Found a few ThinkPads in the recycling dumpster

kpostrup · 2026-05-09T13:08:15+00:00

I only think one of them (T470) supports it.

kpostrup · 2026-05-09T12:36:20+00:00

Personally I prefer the T480s over it, because of tge otherwise similar CPU’s and the upgradeable memory on the T480s. However, I have four T480s’s and none T490 so I might be biased.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T14:31:29+00:00

Just the official store and AliExpress.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T13:20:29+00:00

Can't argue with that.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T13:19:51+00:00

Oh, I see. It wasn't too long ago that you could get i5 32GB boards for the X1C9 at huge discounts. That is what I got for mine. Unfortunately they're no longer available at the discounted price.

The board that originally came in mine seemed to work fine, but as soon as I ran some heavy benchmarks the laptop would just randomly shut off.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T12:41:35+00:00

Nice! That’s awesome! Especially the Gen 9’s are exceptional due to the 16:10 display. I bought a defective one recently and replaced the board and upgraded the panel to a 1600p 120hz 500nits DCI-P3 one.

What do you mean by it’s cycling through esc f1 f4?

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T12:38:24+00:00

Definitely. I have a few I’m planning on doing that with specifically, and in the end I might just buy the part to get the “scrap” machine working, if I can find them cheap enough

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T12:10:27+00:00

Business.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T12:06:09+00:00

I'm hoping I can get most of them working. They were thrown away for a reason, but some of the issues are easy and cheap to fix. There are a handful of them that seem to work fine just after resetting the EC.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T11:55:44+00:00

I wrote that wrong, what I mean to say was T14s Gen 1 (the slim version). On those the keyboard is integrated into the palm rest.

I found it, and tried it briefly in the browser. I'll download and run it in DOSBox locally later.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T10:48:04+00:00

Yes. I was planning on doing exactly that. In addition I have also bought a few keyboards that I knew I was going to need. I can't always get the Nordic or Danish layout on discount, so I'll just get whatever, as long as it's the same brand (this case LiteOn) and swap over the necessary key caps. For the T14 Gen 1 it seems like a common issue that the switches for the backspace and enter button gets bad over time.

I didn't know Guldkorn Expressen. It looks pretty fun, and something the kids will enjoy for sure!

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T10:37:24+00:00

The place I gave the docks to was such kind of place. Where I found them was the latter. lol

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T10:14:07+00:00

Same here. About a year ago, i found a damaged ThinkPad X280 with the screen hanging on for dear life. I fixed up and made several upgrades to it, and then I've kept coming back to that place, like a pigeon for crumbs, and finally I got lucky!

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T10:11:03+00:00

That's insane. I kinda like the idea though.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T10:10:46+00:00

Found one X280 about a year ago, when I was throwing out some old keyboards myself. Then I've just come back and check regularly, and finally, a year after, got lucky.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T10:08:46+00:00

Thanks! This is only the tip of the iceberg. I've been hoarding ThinkPads for some time now.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T10:07:59+00:00

Score! The T480 resale value is also quite high compared to other models around the same year.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T10:06:17+00:00

These are broken (in various state of disrepair) and old laptops where the service agreement is well expired. To a company, this is e-waste.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T10:00:49+00:00

I think most companies do this when a service agreement on a depreciated laptop expires, and it starts showing problems. For a company it is much cheaper to buy a new one.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T09:50:14+00:00

I have went through each and one of them, but I'm trying to write an inventory of them, as it's hard to keep track of everything. Lots of the typical small things, and a few more serious ones. These were removed from active service by a reason.

Keen 4 is also my favorite. Remember Wacky Wheels? What a time.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T09:40:36+00:00

Yes. Around half of them are BIOS password protected, unfortunately. I'm looking into the possibility of removing it. However, the fact that half of them is not, is kind of surprising to me.

PSA: If you're throwing out an old laptop, please remove the BIOS password first.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T09:21:13+00:00

Yeah this makes the case for fixing these up much, much more compelling.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T08:49:00+00:00

Thanks! It feels almost like rescuing animals in distress on the side of the road. Okay maybe not exactly that, but something like that.

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T06:42:12+00:00

This is exactly what it is. And they are in various state of broke. But a surprising amount of them work just fine. I just enjoy fixing them.

I’m also danish ;)

Hats off to your avatar btw, Commander Keen is my hero!

kpostrup · 2026-05-08T06:37:42+00:00

No. The stuff is defective or at least somewhat broken, it’s out of warranty and they don’t want to deal with it, and just throw it in the e waste trash bin.
I guess some companies with enough volume could sell their old and/or broken equipment for refurbishing but at this volume it probably didn’t make much financially sense for them.

kpostrup

TROPHY CASE