A few tips: - The T60 is a great candidate for Librebooting, and one of the last thinkpads you can do this with - Use a lightweight Linux distro for these old machines, it'll perform way better and most drivers for older hardware is already built into the kernel
Those T60s have beautiful IPS screens, which Lenovo swapped for inferior screens in subsequent models until popular demand forced Lenovo to bring the IPS screens back to Thinkpads about a decade later. The main problem with the T60 is the 3-gigabyte memory limit, which isn't a problem when using most applications, with web browsers being an exception. The T61 can use more than 3 gigabytes of memory, so many people took the motherboards out of their T61s and stuck them in their T60s, creating what is known as "a Frankenpad." The problem with Frankenpads is many T61s came with a defective Nvidia graphics card that would go dead after a while, making the purchase of any old T61 a gamble. Damn, it was so close. If the T60 hadn't had that 3-gigabyte memory limit, it would have been the perfect old computer. Even 4 gigabytes would be enough. If the T61 had had a reliable GPU (as more than 99% of computers and laptops do), it could have been used to make gamble-free Frankenpads. What a bummer. IBM made a handful of extremely-rare T60 motherboards which can use up to 8 gigabytes of memory (I have one of those, but I haven't put it in a laptop; I keep it as a collector's piece). An old T60 is also cheaper than a Raspberry Pi (a barebones unit can be bought as cheaply as £5, without memory, battery, or SSD), more powerful, and it comes with an integrated keyboard and a large, good-quality screen. Beats the Pi hands down. It can be used as a server for home automation or to host your own website, for example, or as a disposable travel laptop that you wouldn't lose sleep over having it pinched. I love the T60.
"We're left with two choices." Was expecting you to say Windows 10 and Linux lmao. Still interesting to see how it performs with windows 10 though. I really wanted to get one of these old beasts. What stopped me personally was the battery life. That's one thing that these new age laptops really have over the old ones. And by a huge margin too.
That's definitely true. Only a couple of my old laptops have batteries that last more than an hour. My T450 has the longest lasting battery by far then followed by my T410. Battery swapping used to be a lot more common
That computer has EVEN MORE to offer! Windows has a lot of background processes that slowly but surly drain performance and ram, if one takes the time it's possible to disable them and make a very light Windows. A good thing is that Linux users are practically obsessed with Thinkpads, so support is specially well documented, so running Linux on it will make it even faster (and don't get me started on finding and tuning a linux for that machine, oh god!)
Honestly this is very accurate. I do think you do need at least a Core 2 duo (which is basically anything newer than 2007). I have couple old core 2 machines running around and while they don't run windows anymore I do appreciate the fact they can handle basic tasks when I am out and around.
Why not use Linux? It seems perfect for such a machine. It is better supported in terms of old hardware and would run better than windows. For basically anything you use (web browsing, writing) it would be just like windows if not better. Great videos BTW!
Just bought a W520 with a 2960xm and 32gb of ram, man, its such a BEAST, and got it at only $299. It even outperforms my t490 that I paid $800 for back in 2020. I'd say its probably one of the best modern thinkpads to date, and you can even find slice batteries for them on ebay to give it more juice.
I have restored my R61 ThinkPad and installed Linux Mint on it. Runs like a charm. 17 years old. Upgraded 2 GB Ram to 4 GB. Changed the crashed HDD. But haven't installed SSD. Still runs fast for coding, music and browsing.
Yep, I'm still rocking a T 61 running windows 7. And everything you said about the T 60 applies with mine. One sad thing though, is my fan seems to have a bearing going and I'm terrified at the prospect of getting it repaired at a shop as I'm not tech savvy enough to do it myself...the cost, and finding an OEM fan or some questionable replacement. Anyway, plan on running mine far into the future. 👍
watching on my thinkpad t60 (15.4 inch) w/ 3GB RAM and 240 GB SSD running on LUBUNTU 20.04 it runs very very smoothly. Thank you for this Bro. keep it up.
I always love seeing old stuff that people throw out turn into something useful as I always hate seeing computers that are still useful go to junk, either the components get saved or it just stays in that junk filling waste and polluting the world.
Lol, I'm watching this on my daily driver T60. I have no idea how long I've had it, but I use it more than 8 hours a day, every day, and it has never let me down once. Like 5 years ago I did change the harddrive for a SSD, and switched to Zorin 15.3 for the operating system. Not even kidding, I think it will outlive me. But my grand kids will love it, so no problem.
To be honest, I have pretty good experience with replacement batteries. Sure, they only have like 70-80% of the capacity compared to a factory original, since they don't have the same type of battery cells. However for the price (usually 1/3 of the OEM) you get a decent battery which will serve you for years. It might die sooner so in 5-6 years not in 10+ but for an old laptop I think it's quite good. In my region (EU) there is a quite good brand called GreenCell. I already bought replacement batteries for a T400 and T420 Thinkpads. Their capacity and price/performance are good. I can have a new well performing battery for my 13 year old laptop (T400) for a decent price. I think there is no point to by a 10+ year old original battery in bad condition which can hardly run the laptop for less than an hour, when for around the same price you can get a replacement, which run it for ~3 hours. Sure it's not 5 hours as it would be with a new OEM, but also did not cost a fortune.
I still use a T60 as my main computer, when home docked with an external Nvidia 1030 gpu, and when on the go I have an ultrabay battery and two 9 cell main batteries still in great shape. But as far as I know you can't find batteries in good shape any more, I bought mine about 5 years ago, and take really good care of them (when not in use I keep them at 40% charge in the fridge). I also have Windows 8.1, best Windows version ever, I have no idea what people keep crying about it (usually most of them are not even aware that win 8 and 8.1 are two different versions). Also I am certain you have a T60 with either 1400 x 1050 or 1600 x 1200 IPS screen. Those panels are amazing, but if you come across one with the standard TN panel, your eyes will bleed out looking at that piece of garbage. Thinkpads that had the standard TN panels installed were notorious for having pretty much the worst quality screens available on the market.
Aftermarket batteries are sometimes good, they're definitely not all bad! But really good video more people need to see this! Windows 11 is better than Windoes 10 for Core 2 Duos. I can watch 720P60 videos since I updated on my Core 2 Duo T9300! Noticeable improvement! In your case with a T7400 720P should play fine... except for videos filmed in 50 or 60 FPS! Use Chrome and h264ify extension for best performance!
I will say that having vp9 dedicated decoding hardware has been a godsend on my wyse 5470. Little to no cpu usage at 1440p or 4K TH-cam on a n1400. Truly remarkable. Upgraded from a t430. As I wanted better battery life. Used to get 3 hours on the t430. And over 9 on the wyse 5470. It’s not for everyone. But they were a steal on eBay a while back
I have this same machine but with Celeron chip, 3Gigs of ram and 120G SSD. I use it as a time machine, I installed Win XP with no internet connection, and filled it with old shows like Cowboy Bebop and Serial Experiments lain
I recently finished my T60 upgrades by replacing the original Core Duo processor (T2500 @ 2GHz, 32-bit, 2MB of L2) with a Core 2 Duo (T7600 @ 2.33MHz, 64-bit, 4MB of L2). Although I still haven't changed the operating system to 64-bit version, the most visible gain is in the videos on yt, which were limited to 360p and now run at 720p30 (don't even think about 50 or 60 fps). The main difference in my experience is that I use Linux (Mint XFCE) instead of Windows on my machines. The main limitation is the low memory limit (only 3GB), which is more evident with the use of the 64-bit system (everything consumes more memory), which can bothers a little with my main use, which is the development of embedded systems with IDEs based on Eclipse, Netbeans and Electron. My other machines are a 13 year old Core 2 Duo (T9500 @ 2.6GHz, 6MB L2, 8GB RAM) and a 11 years old i7 2nd generation (2860QM @ 2.5GHz, 8MB L2, 16GB RAM).
Mine can play some TH-cam videos in browser in full screen at 720p60 or 1080p30 but that depends on how much there is movement in the video. When playing 720p30 CPU usage is mostly below 50% but sometimes there's some peaks to 80%. Locally it can play up to 1080p60 on VLC if the bitrate is low enough (around 20Mb/s max). Mine has a T7200 @ 2.0GHz, 4GB RAM (3GB usable), Radeon X1400 128MB, Win7 Pro x64. Sadly the Radeon doesn't work well on Linux so the performance is much, much worse than on Windows
Did you know there's a crowd funded project that consists of a custom motherboard equipped with a 10th (or 11th?) Gen Intel i7? I'm so tempted to get one but it's expensive! In the meantime, I'm just gonna build a frankenpad and attempt to use it as a daily. It'll probably be a similar experience to yours though. Good video!
My 12 years old Thinkpad W520 with Windows 7 works just fine, for Solidworks, AutoCAD, etc. Even though I am using a Dell Precision 5770, the keyboard is not at the same level.
I find it interesting you are an 8 connoisseur. I had 10 running on a single core pentium a couple years ago but it was a light weight variant you have to google to find. I have a t420 and a t43 planning on getting one of these to do the linux setup on.
Watching this right now on a T60 with a 256G SSD, running latest Debian with CDE and an XP dual boot. Still a great machine for many things, and a fantastic bridge machine with it's ability to run pretty much any 32 bit OS.
As you seem to have a healthy skepticism when it comes to so-called "computer advances," I thought that you might be a good person to ask about this. We presently have a need to run two separate 32-bit utilities, one was written for Win XP and the other for Win 7. Due to space limitations, we will also have a need for a laptop to run said utilities. Do you happen to have any thoughts about a good ThinkPad that might be able to handle this situation? By the way, I commend you on replacing your spinner with an SSD. That truly was a "advancement" in computer hardware. In fact, I really don't ever want to go back to HDDs (except for external archive storage), so that would also be a nice "want" in the ThinkPad I asked you about. I've both liked and subscribed now, so please keep up the informative video work!
Hmmm... if 32bit is what you really need, to my knowledge the majority of 32bit utilities will work on 64bit Windows so any ThinkPad should be good. However, if there is a incompatibility then I'd recommend either an R60 or T60 with a Core Duo(not Core 2 Duo) for you
The T60 is great don't get me wrong but I think for serious work it does fall short with low ram and slower drives. For me the bare minimum for modern use is a fully decced out T61. With middletons bios mod. Truth of the matter is while these laptops are great some hardware is getting a bit too old to comfortably use and unfortunately I would consider the T60 outdated. The best classic thinkpad to me is a t420 or a t430. Absolute peak of these machines along with the X and W series counterparts. Perfect mix of classic design and features and modern connectivity and perks. Plus these processors get much cooler with the ivy bridge models.
Yep, I'm still rocking a T 61 running windows 7. And everything you said about the T 60 applies with mine. One sad thing though, is my fan seems to have a bearing going and I'm terrified at the prospect of getting it repaired at a shop as I'm not tech savvy enough to do it myself...the cost, and finding an OEM fan or some questionable replacement. Anyway, plan on running mine far into the future.
Not gonna talk about ThinkPad laptops but about old hardware serving its purpose in modern times: two years ago I donated one of my nephews my old 14in Asus x45u so he could get something to mildly multy task during his online middle school classes. Such machine has an AMD vision E2-1800 cpu, with an upgraded crucial mx ssd, topped out 8gb of ram and windows 10. It is not a powerhouse by any means - and it wasn't when new back in 2013-, but definitely serves him better than the 9in tablet the government gave him. Windows 10 and chrome work fine even with such an old an slow processor. Going ssd really infused new life on that trusty machine and will likely last him until 12th grade for sure.
I do everything on my gaming rig, but for my mobile needs, like typing a text document, looking and reading stuff online, i still have my thinkpad x31, it's a pentium m machine running windows 7 ultimate! "But windows 7 is out of date man you are going to get virusses and sh1t" . . . I know that windows 7 is out of date, but with a lightweight antivirus, you should be ok, and no, i don't go on dodgy websites like "click here to download this program for free!!", i have all the software i need, my thinkpad suits my needs well and why should i upgrade? Because microsoft wants me to? I am looking for a lightweight linux distro, but i didn't find any yet that made me go WOW, i need that! I will keep my thinkpad x31, i don't need anything newer, i have a lenovo g580, but this thing is SO bulky, my x31 only weighs 1.6 kilo, which is very light! My X31 will continue to serve me well! I revived a not working battery with new cells and the battery works fine now! If it works for you, you don't need to upgrade, no mather what people say!
Commenting this at the beginning of the video - I've had a T60 for a little while now, the model with the 1400x1050 IPS and the X1400 GPU, fantastic little machine, I use XP on it.
Bro I feel your point. I used a t42 as main laptop from 2014 to 2016 and it served me well. Then it became a secondary machine to run additional stuff while on the go I had an x301 (amazing machine but the keyboard was worse than a normal thinkpad). In 2018 I upgraded to a t410s and to this day is my personal laptop. The way I use it makes it faster tha I way newer machines that run bloated software.
I need to do something with my T60. I have a T61 which I use alot, but it is a 16:9 display, which I don't like much for general use of what I use laptops for. I am still using an old Dell Latitude D610 as my daily carry laptop, which runs XP. I have a T60, which is in great condition, and even the battery works well. I have Windows 7 installed and it works just fine, but I would really like to upgrade the CPU. It currently has a core duo T2400, which sort of sucks.
I still have a T60 4:3 with a T2500 , a 7200rpm 100gb drive, only 2gb ram running Win Vista. It runs surprising quick, opens explorer and apps like a new modern machine. I don't understand why it's so quick, I am very surprised.
@@swagedelic You would be surprised how many older systems are actually pretty fast. Some better core 2 duos actually preform just as well as the modern CPUs that come in cheap laptops such as Chromebooks and even some low end Windows machines. Pair that with an older operating system that isn't bloated and doesn't plug itself up, and you have a smooth experience. Most standard PC users would get by perfectly fine with a core 2 duo and 2-4gb RAM. I would recommend something like an old thinkpad like this over a new cheap laptop, because they normally preform just as well, and they are far more rugged and well built. Plus, they cost much less. If you really want to be blown away; Upgrade it to 3gb RAM (the MAX of this model) and throw in a cheap SSD, and it will run Windows 7 quite well. (they will even run Windows 10 fine, but I can't stand Windows 10 myself)
For whatever reason, I love projects like that. I used a C2D T5470 (so, even less powerful 1,6GHz CPU from that era) laptop with 2GB of RAM for more than a year during our human malware crisis. With Lubuntu (couldn't find any better distro for 32bit CPU), I had no issues browsing the web, 720p youtube was okayish, there was no issues with connecting 1080p monitor, and PSX and SNES emulators ran flawlessly. Honestly, the experience was comparable or better than e.g. with a Raspberry Pi 4. And I had no SSD in it, but it pretty much only affected startup times. And, sure, it was noisy under load, but not annoying. My current, modern laptop is buzzing all the time, and it kills me XD Honestly, if I wouldn't need plenty of computing power for work (thats why I now own 5800H/RTX3060 model), I'd be perfectly happy with something like i5-2520M or 1st gen i7 in a laptop, just pair it with more than 4GB of RAM.
Still have some (with the IPS high-res screens) still use them, Great keyboard, very affordable and no one's going to steal them ;) Got a couple of Frankenpads :)
for me I would replace the hdd with an ssd for photo editing and go for at least 512GB of storage but all the rest is okay tbh, I still own my old computer from 2008 and with an ssd its extremely fast in web browsing and in editing documents (its an acer aspire 8930g) screen is awesome too and it has some discrete graphics (9700m gt) the core 2 duo also p8400 also handles some retro gaming just fine so yes you CAN survive with older hardware and maybe linux
I have the same model Thinkpad T60. I just installed yesterday a new install of Windows 10 Pro 64bit in WD HDD with 5400 rpm. Speed is normal. I know I can get faster speed with SSD but it's the only harddrive i have on hand. I never had problem with audio and video drivers. These 2 drivers just installed by the OS automatically. I can watch 720p TH-cam video smoothly. The only problem is 1080p video not playing well. Last year I tried SSD with Windows 10 with this machine, very fast speed.
I have Win10 Pro running on the R60 (128GB SSD+4gb Ram+T7400 CPU). I installed the ATI legacy drivers for the Radeon X1400 GPU and I can use an external monitor at full 1920x1080 resolution.
+OS2 Kouhai In all seriousness, try Pop-OS 22.04 on your core-2 era machines [or newer!]... So much new software now, and Lutris / Wine will run heck of a lot of windows-stuff too [though that in itself seems rather not-needed too]. Impressed with pop-os-22.04 on a thinkpad here running much new-windows-gaming. Mint 21 will be out next month or so, another contender. Seriously, give a go, thinkpads especially seem very well supported.
i mean, this is kinda right when your job isnt anything related to do something with your computer, not even doing documents. i agree about getting old hardware and make it worth it to the last inch of capability but this is far away of being an usuable tool, just go for a thinkpad workstation, something like a p50 or smt, that shit will last atleast some years and will be that cheap that will be fully paid in your first paycheck lmao
The T60/T61 nowadays cannot handle Windows 10 as it is bloated as ever with all of it's updates and crapware. but for Windows 7/8 both of my Dell/Thinkpad (Latitude E4310/T61) works fine and i daily use them, mostly the thinkpad at work as i leave it there for writing documents and processing papers, then when i go home i use my Latitude to do internet stuff. The Thinkpad can still play 720p/1080p natively using a plugin in chrome or firefox called Potplayer, you'll just need to install the video player app and the plugin together then restart the laptop to get those synced up. I love the build quality of Thinkpads as these which are just like my Dell's are the best workhouse machines for office and home use writing novels or just watching and consuming media (mostly for watching anime rofl. ~Katsumi
Perfectly OK for everyday use. I'm running a Dell Inspiron 1545 every day, although with Linux rather than Windows. Windows 10 does run fine on a Core 2 Duo as long as you have enough RAM, though. I don't run higher than 900p on any 15.4" display. Anything above that is pointless unless you have a larger screen.
i love the t60, and yeah, you can dialy drive a 10 year old laptop..... mines is 26 years old, it has a 400mhz intel celeron, and my desktop is newer, is a dual xeon e7 v4 whiz dual 2080ti
Nice video! I'm upgrading a T60 and changing the old Intel core 2 duo T2400 for a T7400 64bit processor. Also I was deciding which OS install, I already have a Linux mint wich works great but I need to install a Windows system and I would really like to install a Windows 8 or 10 but there was the problem of the drivers.... Where did you find the drivers for those Windows OS? Can you give me an advice on wich system runs better? Thanks and greetings from Argentina!
Most of the drivers I downloaded were from thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad-Drivers/download.lenovo.com/lenovo/content/ddfm/T60.html But i had a difficult time finding the middle click button driver. I wish I could give you the link but I don't remember it. Maybe use snappydriver installer th-cam.com/video/uJqcCtbAFZw/w-d-xo.html it will find all the drivers for your computer but I'm not sure how well it would work with windows 10. You're probably going to have to use Vista drivers for most things
@@os2kouhai331 thank you very much! My biggest concern was the video driver, I've got the I945 chipset and it doesn't has many support for Windows 8 or 10. But I will try as you said. I'm still waiting for the shipment of my T7400 processor so I've got time to search... Again thanks and greetings!
Hmmm I've heard this many times. Personally, I'm not a big fan of Win11 but it gets the job done for now. Behind the scenes I am pretty experienced with Linux but it's not a daily driver for me
Well, from around 2007 - 2014 ThinkPads exclusively used TNs. Your only options really are the T60 and T43 unless you want to frankenpad a T61. T43 is definitely struggle with today's software and internet. My T60 is still going strong
i have a dell inspiron 7559 given to me by one of my dads work mates it has a Intel Core i7 6700hq and a GTX 960m Its about 6 year old and after upgrading it to an msata ssd and 16gb of ddr3 ram (also applying some new thermal paste) its actually amazing for what i use it for (Older style games/ less intensive, video editing and streaming (without a capture card and with one) and people scoff at me telling it its dreadful and it needs destroyed haha ill never ever listen to people. i use hardware until its fully dead.
You can undervolt that procy and can get more battery life out of that tankpad. Btw why the girl looks a little bit creepy with that wide eyes like momo
A few tips:
- The T60 is a great candidate for Librebooting, and one of the last thinkpads you can do this with
- Use a lightweight Linux distro for these old machines, it'll perform way better and most drivers for older hardware is already built into the kernel
T500 is the fastest librebootable t series laptop I believe.
@@debuggedacc989 but it's a pain to do so, there are much easier librebootable thinkpads I believe
Those T60s have beautiful IPS screens, which Lenovo swapped for inferior screens in subsequent models until popular demand forced Lenovo to bring the IPS screens back to Thinkpads about a decade later. The main problem with the T60 is the 3-gigabyte memory limit, which isn't a problem when using most applications, with web browsers being an exception. The T61 can use more than 3 gigabytes of memory, so many people took the motherboards out of their T61s and stuck them in their T60s, creating what is known as "a Frankenpad." The problem with Frankenpads is many T61s came with a defective Nvidia graphics card that would go dead after a while, making the purchase of any old T61 a gamble. Damn, it was so close. If the T60 hadn't had that 3-gigabyte memory limit, it would have been the perfect old computer. Even 4 gigabytes would be enough. If the T61 had had a reliable GPU (as more than 99% of computers and laptops do), it could have been used to make gamble-free Frankenpads. What a bummer. IBM made a handful of extremely-rare T60 motherboards which can use up to 8 gigabytes of memory (I have one of those, but I haven't put it in a laptop; I keep it as a collector's piece). An old T60 is also cheaper than a Raspberry Pi (a barebones unit can be bought as cheaply as £5, without memory, battery, or SSD), more powerful, and it comes with an integrated keyboard and a large, good-quality screen. Beats the Pi hands down. It can be used as a server for home automation or to host your own website, for example, or as a disposable travel laptop that you wouldn't lose sleep over having it pinched. I love the T60.
"We're left with two choices."
Was expecting you to say Windows 10 and Linux lmao. Still interesting to see how it performs with windows 10 though. I really wanted to get one of these old beasts. What stopped me personally was the battery life. That's one thing that these new age laptops really have over the old ones. And by a huge margin too.
That's definitely true. Only a couple of my old laptops have batteries that last more than an hour. My T450 has the longest lasting battery by far then followed by my T410. Battery swapping used to be a lot more common
what of chrome os flex
That computer has EVEN MORE to offer!
Windows has a lot of background processes that slowly but surly drain performance and ram, if one takes the time it's possible to disable them and make a very light Windows.
A good thing is that Linux users are practically obsessed with Thinkpads, so support is specially well documented, so running Linux on it will make it even faster (and don't get me started on finding and tuning a linux for that machine, oh god!)
I have one of these and Windows 10 is torture on it, any linux distribution is by far a superior experience on it
Honestly this is very accurate. I do think you do need at least a Core 2 duo (which is basically anything newer than 2007). I have couple old core 2 machines running around and while they don't run windows anymore I do appreciate the fact they can handle basic tasks when I am out and around.
Why not use Linux? It seems perfect for such a machine. It is better supported in terms of old hardware and would run better than windows. For basically anything you use (web browsing, writing) it would be just like windows if not better. Great videos BTW!
I want to ask you that same question.
Why use Linux?
@@incumbentvinyl9291 Cause it simply runs much better and faster on older hardware cause of less bloat. Obviously.
@@PsycosisIncarnated *much
Then use an era appropriate Windows, or quadruple the memory of your machine for peanuts and you're good to go.
@@incumbentvinyl9291 Typo lmao. I got an m1 air and windows gaming rig bruh, i aint geyh. :p
@@PsycosisIncarnated That's not a typographical error, that's a grammatical error.
You're embarrassing yourself, child.
''lmao''
Just bought a W520 with a 2960xm and 32gb of ram, man, its such a BEAST, and got it at only $299. It even outperforms my t490 that I paid $800 for back in 2020. I'd say its probably one of the best modern thinkpads to date, and you can even find slice batteries for them on ebay to give it more juice.
the last W series using classic ThinkPad Keyboard..really love it
I have restored my R61 ThinkPad and installed Linux Mint on it. Runs like a charm. 17 years old. Upgraded 2 GB Ram to 4 GB. Changed the crashed HDD. But haven't installed SSD. Still runs fast for coding, music and browsing.
Yep, I'm still rocking a T 61 running windows 7. And everything you said about the T 60 applies with mine. One sad thing though, is my fan seems to have a bearing going and I'm terrified at the prospect of getting it repaired at a shop as I'm not tech savvy enough to do it myself...the cost, and finding an OEM fan or some questionable replacement. Anyway, plan on running mine far into the future. 👍
still cant belive this guy made a video about a 16+ yo thinkpad and did not install linux, lol
watching on my thinkpad t60 (15.4 inch) w/ 3GB RAM and 240 GB SSD running on LUBUNTU 20.04 it runs very very smoothly. Thank you for this Bro. keep it up.
I gave this a like mainly because you said you love windows 8 and I'm always happy to see another fan of it
the 2000s anima aesthetics. makes me feel really nostalgic since it was the time I got my first computer with an internet connection. subscrizzled.
my work tried throwing away a few of these, along with a few t61's t420's and t430s and i saved like 20 of them :3
Very nice video man! I enjoyed watching the whole thing till the very end! You've earned a new sub, more videos to come!!!
I always love seeing old stuff that people throw out turn into something useful as I always hate seeing computers that are still useful go to junk, either the components get saved or it just stays in that junk filling waste and polluting the world.
Lol, I'm watching this on my daily driver T60. I have no idea how long I've had it, but I use it more than 8 hours a day, every day, and it has never let me down once. Like 5 years ago I did change the harddrive for a SSD, and switched to Zorin 15.3 for the operating system. Not even kidding, I think it will outlive me. But my grand kids will love it, so no problem.
I use my computers for years. As long as it runs well and does what you need.
To be honest, I have pretty good experience with replacement batteries. Sure, they only have like 70-80% of the capacity compared to a factory original, since they don't have the same type of battery cells. However for the price (usually 1/3 of the OEM) you get a decent battery which will serve you for years. It might die sooner so in 5-6 years not in 10+ but for an old laptop I think it's quite good.
In my region (EU) there is a quite good brand called GreenCell. I already bought replacement batteries for a T400 and T420 Thinkpads. Their capacity and price/performance are good. I can have a new well performing battery for my 13 year old laptop (T400) for a decent price. I think there is no point to by a 10+ year old original battery in bad condition which can hardly run the laptop for less than an hour, when for around the same price you can get a replacement, which run it for ~3 hours.
Sure it's not 5 hours as it would be with a new OEM, but also did not cost a fortune.
I still use a T60 as my main computer, when home docked with an external Nvidia 1030 gpu, and when on the go I have an ultrabay battery and two 9 cell main batteries still in great shape. But as far as I know you can't find batteries in good shape any more, I bought mine about 5 years ago, and take really good care of them (when not in use I keep them at 40% charge in the fridge).
I also have Windows 8.1, best Windows version ever, I have no idea what people keep crying about it (usually most of them are not even aware that win 8 and 8.1 are two different versions).
Also I am certain you have a T60 with either 1400 x 1050 or 1600 x 1200 IPS screen. Those panels are amazing, but if you come across one with the standard TN panel, your eyes will bleed out looking at that piece of garbage. Thinkpads that had the standard TN panels installed were notorious for having pretty much the worst quality screens available on the market.
Any 64bit computer with an ssd is good enough for browsing
2 options for operating system? what about linux tho
Aftermarket batteries are sometimes good, they're definitely not all bad!
But really good video more people need to see this!
Windows 11 is better than Windoes 10 for Core 2 Duos. I can watch 720P60 videos since I updated on my Core 2 Duo T9300! Noticeable improvement! In your case with a T7400 720P should play fine... except for videos filmed in 50 or 60 FPS!
Use Chrome and h264ify extension for best performance!
I will say that having vp9 dedicated decoding hardware has been a godsend on my wyse 5470. Little to no cpu usage at 1440p or 4K TH-cam on a n1400. Truly remarkable. Upgraded from a t430. As I wanted better battery life. Used to get 3 hours on the t430. And over 9 on the wyse 5470. It’s not for everyone. But they were a steal on eBay a while back
That machine is way better than many today modernized celeron or AMD E1 1200 machines used to fool the new users by adding shiny screens.
I still use my MacBook Pro 2008 early one at that 2.4 core 2.4 duo 4gigs of ram 256 vram and it’s running Catalina
Damn dude!!! You are the man!!! I love your video BRO!
I have this same machine but with Celeron chip, 3Gigs of ram and 120G SSD. I use it as a time machine, I installed Win XP with no internet connection, and filled it with old shows like Cowboy Bebop and Serial Experiments lain
Why not Linux?
I still use an X230, great machine with a lot of mods and upgrades.
I recently finished my T60 upgrades by replacing the original Core Duo processor (T2500 @ 2GHz, 32-bit, 2MB of L2) with a Core 2 Duo (T7600 @ 2.33MHz, 64-bit, 4MB of L2). Although I still haven't changed the operating system to 64-bit version, the most visible gain is in the videos on yt, which were limited to 360p and now run at 720p30 (don't even think about 50 or 60 fps). The main difference in my experience is that I use Linux (Mint XFCE) instead of Windows on my machines.
The main limitation is the low memory limit (only 3GB), which is more evident with the use of the 64-bit system (everything consumes more memory), which can bothers a little with my main use, which is the development of embedded systems with IDEs based on Eclipse, Netbeans and Electron.
My other machines are a 13 year old Core 2 Duo (T9500 @ 2.6GHz, 6MB L2, 8GB RAM) and a 11 years old i7 2nd generation (2860QM @ 2.5GHz, 8MB L2, 16GB RAM).
Mine can play some TH-cam videos in browser in full screen at 720p60 or 1080p30 but that depends on how much there is movement in the video. When playing 720p30 CPU usage is mostly below 50% but sometimes there's some peaks to 80%.
Locally it can play up to 1080p60 on VLC if the bitrate is low enough (around 20Mb/s max).
Mine has a T7200 @ 2.0GHz, 4GB RAM (3GB usable), Radeon X1400 128MB, Win7 Pro x64. Sadly the Radeon doesn't work well on Linux so the performance is much, much worse than on Windows
Windows 8?
Are you insane?
Just a little bit
Did you know there's a crowd funded project that consists of a custom motherboard equipped with a 10th (or 11th?) Gen Intel i7?
I'm so tempted to get one but it's expensive! In the meantime, I'm just gonna build a frankenpad and attempt to use it as a daily. It'll probably be a similar experience to yours though. Good video!
Where can I get one? Do you know if it’s compatible with the x60s?
Or, just go with Linux, BSD, Haiku, MorphOS, really theres hundreds of options. I have Lubuntu 16.04 running just fine on an old IBM Thinkpad x41
Dude your impression's of hater's are funny af. You're hilarious bro lol
I loved my x60 and my t6o and i have z61t I love that machine
My 12 years old Thinkpad W520 with Windows 7 works just fine, for Solidworks, AutoCAD, etc. Even though I am using a Dell Precision 5770, the keyboard is not at the same level.
Perfect linux based retrro gaming station hooked up to external crt
Gotta love the dedicated waifu screen
I think if you add an extra gig of ram, it would be a lot more smoother. Love the video!
I would love to but unfortunately it has a hardware limitation of only 3GB of RAM.
I find it interesting you are an 8 connoisseur. I had 10 running on a single core pentium a couple years ago but it was a light weight variant you have to google to find. I have a t420 and a t43 planning on getting one of these to do the linux setup on.
Watching this right now on a T60 with a 256G SSD, running latest Debian with CDE and an XP dual boot. Still a great machine for many things, and a fantastic bridge machine with it's ability to run pretty much any 32 bit OS.
As you seem to have a healthy skepticism when it comes to so-called "computer advances," I thought that you might be a good person to ask about this. We presently have a need to run two separate 32-bit utilities, one was written for Win XP and the other for Win 7. Due to space limitations, we will also have a need for a laptop to run said utilities. Do you happen to have any thoughts about a good ThinkPad that might be able to handle this situation? By the way, I commend you on replacing your spinner with an SSD. That truly was a "advancement" in computer hardware. In fact, I really don't ever want to go back to HDDs (except for external archive storage), so that would also be a nice "want" in the ThinkPad I asked you about. I've both liked and subscribed now, so please keep up the informative video work!
Hmmm... if 32bit is what you really need, to my knowledge the majority of 32bit utilities will work on 64bit Windows so any ThinkPad should be good. However, if there is a incompatibility then I'd recommend either an R60 or T60 with a Core Duo(not Core 2 Duo) for you
what is the soundtrack one at 1:40 ?
It's the intro song. Sakura Taisen Miyaka No Hana Zo
@@os2kouhai331 great soundtrack choices, man
The T60 is great don't get me wrong but I think for serious work it does fall short with low ram and slower drives.
For me the bare minimum for modern use is a fully decced out T61. With middletons bios mod. Truth of the matter is while these laptops are great some hardware is getting a bit too old to comfortably use and unfortunately I would consider the T60 outdated.
The best classic thinkpad to me is a t420 or a t430. Absolute peak of these machines along with the X and W series counterparts. Perfect mix of classic design and features and modern connectivity and perks. Plus these processors get much cooler with the ivy bridge models.
Yep, I'm still rocking a T 61 running windows 7. And everything you said about the T 60 applies with mine. One sad thing though, is my fan seems to have a bearing going and I'm terrified at the prospect of getting it repaired at a shop as I'm not tech savvy enough to do it myself...the cost, and finding an OEM fan or some questionable replacement. Anyway, plan on running mine far into the future.
Not gonna talk about ThinkPad laptops but about old hardware serving its purpose in modern times: two years ago I donated one of my nephews my old 14in Asus x45u so he could get something to mildly multy task during his online middle school classes.
Such machine has an AMD vision E2-1800 cpu, with an upgraded crucial mx ssd, topped out 8gb of ram and windows 10. It is not a powerhouse by any means - and it wasn't when new back in 2013-, but definitely serves him better than the 9in tablet the government gave him.
Windows 10 and chrome work fine even with such an old an slow processor. Going ssd really infused new life on that trusty machine and will likely last him until 12th grade for sure.
that slide out screen is pretty dope
one thing that could be improved is the HDD for sure, that makes it slow as hell on boot particularly
T60p and W500. Still great.
my main laptop is a dell latitude E6510 i7 820QM 1st gen and 16gb ram and 512gb ssd and 2tb hdd from 2009-2010 :)
The latitudes from that time are still great. Honestly, they could be the best budget laptops. I have a Latitude E5430 and it's still a great laptop
@@os2kouhai331 hell yes I still have my first laptop I got from 2008
Dell latitude E6400
Core2duo P8400
4gb ram
512gb SSD
2tb hdd 😁
I do everything on my gaming rig, but for my mobile needs, like typing a text document, looking and reading stuff online, i still have my thinkpad x31, it's a pentium m machine running windows 7 ultimate! "But windows 7 is out of date man you are going to get virusses and sh1t" . . . I know that windows 7 is out of date, but with a lightweight antivirus, you should be ok, and no, i don't go on dodgy websites like "click here to download this program for free!!", i have all the software i need, my thinkpad suits my needs well and why should i upgrade? Because microsoft wants me to? I am looking for a lightweight linux distro, but i didn't find any yet that made me go WOW, i need that! I will keep my thinkpad x31, i don't need anything newer, i have a lenovo g580, but this thing is SO bulky, my x31 only weighs 1.6 kilo, which is very light! My X31 will continue to serve me well! I revived a not working battery with new cells and the battery works fine now! If it works for you, you don't need to upgrade, no mather what people say!
the weeb scale needs to be reworked to accommodate your sheer greatness ,ma dude
Commenting this at the beginning of the video - I've had a T60 for a little while now, the model with the 1400x1050 IPS and the X1400 GPU, fantastic little machine, I use XP on it.
Give Linux Mint (or other light weight distros) a Try!!!!
Bro I feel your point. I used a t42 as main laptop from 2014 to 2016 and it served me well. Then it became a secondary machine to run additional stuff while on the go I had an x301 (amazing machine but the keyboard was worse than a normal thinkpad). In 2018 I upgraded to a t410s and to this day is my personal laptop. The way I use it makes it faster tha I way newer machines that run bloated software.
I need to do something with my T60. I have a T61 which I use alot, but it is a 16:9 display, which I don't like much for general use of what I use laptops for. I am still using an old Dell Latitude D610 as my daily carry laptop, which runs XP. I have a T60, which is in great condition, and even the battery works well. I have Windows 7 installed and it works just fine, but I would really like to upgrade the CPU. It currently has a core duo T2400, which sort of sucks.
I still have a T60 4:3 with a T2500 , a 7200rpm 100gb drive, only 2gb ram running Win Vista. It runs surprising quick, opens explorer and apps like a new modern machine. I don't understand why it's so quick, I am very surprised.
@@swagedelic You would be surprised how many older systems are actually pretty fast. Some better core 2 duos actually preform just as well as the modern CPUs that come in cheap laptops such as Chromebooks and even some low end Windows machines. Pair that with an older operating system that isn't bloated and doesn't plug itself up, and you have a smooth experience. Most standard PC users would get by perfectly fine with a core 2 duo and 2-4gb RAM. I would recommend something like an old thinkpad like this over a new cheap laptop, because they normally preform just as well, and they are far more rugged and well built. Plus, they cost much less.
If you really want to be blown away; Upgrade it to 3gb RAM (the MAX of this model) and throw in a cheap SSD, and it will run Windows 7 quite well. (they will even run Windows 10 fine, but I can't stand Windows 10 myself)
@@WalterKnox Sounds great. May do just that, just to investigate how to keep Win 7 secure.
Wow what a great video, you just got a subscriber!
For whatever reason, I love projects like that. I used a C2D T5470 (so, even less powerful 1,6GHz CPU from that era) laptop with 2GB of RAM for more than a year during our human malware crisis. With Lubuntu (couldn't find any better distro for 32bit CPU), I had no issues browsing the web, 720p youtube was okayish, there was no issues with connecting 1080p monitor, and PSX and SNES emulators ran flawlessly. Honestly, the experience was comparable or better than e.g. with a Raspberry Pi 4. And I had no SSD in it, but it pretty much only affected startup times.
And, sure, it was noisy under load, but not annoying. My current, modern laptop is buzzing all the time, and it kills me XD
Honestly, if I wouldn't need plenty of computing power for work (thats why I now own 5800H/RTX3060 model), I'd be perfectly happy with something like i5-2520M or 1st gen i7 in a laptop, just pair it with more than 4GB of RAM.
Still have some (with the IPS high-res screens) still use them, Great keyboard, very affordable and no one's going to steal them ;)
Got a couple of Frankenpads :)
for me I would replace the hdd with an ssd for photo editing and go for at least 512GB of storage but all the rest is okay tbh, I still own my old computer from 2008 and with an ssd its extremely fast in web browsing and in editing documents (its an acer aspire 8930g) screen is awesome too and it has some discrete graphics (9700m gt) the core 2 duo also p8400 also handles some retro gaming just fine so yes you CAN survive with older hardware and maybe linux
I was surprised how good is windows 10 on this old geezer.The laptop is good enough.I highly recommend this over an athlon or celeron.
I use a machine running i7-2600k, 8GB RAM and GTX 660 Ti as my daily driver, it can game even!
I have the same model Thinkpad T60. I just installed yesterday a new install of Windows 10 Pro 64bit in WD HDD with 5400 rpm. Speed is normal. I know I can get faster speed with SSD but it's the only harddrive i have on hand.
I never had problem with audio and video drivers. These 2 drivers just installed by the OS automatically. I can watch 720p TH-cam video smoothly. The only problem is 1080p video not playing well.
Last year I tried SSD with Windows 10 with this machine, very fast speed.
Please do a video with different Linux
great Shin Sakura Wars wallpaper, my dude
W700ds!!!!!😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱 I am f***ing jelly right now. Great vid btw!
I gonna install windows 10 on a 1990 PC coming up in 2027
I have Win10 Pro running on the R60 (128GB SSD+4gb Ram+T7400 CPU). I installed the ATI legacy drivers for the Radeon X1400 GPU and I can use an external monitor at full 1920x1080 resolution.
Why not Linux???
+OS2 Kouhai
In all seriousness, try Pop-OS 22.04 on your core-2 era machines [or newer!]... So much new software now, and Lutris / Wine will run heck of a lot of windows-stuff too [though that in itself seems rather not-needed too]. Impressed with pop-os-22.04 on a thinkpad here running much new-windows-gaming. Mint 21 will be out next month or so, another contender. Seriously, give a go, thinkpads especially seem very well supported.
would love to see a mainboard upgrade to xy tech t700
A+ for being a man of culture alone, take my saki and rice 🍚 mate 😂
Sadly as I seen you can't upgrade to Windows 11(24H2+) because it won't start because Windows 11 now supports only SSE4.2+:(
Oh my... I'm not with the times. Microsoft is really doubling down on trying to get everyone to buy new PCs not cool
i mean, this is kinda right when your job isnt anything related to do something with your computer, not even doing documents.
i agree about getting old hardware and make it worth it to the last inch of capability but this is far away of being an usuable tool, just go for a thinkpad workstation, something like a p50 or smt, that shit will last atleast some years and will be that cheap that will be fully paid in your first paycheck lmao
Only 1 hour of charge, damn, I have a good handful of t61 type batteries with like 6 hours of battery life
I have an X201 as my main laptop, I love it.
does it work obs? I want to use it as a second pc for streaming
I run windows 10 on 2 laptops with core2duos. They run great.
I used an R61i for the better part of a year, it would run windows 10 fine but I have been running ubuntu on it for the better part of a few years
Bro help i have same laptop but no one is ready to repair my laptop it's showing only z icon help
The T60/T61 nowadays cannot handle Windows 10 as it is bloated as ever with all of it's updates and crapware. but for Windows 7/8 both of my Dell/Thinkpad (Latitude E4310/T61) works fine and i daily use them, mostly the thinkpad at work as i leave it there for writing documents and processing papers, then when i go home i use my Latitude to do internet stuff. The Thinkpad can still play 720p/1080p natively using a plugin in chrome or firefox called Potplayer, you'll just need to install the video player app and the plugin together then restart the laptop to get those synced up. I love the build quality of Thinkpads as these which are just like my Dell's are the best workhouse machines for office and home use writing novels or just watching and consuming media (mostly for watching anime rofl.
~Katsumi
Perfectly OK for everyday use. I'm running a Dell Inspiron 1545 every day, although with Linux rather than Windows. Windows 10 does run fine on a Core 2 Duo as long as you have enough RAM, though.
I don't run higher than 900p on any 15.4" display. Anything above that is pointless unless you have a larger screen.
I have an original t60 and it does not have an i7 processor. It has an Intel Centrino
Great video. Posting from my main laptop, a ThinkPad X200 :)
You can probably transplant to the latest internals and it can run Windows 11 right?
Possibly, but it would require a lot of modding, like an extreme amount.
i love the t60, and yeah, you can dialy drive a 10 year old laptop..... mines is 26 years old, it has a 400mhz intel celeron, and my desktop is newer, is a dual xeon e7 v4 whiz dual 2080ti
Nice video! I'm upgrading a T60 and changing the old Intel core 2 duo T2400 for a T7400 64bit processor. Also I was deciding which OS install, I already have a Linux mint wich works great but I need to install a Windows system and I would really like to install a Windows 8 or 10 but there was the problem of the drivers.... Where did you find the drivers for those Windows OS? Can you give me an advice on wich system runs better? Thanks and greetings from Argentina!
Most of the drivers I downloaded were from thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad-Drivers/download.lenovo.com/lenovo/content/ddfm/T60.html
But i had a difficult time finding the middle click button driver. I wish I could give you the link but I don't remember it.
Maybe use snappydriver installer
th-cam.com/video/uJqcCtbAFZw/w-d-xo.html
it will find all the drivers for your computer but I'm not sure how well it would work with windows 10. You're probably going to have to use Vista drivers for most things
@@os2kouhai331 thank you very much! My biggest concern was the video driver, I've got the I945 chipset and it doesn't has many support for Windows 8 or 10. But I will try as you said. I'm still waiting for the shipment of my T7400 processor so I've got time to search... Again thanks and greetings!
Linux is so much better. That'll also open up way more options than just two modern operating systems.
Hmmm I've heard this many times. Personally, I'm not a big fan of Win11 but it gets the job done for now. Behind the scenes I am pretty experienced with Linux but it's not a daily driver for me
nice channel broski subbed
Impressive jump in quality man
how did you get the windows taskbar to only show the time?
Bro has programming socks guaranteed.
Achievement Unlocked
20G - Angry Penguin
Successfully trigger all Linux users
Cry
what are the best old ThinkPads with ips displays or something better than those TNs
Well, from around 2007 - 2014 ThinkPads exclusively used TNs. Your only options really are the T60 and T43 unless you want to frankenpad a T61. T43 is definitely struggle with today's software and internet. My T60 is still going strong
@@os2kouhai331 thanks
I have one of these somewhere, maybe I should try to revive it 🤔
Found it! But it’s actually an R60, so Centrino and no Core2Duo, sadly 😅
Yeah linux would of been the way to go.
The whiny nerd persona and the reaction to the whiny nerd persona are hilarious. They really should stop being whiny.
i have a dell inspiron 7559 given to me by one of my dads work mates
it has a Intel Core i7 6700hq and a GTX 960m
Its about 6 year old and after upgrading it to an msata ssd and 16gb of ddr3 ram (also applying some new thermal paste) its actually amazing for what i use it for (Older style games/ less intensive, video editing and streaming (without a capture card and with one)
and people scoff at me telling it its dreadful and it needs destroyed haha
ill never ever listen to people. i use hardware until its fully dead.
You can undervolt that procy and can get more battery life out of that tankpad. Btw why the girl looks a little bit creepy with that wide eyes like momo