of screens in each model, and it's usually the ones with the lower end screens that end up on eBay for us. Sometimes you can find one with a QXGA screen in :) I had one of the docking stations for a while, and I experimented a bit with it too (who wouldn't??). Unfortunately it's only wired as Pci-e 4x, even though the slot is physically 16x, and it's only Gen 2 speed. I could only get cards that used 75W from the pcie slot to work, as there wasn't any extra power cables inside. (You could do that thing when you use a second power supply to get the 6pin connectors , but I didn't want to risk that). I think the whole thing just has a ATX power supply inside it, and sends the 65W to the laptop and 75W to the pcie slot, as the dock has a standard 3 pin kettle plug instead of using the laptop 65W adapter. Mine came with a 256mb HD5450 with a lenovo OEM sticker on the back (so I guess that's what it ships with when new maybe ??). The newest card I got working was a R7 250 768mb Gddr5, and it worked pretty good. The 8800GT 1GB worked really well in it too. GTS 450 512mb refused to work in it, I don't see why. I tried a GT 740 also, but half the time the T61 would just beep at me, and when it did sort of work, I could boot into windows, but I couldn't get drivers to install. I'm not sure if you'll manage those newer nVidia cards in it..., it doesn't seem to like them. I also tried a USB 3.0 card and that worked great. :) A warning I give of using the advanced dock however is that it's SUPER LOUD. Maybe it was just mine, but once the laptop is attached the docks fan goes to full blast, and it's a very loud fan. Also when using the advanced dock, you're not able to use the think pads built in display at all. (Though my T61 has the FX570M in it, which could be why?). Hope any of that helps with the advanced dock. I wonder if you can get those T70 51nb motherboards in the T400, and have display port, usb3, 7th gen cpus (i7-7820HQ max), MX150 graphics, and U.2 ssds, all in the T400.
Thanks for the tips! I figured that it might be hit and miss when it comes to getting newer cards working with it. I might give a low power quadro card a go in it. I believe you about the loudness thing. From the pictures, it appears to be equipped with several smallish fans (which are usually the loudest)
If you're willing to use Coreboot/Libreboot, the T400 and T500 will happily support quad core Core2s after some modification, albeit at high temps on heavy loads. I have a Core2 Extreme Q9300 in my T500 and it runs like a champ
Think those boards are designed for 4:3 Pads. T400 chassis are basically identical to a wideframe T61. I have both to compare, minor external differences.
Who else loves keyboard of Lenovo T400? I did minor change by using SSD and it becomes major enhancement, run faster, smoother on Linux. Old but gold. Comment on 29 April 2020.
Found one of these for 50 with a brand new battery, 1440x900 LCD, but no hard drive. I put a 240GB SSD in and it flies! I tested it with Windows for a couple of weeks and then installed Manjaro. Last upgrade I'm planning is a 5$ t9550 2.66GHz CPU from AliExpress!
FYI: I still don'tget notified of new videos even after clicking the bell. I have no idea what is up with RUclips concerning notifications. Some work, but most of the time they don't seem to.
I'm still in love with the x61 and the whole older x line up - I sell these off-lease laptops all the time just in case anyone is ever looking for them. maybe try loading Ubuntu on it and just use it as a email / word / excel machine
Those kinds of docks used to be pretty commonplace in enterprise laptops. I have a Dell Latitude C600 from 2000 (!) has such a dock available for it. I also know that (at least) the ThinkPads T40 and T60 had similar docks as well. It was kind of a necessity back in those days for people who needed accelerated graphics beyond what you could get crammed into a laptop. Nowadays, laptop graphics are much closer in performance to their desktop counterparts. Seriously, go look at forum posts c.2001 or earlier and people used to bring up gaming on laptops as a joke, or something that would never be feasible.
You was testing with Microsoft default driver which is worse for any GPU compute things. So the perfomance score is not that suppose to be on that gma integrated graphics chip. It needs to be modded or legacy install from older Windows generations.
My computer broke, so my daughter gave me their old T400 until I can get mine fixed. I've been using the T400 for awhile. It works very well, except I don't like that it doesn't display all the colors I'm used to. It's lacking in that department. The colors aren't as vivid, so it's hard when working with photographs. I'm trying to find a user's manual for it so I can make more use of some of the buttons on it that I have no idea what they're for.
I could not follow a single word this man was saying i'm looking for a laptop to replace my latitude E6330 are there any videos to help me get started in understanding all of this?
I wonder what you think of the Lenovo G505 with an AMD A6 Quad core. I bought one in 2014 and I have it running Linux Ubuntu myself and it's been a very solid experience. I use it to stream games from my PC into the Laptop in my living room.
There is one problem with this adv. dock. It's slow. It doesn't have any power cables so you couldn't install strong GPU. This dock is good idea if you have a R61/T61 (like me) and you want watch 720p60 without burning CPU (I have T7700 and still having problem with 60p on YT).
Awesome video! Something else you can do is upgrading the WiFi card. I got the same one running, T400 as well, and purchased a M.2 --> mPCIe adapter card as well as an Intel AX200 WiFi 6 card, and it's running fine! Got Gigabit speed using WiFi 6.
the C/Dock II for the Latitude C8xx laptops was the same. I used my C840 with a P4-M 2.4/1.5GB/80GB and a GF4 440 Go with that dock, and dropped in a Radeon 7000 for a second monitor. the drivers played with each other nicely but there were some issues when undocking. if the dock GPU was also a GeForce 4 it'd be a bit different of a story. The big thing for it though was adding more USB2 ports and 6-pin Firewire so I could use my iPod 3rd-gen and still charge it at the same time. The T400 had an HD3470 option if memory serves, but it was VERY rare since most people bought the switching T500 with the HD3650 instead or the W500 with the FirePro graphics chipset instead. my T500 is still maxed out and sitting, I don't use it much these days and don't turn on the HD3650 much in fear it will burn out, since that has been known to happen even with cooling improvements bodged in.
Good Video. I really need a new camera because the phone that I'm typing here doesn't rotate. I never heard of a dock supporting PCIe X16 cards. You should have used Ubuntu 18.10 for this.
I bought it in Italy in a local electronic 2nd hand exhibit for 60€ and 10€ docking station. I thought to use it for experiments, then I found it soo good even in 2019 that is my primary laptop now.
I have a W540, and a W540/1. I also have a few T440p's, AND a couple of T400's. I find for day-to-day usage, the T400 certainly gets the job done. Upgrade to at least a C2D P8800 (2.66ghz), 8gb/RAM, and an SSD, and it flies through daily tasks. Games you can comfortably play on the GMA on-board graphics: Freespace II System Shock II SOTSE The Sims (original, will NOT play The Sims 2). ....And quite a few others in that class. Although my "DD", AND gamer, is my W540 w/K2100m graphics, I STILL enjoy working with my T400.
I used a ThinkPad T410 with the i5 540M for quite a while, I can say that it's legitimately the best laptop I ever had, even better than my MacBook Pro 13" (that I also used a lot) These laptops are built like tanks, really I dropped it quite a few times: never had anything (until it eventually died because of a coffee cup that was spilled all over the keyboard and motherboard) But damn ! I never EVER knew there was a PCIe slot inside some of these docks :o I always though the first eGPU Dock was using Thunderbolt (for the MBP, as example), mind blowing.
I like the older Lenovo Thinkpads and Dells which we can replace items in and use docks with. I prefer video render machines from a level of i5 and integrated graphics because video cards cause troubles with my system experiments and boot failures. The demanding/modern graphical tasks needs the 10XX or beyond anyway, so a newer thingy is good to have for such. Tinkering with Core Duo machines, DDR2 and below is fine as well for me, but the tasks are different. The use there is retro.
Lenovo does the graphics thing now too with their tb3 graphics dock, except it is a 1050 installed and not a slot that you can add your choice too and it adds little to no io other than a few USB ports and a tb3 pass through
@@AAComputersandTechnology honestly for me the biggest downside is the lack of IO it seems to only have three graphics ports and a usb port, i feel that for a base station dock it should have more than that, lenovo also only claims compatibility with the idea pad 720 (though since it is tb3 I have no idea where that limitation is coming from or if it is real)
Been watching your channel for 4 years now, you really put out some interesting stuff and you are really thorough, great work! I have a simple question, do you think a x220 keyboard will fit on a x230 ? I've seen you swap keyboards like this before and just wanted your two cents if you have the time.
I luved my T60, the only thing I hated was it got REALLY hot on my lap. I had the dock for it, it was only compatible with single slot card, the last card that I put in it was a 5450.
Woooooah.... dat B-Roll cinematography, tho. Glad to see the T400 getting some love. It's an excellent machine for the price, but I think the T420 and T430 are better overall because of the i-series CPUs. Is there anything like the Advanced Dock for those machines? I haven't seen anything (granted, I haven't looked that hard).
That rant was actually initially part of this video but it did not make the final cut. Yes, that is definitely something I have on the list of things I want to do.
Looks close to my T61. That thing is a beast. I'm running Ubuntu 18.04 on it. Still a damn nice machine. And now that I know that I can stick a real graphics card in it, I need one. Now.
Hi, Good Video Review, Just Need Your expert advise on ThinkPad T400 as I will be Buying One for Mainly Microsoft Office(Outlook, Word & Excel) and Google Calendar. the one I will be buying is same specification on your Video but I will be throwing More RAM on it, 8Gb and a Windows-7, Please let me Know What You think and thanks in Advance.
My T400 has the Radeon graphics and is quite nice for a daily driver and some classic 4X games. I replaced the thermal compound and the MATE CPU Monitoring applet shows the P8400 boosting to 2.37 GHz over the stock 2.26 GHz on mains power. I still need to max out the RAM and maybe get a T9600 for it, but man it's some well built machine.
I will stick with my T430 ... Good battery life, good for pentesting, still runs WoW, has backlight keyboard and you can mod the bios just by purchasing an 6usd USB Flash device ^^ Windows 10 Pro works definitely very good and I really love the possibility of replacing the DVD Bay with an HDD adapter.
Yeah. I like the performance of 3rd gen Core ix laptops. I have a ProBook 6570b from the dumpster (yes, I am not joking), and it works 100%. The battery, which was also in the dumpster, holds a good charge. For graphics performance, my ProBook 6570b can run CS:GO (1600x900 low), Team Fortress2 (1280x720 medium-high settings), and the Sims 4. But to be honest, saying a computer can run The Sims 4 isn't a big statement. I've gotten the Sims 4 to run on a Core 2 Duo laptop with Radeon mobility x1300 and on Intel GMA graphics. I run Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 on my laptop, and it runs very well on the SSD in the laptop (the laptop came with a 320 GB 7200 RPM HDD, which I've upgraded to a SSD). The i5-3340m is plenty for the tasks I want to do on this laptop, which are school work and light gaming (CSGO, TF2, The Sims 4).
The 4 Series Express Chipset GPU is far from perfect on anything but Windows 7 and below. You'll see a increase in frame rate on those OSes. Also the radeon GPU exists on the more expensive units which runs great
The card slot in the dock only supports 1x, not 16x. And Ultrabay batteries can be used also with T410, T420s, and T430s. You MIGHT get them to work in a T420 or T430, but the size of the Ultrabay is larger so there will be a gap.
HD Images of the T400 are up: www.aacatarchives.com/archives/computers/Lenovo/Laptops/T400/Lenovo%20T400.html
thank you! Much appreciated :)
Hey I have an advanced dock actually, but I don't have a c2d thinkpad, if you don't have one are you interested?
the t520 has a great display 2 my dads old laptop a w510 has a SHIT display when it comes to youtube
Got one for $27.50 a couple years ago, was incredibly clean. Needed some things but has a 1440x900 Panel, Switchable graphics (HD 3470), and it now has a C2D P9700 (2.8, 6M, 28 watt) dual Samsung SSD's (850 Evo and my old 840 in the Ultrabay slot)
If you ever feel dumb
Just remember...
I bought this thing for fking 300$
The Lenovo ThinkPad T400 and the Dell Latitude D630 (with Intel Graphics not Nvidia) are Hall of Fame laptops.
Still very usable 10 years after release, and extremely affordable.
I got 2 T400s and 3 T61 laptops for free with extra batteries. Someone was cleaning out their garage and just gave me them.
PERFECT for Linux distro experimentation...
Linux mint... my T400...
Is this capable for kali linux?
Yes I have it that way
I want to buy it to use Linux Lite or Linux Mint, what do u think about it in 2020?
I have NixOS installed on mine :)
You beat me to the chase on the ThinkPad Advanced Dock! I’m filming a video now about how far you can push the T60 as a daily driver and as a “gaming” laptop and part of that is how far I can push things with the Advanced Dock (I just received mine and am so excited). Great video as always!
Dock with Egpu?
Nikola Karovic Yes, this is the same dock he was referring to in the video, with a desktop GPU.
Oh man, I am soo looking forward to that video. I still use a T60 as my main computer (heavily modded), and have an advanced dock too, but I haven't got around trying out the dock yet (have been using the mini dock with the laptop for years now though, which is awesome, but no space for graphics card in that).
I’m looking forward to trying it out! :)
Sebi's Random Tech you can daily an LS400 or a Lada. The same for a T60, T400, or 2018 MacBook pro. The question is, are you willing to suffer.
I bought a used T400 for just over $200 back in 2013 for college. I put a 128 GB SSD in it and ran Windows 8. The screen hinge was a bit loose and the LCD wasn't very good, but the performance was super great. I remember it being extremely quiet, cool to the touch, very quick to boot, and always responsive.
Im still using this laptop. Got it from my office a few years ago for free, but in a bad condition (scratched up, battery's spoilt, no HDD). Spent 30 bucks on battery, 30 bucks on 128GB SSD, and put my 2 x 2GB PC12800 Macbook pro RAM in it, works well until now. It had major overheating issue so I had to put new thermal paste and its good to go. I use it for document processing because the keyboard is superb, this thing is built like a tank
Just bought my first Lenovo, x230t with 8gb for $95 shipped. Thanks for this channel and all the work you put into the videos. This little computer is great !
Why are thinkpads always soooo insanely cheap in the US of A? Over here in Germany you hardly even find one from that generation for less than 100 bucks. Unless it's broken or for spare parts. >_>
in Indonesia it costs $300
High demand because Germans are smart.
@Benjamin P well it is more of are pro consumerist way we are always wanting the best
Benjamin P, "At least in the US, if any technology is older than 2 years old, we will throw it away." That statement is VERY true here in the US.
In fact, I went dumpster diving, and I found some completely working 100% Haswell i5-4590 computers and some working HP ProBook 6560b and 6570b laptops. Now for the Haswell i5 desktops, I'll probably give them to some less fortunate friends of mine. I have a friend that calls his OptiPlex 755 (Core 2 Quad q6600 @ 3GHz, 6 GB DDR2, GTX 750) a gaming PC. It is the best PC that I could have sold him for the price of $90. This guy will probably get the Haswell i5 system, as the i5-4590 is a good few times better than the q6600.
Now for the ProBooks, I am sorting through what works and doesn't. Some of the ProBooks are half working, others are dead, and some work 100%. I am still unsure what doesn't completely work, and that will take a bit of time to find out.
By the way, this comment was written on a dumpster laptop. It was a ProBook 6570b (i5-3340m, Intel HD 4000). This one ProBook works 100% and will be replacing my Dell Latitude e5430 (laptop will sometimes freeze if picked up) for school work and stuff.
@@bill_clinton697 yea I am currently using a 2012 hp folio 9470m and it runs better then alot of newer systems that are 400 to 500 bucks.
it also came with 1440*900 display, LED, that very bright even for outdoor usage.
and T400 is the last T series that still using top magnesium rollcage. :)
im writing this comment from my T400-T9400-8GB RAM-250GB SSD-1TB HDD-WWAN-9 Cell Battery and Windows 10 PRO 64 that works like charm include the dual graphic, fingerprint, bluetooth and even hotkey :)
Reply you from my T400-P8600-8GB RAM-250GB SSD-750GB HDD-9 Cell- W7Pro, commissioned on Mar2009.
My X240 has a great screen. It's also a touchscreen.
It all depends on your usage. T400 is still great if you are using it for business or light personal uses. For gaming, NO. For memory intensive workload that require much more than few GB of memory, NO. I am using it to run virtualbox 64 bit, and it works great despite antiquidated core 2 duo 64 bit processor. The biggest upgrade you can give it is SSD drive. it makes everything go so smoothly, and even old laptops are pleasure to use.
I prefer a 4:3 screen. 16:9 laptop screens are too cramped when programming.
Love all of your ThinkPad videos, keep it up!
I've bought my T400 3 years ago, and is the best laptop I've ever had up to this date. No weird all in one mouse-pad, fantastic keyboard and with 70$ of upgrade (SSD and ram) is silky smooth, even after a horrid 5 feet fall into the corner of a step in a staircase.
I was working nights last week and stumbled onto your videos. Binged watch almost all of them. Ended up getting a t60 locally and was semi- pleased with the basic browsing ability even though it struggles a bit. The cpu maxes out while browsing some sites. Ordered a t400 off ebay for $35 plus shipping, popped in a ssd and this thing is awesome for "daily driving". Cpu is around 10-25% browsing. Thanks for the great content. Patreon coming your way
The T400 is great system, just often overlooked by the popular T60/T61, because they're almost identical.
The T400 supports 1022mhz fsb CPUs out of the box which is very nice, although there's less support for it, and there aren't those bios mods that allow quad core Core 2 Extremes like on the T60/61.
I don't think I agree about thinkpad screens being bad in general, they just have a wide range of screens in each model, and it's usually the ones with the lower end screens that end up on eBay for us. Sometimes you can find one with a QXGA screen in :)
I had one of the docking stations for a while, and I experimented a bit with it too (who wouldn't??). Unfortunately it's only wired as Pci-e 4x, even though the slot is physically 16x, and it's only Gen 2 speed. I could only get cards that used 75W from the pcie slot to work, as there wasn't any extra power cables inside. (You could do that thing when you use a second power supply to get the 6pin connectors , but I didn't want to risk that). I think the whole thing just has a ATX power supply inside it, and sends the 65W to the laptop and 75W to the pcie slot, as the dock has a standard 3 pin kettle plug instead of using the laptop 65W adapter. Mine came with a 256mb HD5450 with a lenovo OEM sticker on the back (so I guess that's what it ships with when new maybe ??). The newest card I got working was a R7 250 768mb Gddr5, and it worked pretty good. The 8800GT 1GB worked really well in it too. GTS 450 512mb refused to work in it, I don't see why. I tried a GT 740 also, but half the time the T61 would just beep at me, and when it did sort of work, I could boot into windows, but I couldn't get drivers to install. I'm not sure if you'll manage those newer nVidia cards in it..., it doesn't seem to like them.
I also tried a USB 3.0 card and that worked great. :)
A warning I give of using the advanced dock however is that it's SUPER LOUD. Maybe it was just mine, but once the laptop is attached the docks fan goes to full blast, and it's a very loud fan.
Also when using the advanced dock, you're not able to use the think pads built in display at all. (Though my T61 has the FX570M in it, which could be why?).
Hope any of that helps with the advanced dock.
I wonder if you can get those T70 51nb motherboards in the T400, and have display port, usb3, 7th gen cpus (i7-7820HQ max), MX150 graphics, and U.2 ssds, all in the T400.
The dock can only support up to 32 W GPU's.
Thanks for the tips! I figured that it might be hit and miss when it comes to getting newer cards working with it. I might give a low power quadro card a go in it. I believe you about the loudness thing. From the pictures, it appears to be equipped with several smallish fans (which are usually the loudest)
If you're willing to use Coreboot/Libreboot, the T400 and T500 will happily support quad core Core2s after some modification, albeit at high temps on heavy loads. I have a Core2 Extreme Q9300 in my T500 and it runs like a champ
Think those boards are designed for 4:3 Pads. T400 chassis are basically identical to a wideframe T61. I have both to compare, minor external differences.
My laptop is lenovo ThinkPad t400 and he proved to begin good
Who else loves keyboard of Lenovo T400? I did minor change by using SSD and it becomes major enhancement, run faster, smoother on Linux. Old but gold. Comment on 29 April 2020.
I pad $35 for an x230t (without ram, hd, pen etc).. these old lenovo notebooks make great travelling laptops... indestructible and cheap.
I have two T400’s, both running CentOS 6.10. Great laptops. I also have T430 and a T60.
Found one of these for 50 with a brand new battery, 1440x900 LCD, but no hard drive. I put a 240GB SSD in and it flies! I tested it with Windows for a couple of weeks and then installed Manjaro.
Last upgrade I'm planning is a 5$ t9550 2.66GHz CPU from AliExpress!
FYI: I still don'tget notified of new videos even after clicking the bell. I have no idea what is up with RUclips concerning notifications. Some work, but most of the time they don't seem to.
The T400 can be upgraded up to a T9900 core 2 duo processor at 3.06GHz which isn't that bad
I'm still in love with the x61 and the whole older x line up - I sell these off-lease laptops all the time just in case anyone is ever looking for them. maybe try loading Ubuntu on it and just use it as a email / word / excel machine
Those kinds of docks used to be pretty commonplace in enterprise laptops. I have a Dell Latitude C600 from 2000 (!) has such a dock available for it. I also know that (at least) the ThinkPads T40 and T60 had similar docks as well. It was kind of a necessity back in those days for people who needed accelerated graphics beyond what you could get crammed into a laptop. Nowadays, laptop graphics are much closer in performance to their desktop counterparts. Seriously, go look at forum posts c.2001 or earlier and people used to bring up gaming on laptops as a joke, or something that would never be feasible.
I love these eBay Thinkpad videos! Thank you!
I have one of them and it runs windows 10 perfectly
You was testing with Microsoft default driver which is worse for any GPU compute things. So the perfomance score is not that suppose to be on that gma integrated graphics chip. It needs to be modded or legacy install from older Windows generations.
CrisPell yeah I just went through this with my t400. Made windows smoother but game performance worse🤷♂️ it works for what it is.
Great video, your editing is getting better and bettee
Man these videos keep getting better and better
I have a very old laptop with an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and found that Windows 32bit was much more responsive than 64bit version.
My computer broke, so my daughter gave me their old T400 until I can get mine fixed. I've been using the T400 for awhile. It works very well, except I don't like that it doesn't display all the colors I'm used to. It's lacking in that department. The colors aren't as vivid, so it's hard when working with photographs. I'm trying to find a user's manual for it so I can make more use of some of the buttons on it that I have no idea what they're for.
Why don't you ever try installing steam and bench marking them on Linux?
T400 w/ 2080TI LMFAO
I could not follow a single word this man was saying i'm looking for a laptop to replace my latitude E6330 are there any videos to help me get started in understanding all of this?
lol it will performs like 1060
I have a T400 with the HD screen (1440x900), 8gb ram and a slightly faster CPU. With a SSD in there it's a good machine.
Got 2 free cleaning out office with dock stations put 8 gids am in them and T900 cpu love them use more then my reg laptop
The T400/T500/R400/R500 max CPU is the X9100. But, that produces a lot of heat so, you could go with a T9900/T9800 for same performance but less heat.
I wonder what you think of the Lenovo G505 with an AMD A6 Quad core. I bought one in 2014 and I have it running Linux Ubuntu myself and it's been a very solid experience. I use it to stream games from my PC into the Laptop in my living room.
I put some 4gb ram sticks and it says 8.00 GB (2.46 GB usable)
Is there is a graphics card in it?
I run mine with an X9100. It's a dirt cheap chip, and is as fast as any other processor that'll run in this laptop.
i also have one that ran on x9100 got one for 20$ on ebay
Great video, man ;). Since raspberry pi 3 b+ cost the same of this machine (actually more with some accessories) can you please compare them?
u fantasize about laptops? for years? the way u said made me chuckle!
It appears the advanced dock is only pcie x1 yet supports x16 GPUs
I just ordered my T400 and it comes with the battery, HDD, RAM, and windows 10. I payed $43 and I'll likely throw an older OS on it.
I did i adored it when it was running xp and i made it run windows 7
There is one problem with this adv. dock. It's slow. It doesn't have any power cables so you couldn't install strong GPU. This dock is good idea if you have a R61/T61 (like me) and you want watch 720p60 without burning CPU (I have T7700 and still having problem with 60p on YT).
Yep those docking stations have been around for a long time, they're expensive usually.
The Thinkpad computers has the best keyboard.
i had a thinkpad R61 with no HDD cover missing forward slash key and i really need that T400
nice professional video there!
Thanks!
Awesome video! Something else you can do is upgrading the WiFi card. I got the same one running, T400 as well, and purchased a M.2 --> mPCIe adapter card as well as an Intel AX200 WiFi 6 card, and it's running fine! Got Gigabit speed using WiFi 6.
Is the T400 the bigger version of X200 ?
Yes
the C/Dock II for the Latitude C8xx laptops was the same. I used my C840 with a P4-M 2.4/1.5GB/80GB and a GF4 440 Go with that dock, and dropped in a Radeon 7000 for a second monitor. the drivers played with each other nicely but there were some issues when undocking. if the dock GPU was also a GeForce 4 it'd be a bit different of a story. The big thing for it though was adding more USB2 ports and 6-pin Firewire so I could use my iPod 3rd-gen and still charge it at the same time.
The T400 had an HD3470 option if memory serves, but it was VERY rare since most people bought the switching T500 with the HD3650 instead or the W500 with the FirePro graphics chipset instead. my T500 is still maxed out and sitting, I don't use it much these days and don't turn on the HD3650 much in fear it will burn out, since that has been known to happen even with cooling improvements bodged in.
Good Video. I really need a new camera because the phone that I'm typing here doesn't rotate. I never heard of a dock supporting PCIe X16 cards. You should have used Ubuntu 18.10 for this.
Is it brand new or only secondhand? 😊
I bought it in Italy in a local electronic 2nd hand exhibit for 60€ and 10€ docking station. I thought to use it for experiments, then I found it soo good even in 2019 that is my primary laptop now.
I find it one with same cpu/intel graphics and 4 gb ram it s enough for the youtube hd videos?
I have a T400, in general it's a great laptop but cleaning its CPU fan is a pain in the ass.
Such is the case with any laptop.
This is an absolutely awesome price for such a great machine. Can't find one cheaper than 96$ in Russia :((((
Nice laptop. In Indonesia this laptop still expensive. About 130 usd
I’m starting a series on a t61. Installing fresh Windows XP and more to come.
can i upgrade the cpu of my t400 to t9600 eventhough in bios its says p8600???pls let me know and sorry for the ignorance thank you!
I have a W540, and a W540/1. I also have a few T440p's, AND a couple of T400's. I find for day-to-day usage, the T400 certainly gets the job done. Upgrade to at least a C2D P8800 (2.66ghz), 8gb/RAM, and an SSD, and it flies through daily tasks.
Games you can comfortably play on the GMA on-board graphics:
Freespace II
System Shock II
SOTSE
The Sims (original, will NOT play The Sims 2).
....And quite a few others in that class.
Although my "DD", AND gamer, is my W540 w/K2100m graphics, I STILL enjoy working with my T400.
the specific t400 is defective - lcd cable blows the mb in many cases
Ayyy I've got an R400. Basically something but without dedicated Graphics and *T H I C C E R*
I used a ThinkPad T410 with the i5 540M for quite a while, I can say that it's legitimately the best laptop I ever had, even better than my MacBook Pro 13" (that I also used a lot) These laptops are built like tanks, really I dropped it quite a few times: never had anything (until it eventually died because of a coffee cup that was spilled all over the keyboard and motherboard)
But damn ! I never EVER knew there was a PCIe slot inside some of these docks :o
I always though the first eGPU Dock was using Thunderbolt (for the MBP, as example), mind blowing.
Still worth it in 2020?
even in 2024 it's better than the craptops given by my country's government to 4th graders
One reason you might chose a T400 over a T410/420 is because you can libreboot it.
I never understood the letter in the series does T mean consumer and business?
Great find, and a very professional video for a very professional laptop, great vid, keep it up
Thanks!
I like the older Lenovo Thinkpads and Dells which we can replace items in and use docks with. I prefer video render machines from a level of i5 and integrated graphics because video cards cause troubles with my system experiments and boot failures. The demanding/modern graphical tasks needs the 10XX or beyond anyway, so a newer thingy is good to have for such.
Tinkering with Core Duo machines, DDR2 and below is fine as well for me, but the tasks are different. The use there is retro.
is that graphics card dock hot pluggable or you need to turn off the machine
now only if the dock supported new than x00 series Thinkpads
Lenovo does the graphics thing now too with their tb3 graphics dock, except it is a 1050 installed and not a slot that you can add your choice too and it adds little to no io other than a few USB ports and a tb3 pass through
Yeah, I have seen that. It's unfortunate that they do not have something to allow you to install your own GPU :(
@@AAComputersandTechnology honestly for me the biggest downside is the lack of IO it seems to only have three graphics ports and a usb port, i feel that for a base station dock it should have more than that, lenovo also only claims compatibility with the idea pad 720 (though since it is tb3 I have no idea where that limitation is coming from or if it is real)
Been watching your channel for 4 years now, you really put out some interesting stuff and you are really thorough, great work! I have a simple question, do you think a x220 keyboard will fit on a x230 ? I've seen you swap keyboards like this before and just wanted your two cents if you have the time.
the T400 can be upgraded to intel Extreme x9100
I luved my T60, the only thing I hated was it got REALLY hot on my lap. I had the dock for it, it was only compatible with single slot card, the last card that I put in it was a 5450.
Woooooah.... dat B-Roll cinematography, tho. Glad to see the T400 getting some love. It's an excellent machine for the price, but I think the T420 and T430 are better overall because of the i-series CPUs. Is there anything like the Advanced Dock for those machines? I haven't seen anything (granted, I haven't looked that hard).
Even an AMD Turion 64 X2 can be very useful today. Better than many Intel Atom's.
Wow, I just got one of these around a month ago. Sadly the battery was dead
Have you ever thought about doing the mod for Core 2 Quads to work in these ThinkPads?
That rant was actually initially part of this video but it did not make the final cut. Yes, that is definitely something I have on the list of things I want to do.
Looks close to my T61. That thing is a beast. I'm running Ubuntu 18.04 on it. Still a damn nice machine.
And now that I know that I can stick a real graphics card in it, I need one. Now.
Great find
Hi, Good Video Review, Just Need Your expert advise on ThinkPad T400 as I will be Buying One for Mainly Microsoft Office(Outlook, Word & Excel) and Google Calendar. the one I will be buying is same specification on your Video but I will be throwing More RAM on it, 8Gb and a Windows-7, Please let me Know What You think and thanks in Advance.
can play youtube video in 720p60fps with ubuntu on it, exept that it's a perfect machin for open office uses (and it's a very sturdy laptop )
My T400 has the Radeon graphics and is quite nice for a daily driver and some classic 4X games. I replaced the thermal compound and the MATE CPU Monitoring applet shows the P8400 boosting to 2.37 GHz over the stock 2.26 GHz on mains power. I still need to max out the RAM and maybe get a T9600 for it, but man it's some well built machine.
How would counter strike go run haha
@@bobthebuilder9416 Classic 1.6 without any problems. ;)
thunderbold - what´s the point?
Hey love the vids great for a noob like me. What do you think about the the R61 with the dual core 2.0
are they on fire, there is some smoke
Good video! But you see that Google Chrome is a tiny laggy
Could you game on a lenovo thinkpad t430 with 8gb of ram and a 3rd gen core i5?
Pff I have that dock 5 years( got it with 300 thinkpads on auction). Its for low profile small cards with small power usage.
Hi, can you test it with the T430? Please.
As long as he has the docking station, yes.
I will stick with my T430 ...
Good battery life, good for pentesting, still runs WoW, has backlight keyboard and you can mod the bios just by purchasing an 6usd USB Flash device ^^
Windows 10 Pro works definitely very good and I really love the possibility of replacing the DVD Bay with an HDD adapter.
Yeah. I like the performance of 3rd gen Core ix laptops. I have a ProBook 6570b from the dumpster (yes, I am not joking), and it works 100%. The battery, which was also in the dumpster, holds a good charge. For graphics performance, my ProBook 6570b can run CS:GO (1600x900 low), Team Fortress2 (1280x720 medium-high settings), and the Sims 4. But to be honest, saying a computer can run The Sims 4 isn't a big statement. I've gotten the Sims 4 to run on a Core 2 Duo laptop with Radeon mobility x1300 and on Intel GMA graphics.
I run Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 on my laptop, and it runs very well on the SSD in the laptop (the laptop came with a 320 GB 7200 RPM HDD, which I've upgraded to a SSD). The i5-3340m is plenty for the tasks I want to do on this laptop, which are school work and light gaming (CSGO, TF2, The Sims 4).
The 4 Series Express Chipset GPU is far from perfect on anything but Windows 7 and below. You'll see a increase in frame rate on those OSes.
Also the radeon GPU exists on the more expensive units which runs great
Radeon 1400m with 64mb..
X3100 aged better.
The card slot in the dock only supports 1x, not 16x. And Ultrabay batteries can be used also with T410, T420s, and T430s. You MIGHT get them to work in a T420 or T430, but the size of the Ultrabay is larger so there will be a gap.
so is eBay good
My T400 won't turn on somehow ._. (it does turn on tho, but it just died after I booted up and then I can't turn it on again) ;-;
You have to change the thermal paste
I am probably going to buy this for my granparents