$20 IBM ThinkPad .... Is it Junk??
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- Опубликовано: 20 окт 2023
- I bought this IBM ThinkPad G41 laptop for $20 CAD... is it Junk? Did I waste my money? Are there any surprises in this system? What components came with this system... Let's find out!
#retropc #nostalgia #vintage #ibm #intel #ewaste #windowsxp #retro #pcrepair
Nice, around 2004-2006, my Dad had access to old Thinkpads through his work, He had a T42, and I had a T21 and later a T30. One thing I really liked was that the IBM power connecter basically never changed, so we had a ton of spare power cords set up around the house.
That's awesome and would have been a dream at that time!! As for power, IBM switched to 3 different connectors during its time prior to 2 additional when going to Lenovo (that I know of). Dell is one brand that has certainly kept their connectors more consistent. Either way. Just having lots of spare adapters make all of the difference lol! Thanks for watching!
Crazy what people get rid of, I love these ThinkPads, I use them for retrogaming and also give them to kids so they can tinker with them and play some old games, you can even install Linux on them and use them to browse modern websites using certain distributions for old PCs. Having that dedicated GPU in there is a huge blessing for retrogaming. A very nice find indeed.
Thanks and I love that you give some to kids! So much life left in these systems.
$20! What a bargain! Wow. And not one skimped spec. This was maxed out for the day. As soon as you showed the crazy heat vents, I guessed it would be a "P4 space heater" as we called them. Great for cold winter offices. Great machine. Very relatable to the Lenovo Ideapad gaming laptop I bought 9 years ago, maxed out because I figured the Nvidia GPU and extra horsepower and memory would keep it relevant for office work for a very long time. It's like the descendant of yours. And yes it still kicks butt. Not so much for games any more but it can run Windows 11 just fine if it needs to. Old hardware is only old if you think it is. Absolute love your channel!
Yes you are so right. It depends on your perspective on each of these machines. What is old and what isn't and how capable they still are.. Is all up to the end user! I personally think these machines still have lots of life in them and with certain Linux distros, some memory upgrades and an SSD - you can use them today! Thanks so much, I'm happy you are enjoying the channel!!
I had an ibm Thinkpad g40 very great machines but it was heavy for sure, I am glad to see this model get shown and some love great price for 20 bucks very rare beast these days now
It was a really great find and with just a little but more TLC.... It will be 100% again! :)
Maaaaan, why did they removed so many ports from laptops!? I still remember how my 3050ti laptop only had jack, 2 usb-A, one type C and hdmi. I'd love to get one of those ibm tankpads and fit a minipc board or something of the like
That would be cool! I think with the advent and market acceptance of USB, the days of the ports were numbered.
Great video, I have a newer x220 and I’ve had a few X1’s from work, I really think anything that I’ve personally used with the thinkpad badge is a decent machine (even allowing for 2 different parents for that thinkpad child over the years)
I like the IBM logo on that one.
Nice video btw. Subscribed for more.
Thanks! Yes - I miss the IBM Logo of this era and the machines. I'm happy that Lenovo kept the design even to this day. Thanks for subscribing - great having you along, hope you enjoy!
That one vent that you mentioned on the side of the laptop was a slot that could hold a 3 1/2 floppy drive or an additional battery i believe. Some other retro thinkpad channel just did a restoration/review of this laptop in the last month or so and he mentioned that vent door. It's the vent door on the other side of the computer that houses the ultra baby drive. I watched the video recently but can't remember where i did. 🤦🤷
Thank you!!
The G series was definitely chonky. The P4-M was a bit of a power hog which is why it needed good ventilation. The blanking plate in the middle of the HD side was for the internal 3.5" floppy. Nice review!
Thank you for letting me know about that plate! I thought it 'may' have been for that.. But how I dare guess / say that on RUclips lol. The ventilation is pretty awesome compared to other similar p4 machines I've done in here (Dell Inspiron, HP Pavilion). This seemed to be much more efficient. Thanks again!!
Those G41s are VERY rare
I had no idea. I have 2 of them here, one of them a parts machine. I like having this one going. I plan on doing some upgrades to it in time :)
Nice video! I got my G41 for $7.99 USD at a thrift store. The thing at 3:35 is where the floppy drive would go on models without the Nvidia GPU. Mine doesn't have the floppy disk, but that's where it would be.
Thanks! I assume this is for ventilation then :)
Have owned a variety of IBM and Lenovo ThinkPads over the years. My big computer regret is giving them away. Some of the best keyboard I've ever used.
100%. The keyboards are a dream to type on.
Steven have work many years for IBM and later Lenovo. In our house are more Thinkpads then pets hihihi. Steven work on a Lenovo Thinkpad T430s. Its a perfect machine.
Awesome!!!! Hahha more than pets lol
Wow! What a machine, will run loads of games! :)
Yes I was very surprised!
Great deal a lot would enjoy playing some retro games on this laptop. Would love to see you test more games of the XP era
Give me a few examples and I will see what I can do!
@@TheRetroRecall hmm for example Red Faction 1, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Mafia 1, Total Overdose, The Elder Scrolls Oblivion. You probably got some of those games 😋
I have a couple :) thank you!!
I have a Lenovo Thinkpad r61 which is also built lika a tank. Core2duo 2ghz, supports upp 8gb of ram ( I currently have 6gb installed) there are 4gb ddr2 sodimms outthere, but they are a bit hard to find. I also managed to find the dvd-slot adapter for a 2nd hard drive (it has a special connector instead of the regular one) It has quadro graphics and wifi and it runs runs Linux perfectly fine. 🙂 It needs a new hinge as one is slightly bent from a accident long time ago. But overall it is a great laptop for its age. Great video.
Thanks!! Yes - I remember the R61, I had that system as well! I just don't remember it being so upgradable! Sounds like you have a great machine there and that you get that hinge repaired. ThinkPads are great! :)
I liked the machine but it felt cheap to me.. I quickly upgrade to he T61 and felt immediately better. Had Windows XP pro, quickly upgraded to Windows 7. Also had the C2 T7300 CPU.
You could do a network install of Debian Linux 12.5 Bookworm with the i386 net install ISO image.
I'll take note. Many distros have been recommended to me over the last little bit. Not being a Linux user, I didn't realize that there were so many to look into.
a 3d priented slot cover and a ide to sd card adapeter
Great idea regarding the 3d print. Just need to find the design.
Me waiting impatiently on receiving on 20+ 2nd hand laptops....for free
Nice.. En route?? Any idea what they are?
No. All I know is that they were all used in a BIG enterprise company. So most likely not consumer grade but business class. They will probably arrive later during the week or next week. i just finished another Acer donation a customer chucked and was unwilling to spend money on. They just took the 250 SSD. I added a 500GB HDD, ram to total 8GB and a replacement keyboard. Core -7 2nd Gen with Nvidia G540M with 2GB dedicated memory and Intel HD3000 graphic chips, two working batteries and a charger. Not a bad score. It plays Quake 4 Ultra with zero lag. I will be replacing the HDD with and SSD though, I am used to SSD speeds@@TheRetroRecall
This 3.33 Ghz Pentium 4 (More specifically an HT 548) would be a beast in there for an XP era machine.
Beast for sure. That heatsink takes up the entire corner of the machine and it's sooo heavy haha! The performance was pretty snappy though!
When I saw how thick it was I immediately knew it was one of those Pentium 4 ones with FX5200 Go
I figured it was a P4... But the GeForce Go was a nice surprise!
I've never been a fan of port placement on ThinkPads, and those two USB ports on the left at the very bottom are prime examples of why I think that. And that asymmetrical hinge would drive me nuts!
Haha! I thought the same thing regarding the hinges, however after using it for a bit, they kind of blend in (my opinion) :). As for the USB - never gave it much thought. I guess I would have to be using them to really 'feel' that experience. Time to test!
Mannn, I miss that keyboard.
One of the greatest!
In 2005 this laptop was very expensive.
I was thinking the same thing - especially with the dedicated graphics and the features!
Most ThinkPads were. They were primarily targeted at business buyers (hence being a brand of International Business Machines originally) who typically have cash to spend on a fleet of computers when they go out and replace them. That’s why a lot of ThinkPads are renowned for their durability and keyboards - those are two of the most important things for most business use cases. They haven’t really been the same since the Lenovo buy out though unfortunately
I will give props to Lenovo for keeping the branding, design the same but will admit that the quality has diminished slightly.
I like the ideapad keyboards a lot better-
More clicky and shorter to press on. I love it.
ThinkPad keyboards, for me, the keys are too _tall_ so typing feels kind of mushy to me. I don't like the 90s/2000s keyboards and the modern ones I type on at work also kept the really tall mushy keys too
I have. . . absolutely NO nostalgia blindness to give to these old early 2000s ibm machines and VERY MUCH disagree and think they're cheaply made... sooo many timebomb issues. 😄 I'm sorry ❤
Hahaha everyone has their favorite systems :)
Damn, didn't know that FX 5200 can run UT2004 that well.
I also had all of the settings maxed out as well! I am going to experiment with others.. But I'm definitely impressed.
That was a good deal!👍👍 Hopefully this missing parts will turn up. Have you tried Kumander Linux yet? If not, then it's a 64 bit Linux OS., which resembles Window 7.
Yes it was a great deal and no not yet. I was thinking Knoppix Or Kubuntu live cd's for testing and / or for a full os in one of my future videos. It's hard to do restoration type videos like this one without testing the original OS first. I think it would make a great stand along video to install something like that and see the differences in performance :).
@@TheRetroRecall For 32 bit computers I use Sparky Linux LXQT, Linux Mint LMDE 6 is also offered in 32 bit and there are many others. An internet search for 32 bit Linux 2023 will find them.
Nice pick up. Never used a g40 but I was inspired to save a machine from E-waste and picked up a ThinkPad x140e.
Nice!! Every system saved no matter what the model is a good move :). These systems really are tanks and make great Retro machines :)
@@TheRetroRecall I was surprised to find the one I picked up was a 2016 model and still had an aluminum frame for the lower part of the case.
It depends on the model. The T series are promoted to have the added cages / frames for strength for extensive business use.
@@TheRetroRecall yeah it's a solid machine for sure. I just need to get windows 11 off the poor little thing. Never thought I'd see win 11 running on what's basically a netbook. 😄
Lol!!!
Hm that is a computer i an looking for well not maybe that model but well i find out when and if i find one that seams to be difficult at least in my country...before you could find them very easy but not now...hm...The anow came and left now i waiting for new snow i love the vinter and snow and where i live 28 mil outside stocholm it get cold and a lot of snow....Do you know that your country reminds of my whit much forrest etc....any way thanks for another video...ups forgett to ask have you seen the Buterfly IBM?....if so what do you think about it?...
I live these comments and hearing about different parts of the world and experiences! Unfortunately I have never come accross the butterfly IBM model, however I am keeping my eye out for one! Thanks for sharing and for watching!
Hello! I récently bought a R51 witch work perfectly, but after install Wxp, It miss lot’s of drivers…😢 I don’t find them, sometimes I downloaded but after install, nothing appears… seems just to copy the files….. Does it exist procédure to install drivers ?
If you can't find the drivers try snappy driver installer
1:17 That rubber felt nice when it was new, but it is quite the chore to get off when it goes bad. Have you had to strip that rubber off anything you own? I have a Microsoft keyboard that had that rubber junk on the wrist rest , I took the rubber off.
3:38 Optional 2nd HDD?
17:01 Nice you can still get the original drivers still and don't have to use some sketchy download site.
Yup, but it's all cleaned up now which is great. That extra bay is actually for the optional 3.5 floppy drive which I found out thanks to a viewer. Yes - IBM is awesome for maintaining their driver database!
As an aside, watched your latest!
Those extra vents are actually where the Video card is, on the iGPU model it would have a floppy drive there.
Thanks!
Heck, no its not junk. I used to use one of those in high school just a older model (windows 95).. (tells ya my age.) lol If I could get one for 20 bucks that would bring back some memory's.
It really was an a amazing surprise! This machine will definitely see much more life!
What shooter game was that? The music is awesome
Unreal Tournament 2004 :)
@@TheRetroRecall thanks :-) i will see if i can load it in modern system ( if I can find copy) and give it a shot
It's fun :)
Been using msata drives in my old laptops, they work quite well...nice thinkpad for 20.00!...they have to be pretty bad before i consider them junk...just can't junk anything i guess lol
Haha agreed! I have since ordered an Msata to 2.5 ide adapter :)
Pentium Snore, yup, it's junk. 😄
But it ran MS Office as well as anything else at the time.
Haha for 20 bux.. It's pretty awesome!!! :)
I have a T40 with the 1400x1050 14” screen(seems to be the lowest configuration otherwise), I have a T42 with the 1400x1050 15” IPS screen(again, seems to be lowest configuration otherwise), and I have a near top spec 14” T60p with the 1400x1050 screen(not IPS) with the FireGL V5250. I mostly use the T60p out of them as it is the fastest. It can actually run Fallout New Vegas decently.
The T40 has a 1.6ghz Pentium M, 2GB of RAM, and Radeon Mobility 9000 Pro, the T43 has a 1.8ghz Pentium M, 2GB of ram, and a Radeon Mobility X300, the T60p has a Core 2 Duo T7400 at 2.13ghz, 3GB of ram, and the aforementioned FireGL.
I love that you have kep your Thinkpads all in service!!
The specs are pretty punchy in the t60p, even for a business line notebook. That was the nice thing about these Thinkpads - they were versitile!
@@TheRetroRecall it’s probably my most power dense retro laptop.
Love it.
An SSD with SATA to IDE adapter will make it FLY (Just make sure its not Samsung since they do not properly support old legacy PCI controllers)
I wonder how it compares to a 10 USD chromebook (sold in lots from ebay) Some even can have storage upgrades, you can unlock UEFI by changing BIOS firmware & install whatever operating system you want! (Windows 8.1 is a sweet spot but Linux is more recommended)
My take is get components with the price gap.
AIDA64 will tell you all about the graphic card, it will list openGL with a percentage like: also if it is hardware supported or not
OpenGL 1.5 100%
OpenGL 2.0 30% Partial
As far as robustness & usability I would say ThinkPad has an edge on Keyboard & peripherals (FX5200 PC games is akin to PlayStation 2 graphics, it might run Doom3)
I want to see Linux performance on this beast.
Chromebook are flimsy with horrible keyboard but mostly Intel Graphics with OpenGL 3.0 or more with less power draw!
Dreamcast emulation on XP is limited to NullDC while a newer Operating System & Linux makes use of Flycast.
Thanks for this info!!!
Could you put an SSD in it with an adapter?
Totally using an IDE to MSATA adapter, or IDE to SSD adapter.
@@TheRetroRecall That would be cool, I imagine the boot time would probably be cut down quite a bit assuming the adapter could handle the SSD's higher transfer rate.
They are limited of course, but definitely faster than the original.
I update XP with Legacy Update
Definitely on the agenda!
This would be extremly fast with a pata ssd. I had a 5200 LE with 32Mb of vram it was NOT a good card my GeForce 4 was way faster. The 5200 with 128Mb should be way better.
For sure. Great suggestions. I will be testing out an SSD in this machine. I love the Thinkpad line.
Yepp. Good idea man. Re: hdd and paper under it.
Better safe then sry. And could quite possibly not know if the laptop worked or not.
Good thinking on yer part. 👍
Thanks! I figured it wouldn't hurt and it would have just taken one grounding point to potentially cause an issue. I figured it nor ally would have come with a HDD Cage and that was missing. Paper, - the next best thing lol.
@@TheRetroRecall absolutely buddy. O have to say. 20 bucks for that IBM was a mega steal. Good eye.
Been watching yer videos for a long while now. I’m slowly becoming an IBM Thinkpad fan lol. IBM in general really :)
Love having you along!!! Keep watching, more to come... Thank you!
@@TheRetroRecall awesome. Sounds good buddy. I’ll keep my eye out for new videos. I’ve watched pretty much all of yer videos lol.
Some good, some bad lol! Puchasing new equipment and will only get better from here, thanks for your support!
lol tape over the xp key.....
Yes - you can still register it, which I still do :)
Looks & works pretty darned good for a $20 laptop seemingly destined for the e-waste pile in the sky!
For sure!! I mean a couple of little components and some cleanup / new panels and this machine is back to production!! (Retro production lol!)
I have a Thinkpad myself. it is a PII system. but it is covered in this rubbery crap that naturally all of it is deteriorating back to rubber tree oil again and made a complete mess of it, even the hinges to the IO connections are made of this rubber and has fallen off too. I mean Bios battery is dead again and is not in a standard holder but in a IBM probably trademark wired battery. the main battery is dead too. Because the bios battery is dead it requires a restart to load the default settings but it can´t do it because it has to be power cycled to apply and then it lose the settings again. eventually you can manage to trick it into booting if you are persistent enough and while it is on it works good. I know I can make a new Bios battery but without getting all that rubber off it is no use fixing anything. I had the thing for a very long time even before it started to melt but I had other laptops I liked more that I used instead. but I mean it´s not a bad computer just a terrible TERRIBLE design to cover a whole laptop with rubber like this, I mean it is black plastic under the rubber so what was the cutting edge reason to make it super sensitive to scratches and ageing that makes it ugly as sin the time you start using it. I started to try clean off this rubber in steps but man it is a pain, the towel gets tacky, the computer even more tacky, I get tacky and it never ends, I have the idea to try use Plasti Dip remover but have not come to this yet, gasoline is another, ISO works but takes forever. if you know a golden trick to get this crap off my computer I be happy to try it. I need to literally clean the whole shell of the computer clean from this stuff if I ever gonna be able to use it without getting stuck to it like a fly in a flytrap
Hahah I'm sorry but I was laughing quite a bit when reading your comment.. I feel for ya! I did a full restoration on my Thinkpad 380xd (which I believe I did a video on). I had used 99% ISO with a medium toothbrush. That seemed to do the trick, but it does take patience. Anything stronger (chemical wise) I would be afraid to damage the surface or worse yet - other components it would leak on to. I'm really hoping you get this system restored / repaired. It sounds like you have a love / hate relationship with it lol. In the end, it will be a perfect match haha!
@@TheRetroRecall glad my story could give a good laugh. I have the computer laying in the corner of shame here until further notice and I can swear it is planning it’s next move on me in silence. Every time I look at it I can see the shiny spot I managed to do on the screen. Kinda like a bald spot on the head, like a monk or something. I need to get to this again.
But I have a computer mutiny against me. Since I got tired of that tacky mess my IBM provides me with I took out an Acer Aspire 1400 computer I have instead, I think this is kinda like yours here with XP and a P4 CPU just a bit lower specs, but I soooooo much want to get Win98 to work on this instead so I can retro game on it. But does this computer cooperate with me?
Noooo, absolutely not! Well it boots up. I even got the sound to work. But the GPU, yes it is an ATI and a mobile one. The attack of the haunted drivers provided a complete takeover of my wishes for success.
I probably tried every driver on the internet by now and I just won’t work.
Well it installs correctly, even the device manager says it’s installed with even the specs and everything. But it can’t start up the driver or make it work. Ugh. I am not really in need of another XP laptop with these specs. But this laptop would kickass with 98.
But my computers have other plans with my life. I also got a Pentium 166 laptop that do work mostly but it is too slow to run many games to satisfaction. Even if it is just Doom
Hahahaha seriously, you should be a story teller 🤣 I needed this laugh. All jokes aside - I hope your conspiring computers start to cooperate.. Or I fear for them lol!
@@TheRetroRecall well, what can I say. The story is absolutely true and my feelings about it is genuine 😅and I can I tell you that it’s not only computers that are against me here. I feel soo lucky sometimes. I could tell you stories like this all day long lol
Hahaha!!! Perfect, I'll hold you to that. Hoping you have a story for all of my future vids lol!
its not recommended to put tape on the Windows Key sticker
Oh? It comes right off after the video. Is there a reason?
Seen a couple of your vids now featuring the FX5200. In all honesty it is a horrible graphics card with garbage performance. If I am not mistaken it was released in the time Nvidia didn't really care what they produced as long as they put something on the shelf for their followers, in the run up to the release of the 6000 series cards such as the 6600GT and such. The whole FX- series GPU's were trash bar the ultra's like the 5950 and so on which were still mediocre for what they were supposed to be. FX 5200 is a awesome GPU for a WIN98 system and that era games though as well as for real low level XP era games
Thanks.
There are two different 3rd-party web sites that have re-enabled Windows Update for XP. (Can't post the web address, or this comment will likely get deleted). Also: there are SATA SSD's that can replace the mechanical HD.
Yes I knew about the projects available now for updates... I was trying to make the point / joke that Windows update is long offline for XP (although the irony that you can still activate it haha). Interested in replacing the HDD with an SSD. Where this system is IDE not SATA I assume there are adapters for that?
@@TheRetroRecall Newegg has an IDE to SSD adapter: "CHENYANG mSATA mini PCI-E SATA SSD to 2.5 inch IDE 44pin Notebook Laptop hard disk case Enclosure".
I just saw one and ordered it from amazon! Great minds :)
The card in the RAM compartment is actually the modem, WIFI is placed under the keyboard i think 🤓
Ok.. now I need to check that out haha. I could have sworn that was the WiFi card.. But that said.. In hindsight.. there are no antenna wires going to it lol.... Thanks for the call out!
Another ThickPad founded on youtube
Nothing wrong with a Think / ThickPad!
Not a junk....
That is the definite result! When I first got it I wasn't sure if it was worth any investment of time... Clearly it was worth it! :)
Don't call it a ThinkPad, call it a ThiccPad instead =))
Haha! Funny story is that I wanted to, however other RUclipsrs have done that so I did want to go that route for respect. That said - it is very much a ThiccPad lol!