blog/bought-a-thinkpad/bought-a-thinkpad.md (8238B)
1 %% 2 title: "I Bought a ThinkPad X200 for $27" 3 date: "26-Oct-2022" 4 %% 5 6 # I Bought a ThinkPad X200 for $27 7 8 A few weeks ago I was scrolling through Facebook marketplace when I saw what It 9 looked like a ThinkPad published for exactly ARS$ 8000 (around USD $27). When I 10 enter the publication it was effectively a ThinkPad, precisely an x200, but it 11 was very dirty, this was the picture attached to the publication: [](owner-pic.png "Thinkpad picture of 13 the publication") The owner stated that the machine was working but it had no 14 charger, that was a little bit suspicious ngl but, for the price, I couldn't be 15 picky, I was looking for a cheap old ThinkPad like this for a while and this was 16 the perfect opportunity. 17 18 So I contacted the owner, and we agree to meet the next day so I could pick it 19 up. Fortunately the owner was about 30 minutes in public transport from my place. 20 21 When the owner give it to me obviously it was very dirty but also I felt like 22 something inside was a little bit loose; the transaction was very quick, in a 23 corner of a known intersection so, I didn't look at it very carefully. 24 25 When I arrived home and I started to look at it with more caution, the first 26 thing that I noticed was that the loose part was the battery, so I didn't care 27 much, but, before opening the lid I noticed that the lenovo branding was missing 28 on the left bottom of the lid, at that moment I panicked a little because the 29 day before going to pick up the x200 I saw a 30 [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/wmb4gl/wanna_know_something_cool_back_in_2008_a_chinese/) 31 which stated that cheap chinese clones of this machines where made, this cheap 32 clones cammed with an atom processor (trash compared to x200's processor) and 33 they where smaller in size, and since they were clones no lenovo brand were 34 present. 35 36 This a picture of the cheap clone, it looks identical but without the lenovo 37 brand anywhere. 38 39 [](x200_clone.png "x200 chinese clone") 40 41 I started to look carefully at the machine again, and noticed that there was a 42 "Lenovo enhanced experience" sticker on the bottom, so it couldn't be a copy, 43 after searching for Intel Centrino on internet I found that it wasn't a 44 processor but a network card, which the genuine x200 came with, so it actually 45 was a *genuine ThinkPad*, and in fact the cheap clones where rarer than the 46 genuine x200 itself. 47 48 Since I hadn't the charger, I couldn't test if it worked, so I started to deep 49 clean it, at least all the exterior dirt, and the keyboard, which was 50 disgusting. 51 52 [](cleaning-kb.png 53 "Cleaning thinkpad dirty keyboard") 54 55 A couple of days later I picked up a used charger from a T430 (90w), and the 56 TrackPoint cap which was also missing. When I connected the x200 to the grid the 57 outer lid leds lit up, meaning the ThinkPad was receiving power and the battery 58 was charging (or at least trying) so I tried to turn it on, and for my surprise 59 the computer booted to the BIOS *without a problem*. 60 61 ## Updating the BIOS 62 After I plugged the computer in and it booted into the bios, I checked for the 63 bios version and it was `3.11`. A quick check on lenovo's x200 webpage revealed 64 that there were BIOS updates up until version `3.16`. [](old-bios-version.png "Old bios version") I 66 searched on Google on how to update the bios but I couldn't find a way without 67 using Windows, there was [one way using 68 Linux](https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/BIOS_update_without_optical_disk) but 69 honestly in comparison with the Windows way was much more complicated. The most 70 simple way for me was installing Windows, since Lenovo provides a Windows only 71 BIOS updater tool. So I quickly installed Windows 7 on an 240GB Kingston SSD 72 which I had lying around and updated the BIOS, it was as simple as running the 73 BIOS updater tool, clicking update and done. 74 75 ## Installing an Operating System 76 After adding the SSD, installing Windows 7 and updating the BIOS, I was decided 77 to install Linux, I wanted to try Void or Artix (w/ Runit), I had a previous 78 machine with Artix ([yt video showing how fast it 79 booted](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBdNQdocrVc)) for almost a year and it 80 worked pretty well, I even gamed CS GO on it. So I made a Void Linux bootable 81 drive following the [Void Linux 82 docs](https://docs.voidlinux.org/installation/live-images/prep.html), but, when 83 I tried to boot into it, nothing. The BIOS wouldn't recognized the USB drive, I 84 also tried making a bootable USB with 85 [balenaEtcher](https://www.balena.io/etcher/) but again, nothing. The weird 86 thing was that if I made an arch Linux bootable USB using the previous both 87 methods the BIOS would boot instantly. Because it was late, I ended up 88 installing arch Linux. During the installation I noticed that the BIOS was not 89 UEFI compatible, and that was the cause of all the trouble. After I finished the 90 installation and configuration of arch Linux, I searched for a tool that would 91 allow me to make legacy BIOS compatible boot mediums, I stumbled with 92 [WoeUSB](https://github.com/WoeUSB), I made a Void Linux bootable USB drive with 93 that tool and it booted instantly, so maybe in a future I will install Void 94 Linux like I intended in the first place. 95 96 Anyway do you like my arch Linux rice? [](rice.png "x200 arch linux rice") I'm using Suckless's 98 [dwm](https://dwm.suckless.org/) and [st terminal](https://st.suckless.org/), 99 Firefox for the web browser and dolphin for the graphical file manager. You can 100 check out my [dotfiles](https://github.com/mjkloeckner/dotfiles) on GitHub, 101 although I didn't update them yet, but maybe at the time when you are reading 102 this I already did. 103 104 ## Using an x200 in 2022 105 The computer works perfectly, the only thing missing is OpenGL version 3.X 106 support, because the integrated graphics card is old the last version supported 107 is 2.1, so I couldn't make kitty nor Alacritty terminals work. I ended up 108 installing Suckless's simple terminal (st), and it works like a charm, and it's 109 very lightweight too. 110 111 The Core 2 Duo although it has almost 15 years, it is still very usable for 112 surfing the web and writing code, and general daily lightweight task. I'm 113 planning to take the x200 to the University to write notes and check PDFs in the 114 library, since the x200 only weight at around 1.6kg with the 90w charger, its 115 more lightweight than my 2.0kg dell, it is also very small in dimension, the 116 x200 is like a [netbook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook) with steroids. 117 The most impressive thing is how usable it is with only 2GB of RAM, when I saw 118 in the BIOS that it only had 2GB I thought that it would be unusable to be 119 honest, but no, by using dwm the idle ram usage is 200MB approx. and with a 120 couple of tabs opened in Firefox and some terminals the RAM usage sits at around 121 1.3GB, of course I set up a swap partition during the installation and when I 122 open more tabs in Firefox Htop reports some swap usage, so the swap partition 123 helps. 124 125 This is the x200 compiling [translate 126 shell](https://github.com/soimort/translate-shell) from source. [](compiling.png "Compiling translate shell") 128 129 Another picture of the x200, recording 130 [MIDI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI?wprov=sfla1) using 131 [qtractor](https://qtractor.org/). I've also used the x200 for live MIDI 132 processing, and it worked without a problem. [](recording-midi.png "Recording midi on the x200") 134 135 ## Things to do next 136 There is a ton of things that I want to try with this computer, like Libreboot, 137 swapping motherboards, running Void Linux, etc. But first I would like to 138 disassemble it entirely to remove all the dust from the motherboard and replace 139 the thermal paste. Also buy a 9-cell battery. The one that came with the 140 computer only lasted around 10 minutes the first charge, after calibration I 141 made it last an hour and a half. I saw a used 9-cell genuine lenovo near my 142 place on MercadoLibre for the same price that I bought the x200 lol (around USD 143 $27). So stay tuned to the blog post to read all the updates on the x200.