bought-a-thinkpad.md (8280B) - raw
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 so this was also a plus point for the publication. 21 22 When the owner give it to me obviously it was very dirty but also I felt like 23 something inside was a little bit loose; the transaction was very quick, in a 24 corner of a known intersection so, I didn't look at it very carefully. 25 26 When I arrived home and I started to look at it with more caution, the first 27 thing that I noticed was that the loose part was the battery, so I didn't care 28 much, but, before opening the lid I noticed that the lenovo branding was missing 29 on the left bottom of the lid, at that moment I panicked a little because the 30 day before going to pick up the x200 I saw a 31 [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/wmb4gl/wanna_know_something_cool_back_in_2008_a_chinese/) 32 which stated that cheap chinese clones of this machines where made, this cheap 33 clones cammed with an atom processor (trash compared to x200's processor) and 34 they where smaller in size, and since they were clones no lenovo brand were 35 present. 36 37 This a picture of the cheap clone, it looks identical but without the lenovo 38 brand anywhere. 39 40 [](x200_clone.png "x200 chinese clone") 41 42 I started to look carefully at the machine again, and noticed that there was a 43 "Lenovo enhanced experience" sticker on the bottom, so it couldn't be a copy, 44 after searching for Intel Centrino on internet I found that it wasn't a 45 processor but a network card, which the genuine x200 came with, so it actually 46 was a *genuine ThinkPad*, in fact the cheap clones where more rare than the 47 x200 itself. 48 49 Since I hadn't the charger, I couldn't test if it worked, so I started to deep 50 clean it, at least all the exterior dirt, and the keyboard, which was 51 disgusting. 52 53 [](cleaning-kb.png 54 "Cleaning thinkpad dirty keyboard") 55 56 A couple of days later I picked up a used charger from a T430 (90w), and the 57 TrackPoint cap which was also missing. When I connected the x200 to the grid the 58 outer lid leds lit up, meaning the ThinkPad was receiving power and the battery 59 was charging (or at least trying) so I tried to turn it on, and for my surprise 60 the computer booted to the BIOS *without a problem*. 61 62 ## Updating the BIOS 63 After I plugged the computer in and it booted into the bios, I checked for the 64 bios version and it was `3.11`. A quick check on lenovo's x200 webpage revealed 65 that there were BIOS updates up until version `3.16`. [](old-bios-version.png "Old bios version") I 67 searched on Google on how to update the bios but I couldn't find a way without 68 using Windows, there was [one way using 69 Linux](https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/BIOS_update_without_optical_disk) but 70 honestly in comparison with the Windows way was much more complicated. The most 71 simple way for me was installing Windows, since Lenovo provides a Windows only 72 BIOS updater tool. So I quickly installed Windows 7 on an 240GB Kingston SSD 73 which I had lying around and updated the BIOS, it was as simple as running the 74 BIOS updater tool, clicking update and done. 75 76 ## Installing an Operating System 77 After adding the SSD, installing Windows 7 and updating the BIOS, I was decided 78 to install Linux, I wanted to try Void or Artix (w/ Runit), I had a previous 79 machine with Artix ([yt video showing how fast it 80 booted](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBdNQdocrVc)) for almost a year and it 81 worked pretty well, I even gamed CS GO on it. So I made a Void Linux bootable 82 drive following the [Void Linux 83 docs](https://docs.voidlinux.org/installation/live-images/prep.html), but, when 84 I tried to boot into it, nothing. The BIOS wouldn't recognized the USB drive, I 85 also tried making a bootable USB with 86 [balenaEtcher](https://www.balena.io/etcher/) but again, nothing. The weird 87 thing was that if I made an arch Linux bootable USB using the previous both 88 methods the BIOS would boot instantly. Because it was late, I ended up 89 installing arch Linux. During the installation I noticed that the BIOS was not 90 UEFI compatible, and that was the cause of all the trouble. After I finished the 91 installation and configuration of arch Linux, I searched for a tool that would 92 allow me to make legacy BIOS compatible boot mediums, I stumbled with 93 [WoeUSB](https://github.com/WoeUSB), I made a Void Linux bootable USB drive with 94 that tool and it booted instantly, so maybe in a future I will install Void 95 Linux like I intended in the first place. 96 97 Anyway do you like my arch Linux rice? [](rice.png "x200 arch linux rice") I'm using Suckless's 99 [dwm](https://dwm.suckless.org/) and [st terminal](https://st.suckless.org/), 100 Firefox for the web browser and dolphin for the graphical file manager. You can 101 check out my [dotfiles](https://github.com/mjkloeckner/dotfiles) on GitHub, 102 although I didn't update them yet, but maybe at the time when you are reading 103 this I already did. 104 105 ## Using an x200 in 2022 106 The computer works perfectly, the only thing missing is OpenGL version 3.X 107 support, because the integrated graphics card is old the last version supported 108 is 2.1, so I couldn't make kitty nor Alacritty terminals work. I ended up 109 installing Suckless's simple terminal (st), and it works like a charm, and it's 110 very lightweight too. 111 112 The Core 2 Duo although it has almost 15 years, it is still very usable for 113 surfing the web and writing code, and general daily lightweight task. I'm 114 planning to take the x200 to the University to write notes and check PDFs in the 115 library, since the x200 only weight at around 1.6kg with the 90w charger, its 116 more lightweight than my 2.0kg dell, it is also very small in dimension, the 117 x200 is like a [netbook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook) with steroids. 118 The most impressive thing is how usable it is with only 2GB of RAM, when I saw 119 in the BIOS that it only had 2GB I thought that it would be unusable to be 120 honest, but no, by using dwm the idle ram usage is 200MB approx. and with a 121 couple of tabs opened in Firefox and some terminals the RAM usage sits at around 122 1.3GB, of course I set up a swap partition during the installation and when I 123 open more tabs in Firefox Htop reports some swap usage, so the swap partition 124 helps. 125 126 This is the x200 compiling [translate 127 shell](https://github.com/soimort/translate-shell) from source. [](compiling.png "Compiling translate shell") 129 130 Another picture of the x200, recording 131 [MIDI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI?wprov=sfla1) using 132 [qtractor](https://qtractor.org/). I've also used the x200 for live MIDI 133 processing, and it worked without a problem. [](recording-midi.png "Recording midi on the x200") 135 136 ## Things to do next 137 There is a ton of things that I want to try with this computer, like Libreboot, 138 swapping motherboards, running Void Linux, etc. But first I would like to 139 disassemble it entirely to remove all the dust from the motherboard and replace 140 the thermal paste. Also buy a 9-cell battery. The one that came with the 141 computer only lasted around 10 minutes the first charge, after calibration I 142 made it last an hour and a half. I saw a used 9-cell genuine lenovo near my 143 place on MercadoLibre for the same price that I bought the x200 lol (around USD 144 $27). So stay tuned to the blog post to read all the updates on the x200.