Something Random

sedrosken

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Anyone know Sed's surname and care to PM it to me so Ican get this this thing shipped out today?

And while I'm thinking of it: The T450 has two DDR3L slots but only a 42mm M.2 slot, so none of my existing M.2 SSDs will fit in it. I also noticed that there are three different screw sizes on the bottom plate, something that annoys me to no end since most previous Thinkpads use only one.

Sorry about the slow response time. My school blocks SF as part of their "forums" rules and I don't get home until 4:30 - 5:00 PM, and my phone gets crap reception in there due to it being an almost entirely cinderblock and brick building. Usually I can get around it by remoting into my desktop but I shut it off last night and didn't turn it back on this morning.
 

sedrosken

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Just got the ThinkPad today. I think it's actually last generation's model -- it's got an i5 4300U! Still about twice as fast as anything else I have. Thank you so much, everyone!
 

sedrosken

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A lot of the reviews I looked at for this cite the screen and sound quality as cons. As a first impression, coming off of my nc6400, the screen is nice, bright and colorful. The res is no better but no worse than the nc6400, and the sound actually has depth, stereo separation and some bass response to it. I will admit that I am not an afficionado of either category but it suits my needs perfectly.
 

Mercutio

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The T460 actually had a bit of a pricing premium that would've pushed it out of budget and I didn't just have RAM sitting around for it so you got a T450. Another mild disappointment: upon research, while the T450 has a 42mm M.2 slot, it can't be used as a boot drive. Firmware doesn't support it. You have to step up to the T450p for that. Which is some bullshit.

There was also a card in the box. I took pictures of it if anyone wants to see.
 

sedrosken

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I also appreciated the card. The 42mm M.2 slot is kinda crappy I guess but if I play my cards right I won't need to upgrade the storage at all, the 840 Evo blows my old Kingston drive out of the water... and I thought that thing was fast! Yeah, the T460 is pretty pricey at this point, I understand why you did it. I just wish Lenovo had a little more foresight with this design. Not that I don't like the laptop or anything -- the thing is a speed demon compared to what I'm used to, and is very comfortable to use in comparison as well.

You can always run whatever in a VM. Your Centos/Debian/Yggsdrasil install will probably fit nicely in 20GB with plenty of room to spare for all your projects.

Absolutely, that's what I was thinking as well. As an aside, how is Virtualbox's 3D acceleration support these days? There's a game that I've had a recent urge to play that refuses to run on 7+ that works fine in 98SE or XP, but won't run in software rendering so I need Direct3D for it. (Moved this little discussion over here as it was getting way off topic)
 

ddrueding

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Some local EV Shenanigans.

[video=youtube_share;j433Y83ta0o]https://youtu.be/j433Y83ta0o[/video]

I didn't get to hang out long, I had the opportunity to do some fun field work; pioneering a road in a Cat D5 dozer (first time!). 650ft of elevation gain, about 1500ft of road total, in 6 hours of work. Amazing what a mid-sized dozer and a chainsaw can accomplish.

DJI_0052_small.jpg
 

Handruin

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Enjoy your ThinkPad. Hopefully it helps you out in school and in the field of computers/IT.
 

Mercutio

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Here's sed's card. I usually have several greeting cards in my car and/or desk at work. I just used one of the ones I had handy.

20160523_135657_HDR (Medium).jpg20160523_135715_HDR (Medium).jpg
 

LunarMist

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Maybe the Androids are causing problems, but it is Merc's greeting card.
 

sedrosken

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I have an awful, terrible idea about the T450.

This is purely hypothetical, in the event that I do ever get the drives needed, but I wonder if this will work.

If I were to clone a Windows install to the M.2 SSD and then install GRUB to an HDD (that I would have upgraded to either 1 or 2 TB to increase the storage capacity) to make it boot the M.2 SSD, do you think that would work alright, Merc? It would be a 120GB M.2 drive, and I would move all my user folders to the hard drive as well as my steam library. As much as I would like more storage I'd still like to have Windows on the SSD so I don't have to wait forever and a day for it to boot and for programs to load. I did the math and 120GB for just the OS and some core programs is plenty for me, leaves almost half of it free to be honest.
 

sedrosken

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On second thought it would probably be easier to install to the hard drive and then use the M.2 SSD for caching purposes. I heard of a piece of software that does that -- Fnet Hybridisk? Has anyone used that here?
 

Mercutio

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I believe the caching function is something that is handled automagically by the OS. I don't really know how it works in that case because I've not actually tried that sort of configuration. I do think it's sort of lame that they'd give you the slot and not let you use it. Wait a year or so and stick a $150 1TB SSD in it. You'll probably be good for years at that point.
 

sedrosken

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I ordered the extended battery for the Thinkpad, should arrive sometime this month. I had a bit of sticker shock, though -- the thing cost almost $75! I guess it's worth it, coming directly from Lenovo...

I don't know why, but I've been collecting CPUs for a while. Right now I have:

an 80486DX2-66
Cyrix MII-366GP
Duron 1300
Pentium II 350
2 x Pentium III 667 (slot1)
Celeron 566 Coppermine-128
Celeron 1100 Coppermine-128
Pentium III 800EB
Athlon XP 1600+
Athlon XP 1700+
Pentium 4 1.6GHz
Pentium 4 2.8GHz Prescott S478
2 x Pentium 4 Northwood 3.0GHz
Pentium D 820
Pentium 4 520
Pentium Dual-Core E5500
Pentium Dual-Core T3100
Core i3 2330M
Turion 64 X2 1.6GHz
Athlon 64 X2 4000+
Athlon II x4 630
Sempron of some description
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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$75 really isn't bad for an OEM battery. The T450 has a second, internal battery aside from the rear one. It's just to the right of the touchpad and under the palmrest. It is fairly trivial to replace once it dies.
I have several CPUs that I drilled through and use as key fobs, which seems as worthwhile as anything to do with old stuff. After a certain point, the old guys aren't worth much else.
 

sedrosken

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How exactly does that open anything?

How would a CPU with a drilled in hole open anything?

I figured by key fob he meant something to get a better grip on your keys with? A handle or something? Like a keychain, only with an actual use? Shaddap, I'm sleepy. :p

It didn't occur to me that he might have modified the junk CPUs beyond just drilling a hole in it.
 

ddrueding

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Swap one of the chips with one running some code, wire the chip to the contacts. Install memory modules at doors that can interrogate the chip for some kind of crazy authentication. Or just find a way to use some of the traces on the DIMM to act as the RFID antenna...
 

sedrosken

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Anyone know of a way to control SpeedStep? I want to stay in the lowest frequency possible while the CPU usage is from 0-20%, kick up to mid range from 20-50%, and go full throttle from 50-100%. This is more for temp reasons than power reasons, given the Thinkpad barely sips that as it is. But it decides to turbo boost all the time, even when it makes no sense (temps are already pretty high and the CPU usage figures are at rock bottom), and it keeps driving the temps up to uncomfortable levels. I don't want to just disable turbo boost because that actually comes in handy sometimes.
 

Stereodude

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Anyone know of a way to control SpeedStep? I want to stay in the lowest frequency possible while the CPU usage is from 0-20%, kick up to mid range from 20-50%, and go full throttle from 50-100%. This is more for temp reasons than power reasons, given the Thinkpad barely sips that as it is. But it decides to turbo boost all the time, even when it makes no sense (temps are already pretty high and the CPU usage figures are at rock bottom), and it keeps driving the temps up to uncomfortable levels. I don't want to just disable turbo boost because that actually comes in handy sometimes.
You can't leave well enough alone can you? Has it occurred to you that the processor's control of the clocks might be better than you can do?
 

Stereodude

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I should have mentioned that Windows can control it. Change the power profile from Max performance to balanced and then leave it alone.
 

Stereodude

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I had a meeting with come coworkers at a large corporation yesterday. On the customer side one of the people was from purchasing. He started out regaling us with his career prior to being a buyer at said large corporation. He finally proceeded to tell us that he got his current job in purchasing because he knows the CEO of the company. I can only guess he says that to strike fear into the hearts of salespeople calling on him. Any, maybe it even works. :skepo:

However, not being a salesperson, but an engineer, all I heard was, "I'm totally unqualified for my job and couldn't have gotten it had I not known the CEO." Not the way I would have tried to start a business relationship with a potential vendor. :rofl:
 
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