Impulse Purchases, someone needs to hide my money.

[Canyonero]

I sold my Isuzu Amigo and my Apple PowerBook. Have cash on hand and no debt, so now I'm pushing forward on my hybrid build for the Trooper v2.5. And it's been in the back of my mind to get a hardy PC laptop* for beating around with and someday tuning my ECU. Specifically looking at the IBM/Lenovo T-series. Aaaanyway, on my lunch break I bought a used IBM T42.

I should learn not to do stuff like that. I was on eBay with my phone's browser once and bought an F-Body engine. It turned out to be junk.

*No, I didn't switch from Mac to PC. The company bought a new MacBook Pro that I can use as my own, but I don't want to damage it (especially when using it at home). And I don't mind Windows, does the job just fine. But that's not saying the Mac isn't still better...

[SappySE107]

Thinkpads will take more abuse than most other laptops.

[Canyonero]

That's what I remember. We were selling the R40 and T40 when I was working at a university reseller. I remember the T-series being thin and light. I was looking at the T40, but there wasn't much of a price difference considering the 42 has more memory and a faster chip. This one supposedly even has a little factory warranty left.

I sold my PowerBook for $800 and picked this up for $350. The PowerBook was loaded and had a brand new battery though.

So, I'll need to learn how to tune my truck now.

[IsaacHayes]

My IBM I rebuilt from another one. It had been dropped and took out the HD, and PCMCIA slots (had a wifi card in it). I yanked parts from another one and it's been running great. Has a serial port so I could run my ALDL from it directly.

[Canyonero]

Got my T42 today, it's pretty nice. Installed a 160GB drive I had around and I'm mirroring the original system drive w/ restore partition over. I didn't even realize XP SP3 was out until I updated the IBM. Shows how up to date I am considering I sort of work in the computer industry (ISP/Communications/FiberOptics).

Doesn't have a serial port, but I already have a USB to Serial adapter that will work.

[pocket-rocket]

My friend got ahold of a copy of XP SP3 that was made to look and act like Vista, but the framework and code running it all was XP. I haven't tried it yet, and honestly, I'm not sure I want to because I really don't like Vista. I had never heard of XP SP3 being out either until he told me about it. BTW, send me your money, I'll hide it for you

[Canyonero]

I updated IBM (Pro) and my desktop (MCE) to SP3. Didn't notice any difference. Windows update loaded a bad wireless driver, so it was bluescreening when I tried to enable the wireless. Got that fixed.

160GB drive is up and running. Acronis MigrateEasy is a nice utility, I've used it a bunch of times. Wish I would have spent a few extra dollars and got their TrueImage utility instead though, still money well spent. I had done most of my setup and customizing on the 40GB it came with. MigrateEasy was able to mirror and resize the partition, including the recovery partition and MBR. Pretty darned slick. Of course the laptop didn't come with a recovery CD, so I wanted to keep the recovery partition intact.

[bszopi]

All of the SP3 releases I have seen are Beta releases, so I have not upgraded yet.

[Canyonero]

The final was released about three weeks ago. Comes through Windows Update. They're probably staggering the release, so auto-update might not inform you right away. If you run the update manually it will show up.

[bszopi]

I might have to try that tonight. Thanks.

[Canyonero]

Within an hour of receiving this laptop, I was using it in the rain. It better be tough.

[Canyonero]

It broke already. And not by being abused. I was just using it, and the screen went dark. Bastard won't turn back on (fan and lights come on, but no other signs of life, hd activity, etc).

But it's still under warranty. Sweet.