Tag: Thinkpad

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My laptop is back from service

After the RAM failure I procrastinated for two weeks before sending the laptop to service and then it took a month (including Christmas and stuff) to get it back. After service they tried to return it to the wrong address by changing the first letter in the street name from S to T and dropping the first digit in the street number. Weird.

According to the notes they only changed “planar” (motherboard in ThinkPad lingo, I think) and “palm rest” but the latter looks the same to me. I just hope that everything works so I don’t have to send it again.

Update I inserted the hard disk, booted memest86 from the grub menu and let it run a few tests. After that I pressed Esc to exit memtest and it said “Halting” but it didn’t shutdown so I powered off. Booting again never lights up the screen! I did see that the display problem was not fixed though. Pretty annoying.

Update 2 next morning The screen lit up properly and the laptop tried PXE boot as I had removed the hard disk drive again. I need to investigate further.

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Mysterious crashes = RAM memory failure

I had some mysterious crashes on my Thinkpad T60p the other day. First I got Firefox hangs, second Firefox didn’t start, third I got segfaults when listing a directory on the hard disk, four I got kernel panic when running fsck…

Now I’m running Memtest86 and it does not look good:

That computer is soooo being sent to service!!!

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About to buy a new laptop

I’m about to buy a new laptop. I’m still happy with my Thinkpad T60p1 even though it needs a service to get rid of some heat problems and this annoying display issue, which has become worse lately:

Anyway, the new laptop is not for me but for my wife, so that there is less competition about the one we already have! 🙂

One option would be to get me a new laptop and let her inherit the T60p, but I have an 1600×1200 pixel display now and the Thinkpad T Series models with 1920×1200 pixels are outrageously priced! I need some really good new business for 2GooD Productions in order to afford it!

Miguel de Icaza observed that Lenovo finally offers Linux preloaded on some machines but I can’t find anything about that on their Swedish web site. It would be good to avoid paying the “Microsoft Tax” the next time a buy a Thinkpad!

When my wife found out that Dell offers their Inspiron 1525 with the design below, she wanted one of those, and who am I to argue? I’ll make sure the specs look alright and pray that I can get Ubuntu running on it properly.

blossom.jpg

(Image is Courtesy of Dell Inc.)

1 At least if I don’t think too much about the issues with the fglrx proprietary graphics driver from ATI.

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On the bus, and not

I’m writing this on the bus on my way back home from work. The handwriting recognition on my Nokia 770 takes some getting used to but works quite alright. I’m thinking of buying a Nokia N810 but I’m not so sure.

Starting from this sentence I’m writing from the comfort of my study. The travel sickness chewing gum prevented me from yawning, getting a head ache and feeling sick, but my brain still feels foggy a few hours later, even after eating and taking a nap!

I won’t buy an Nokia N810 when I can’t use it on the bus. Damn travel sickness.

Maybe I should get a Macbook instead? 😉 I’m a bit tired of suspend/resume not working 100% correctly with Linux on my Thinkpad. The brand new MacBook Air seems cool but expensive!

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Most ThinkPad T60p original battery for the money

The old battery for my IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T60p went from bad to useless this autumn but it wasn’t until yesterday that I ordered a new 9-cell battery (7.8 Ah) directly from IBM Sweden where the 9-cell battery actually was cheaper than a 6-cell battery (5.2Ah) . I first looked at well-stocked reseller Dustin but after discovering that either battery was cheaper at IBM, even including shipping costs, I simply ordered and smiled.

Update 2007-12-13 The battery arrived already today!

$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info
present:                 yes
design capacity:         84240 mWh
last full capacity:      84240 mWh
battery technology:      rechargeable
design voltage:          10800 mV
design capacity warning: 4212 mWh
design capacity low:     200 mWh
capacity granularity 1:  1 mWh
capacity granularity 2:  1 mWh
model number:            92P1133
serial number:            1146
battery type:            LION
OEM info:                Panasonic