Reusing a Thinkpad T23 for low-end tasks
Last week, I got my hands on a free "broken" Thinkpad T23 that bluescreened right after booting up Windows XP. Turns out it is the harddrive that is on it's way to die. I'm thinking about replacing the disk and, if I can get my hands on some cheap RAM, upgrading that as well.
Could that setup be used as a usable "work laptop" for light internet use and word processing ?
Thanks in advance.
Posted Sep 20, 2011, 7:57 AM UTC
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I got rid of my old T23 a couple of years ago and only because the CCFL tube became so dim the screen was getting unusable. Other than that the laptop was working 100% for web/email.
I replaced XP with a lightweight linux distro to save on system resources and increase the otherwise paltry battery life but other than that made no hardware changes to RAM or anything.
It's a thinkpad, so chances are good that the chassis & keyboard are probably still like new, so I'd say that if the battery has a bit of life left in it and the screen is bright enough, go for it. A second hand old HDD and RAM upgrade will only cost a few quid so why not?
Also, I'm trying to get /r/thinkpad up and running (submitted an application to take over moderatoship as the current mod deleted their account), so feel free to drop by & subscribe.
Thanks for the reply, glad to see that the T23 can still be used for those tasks.
The one that I got is really in a good condition, the previous owner took good care of it, so I think it'll last some time.
What distro did you install?
I'm sure to subscribe to r/thinkpad as soon as I'll get it running, thanks for the heads-up!
Most old laptops can be used for web browsing/email/WP tasks, the only places they might fall down slightly are on modern flash & javascript heavy sites, although modern browsers do a far better job of running JS than the browsers of old.
The main thing stopping old laptops from being used indefinitely are broken hinges, cracked screens, and normally faulty keyboards. You won't get most of these problems with Thinkpads, as they're pretty much bulletproof and replacement parts tend to be dirt cheap anyway. As long as the battery holds a bit of charge and you're happy with the screen brightness then go for it.
It might be worth spending a few minutes dismantling it a bit and giving it a good dust out with some canned air if there are signs of dust build up around the heatsinks but that's pretty much the only maintenance really necessary.
As far as leightweight linux distros goes, I used SliTaz at the time, although nowadays I'd probably more tempted to go with lubuntu, simply for the massive choice and variety of software available via the ubuntu package manager repositories.