Laptops are fun... o.o

First and foremost, happy new year! I can't believe tomorrow is 2026, and 3 years since I joined in on the indie web. It feels like yesterday and also so, so long ago, all at the same time!

I'm really in the midst of this ThinkPad and laptop stuff. My goal to make the perfect ThinkPad and getting it for practically free by flipping ThinkPad stuff is still alive. We're still in the red big time right now LOL and I'd like to not be in the red, perhaps I got a little over ambitious and I'm overextending what I can afford, but I think we'll be able to clear up some funds for my ideal ThinkPad. Since my last post, I was refunded $10 on the X220 (bring its base cost down to $37) and bought another ThinkPad charger for $10, ended up paying $57.10 for another 6x 8gb ram bringing us up to 9x 8gbs we can use (planning on throwing 16gb in each device,) spent $69.42 on a T430 (THIS might be the one!,) and so current count is -$477 spent with a pending +$180 from a buyer who received the X230 today. If all goes well with them, this cuts our negative balance down to -$297, with the following stock: the X220, the T430, the 760XL, a ThinkPad x120e with a bad keyboard, a new hot air gun, new thermal paste, a 91% full bottle of 91% isopropyl alcohol, half a magic eraser left (that's plenty), 3 cans compressed air, an additional 5x 8gb free to use after the two devices, a raspberry pi pico, 2 soic8 clips, and a set of new wires. Basically we have a tiny ThinkPad shop. I've also developed a vision while working on these guys: I want to sell privacy focused repairable devices in this new age of surveillance XD I plan on selling the X220 and the 760XL for $300 ea, hopefully wiping our -$300 red and pushing us to about +$180 in our balance.

The X220 build is going great, I've repasted the CPU, gave it a good clean, desoldered the microphones off of the LED indicator daughterboard, flashed the bios to Libreboot to neuter Intel ME, replaced the Intel Centrino 2.4ghz network card with an open source Atheros dual-band 5ghz network card, replaced the cmos battery. The screen, keyboard, and trackpad are in really good shape, and I'm waiting for a brand new display back (the top of the laptop when it's close) to arrive, so I can replace that. This is the first time I've completely disassembled and handled every part of a laptop and put it back together again, and I learned a lot about this device! I'm mostly satisfied that I was abled to successfully desolder the tiny mics off to make it truly bulletproof in the eyes of paranoid people who are scared of being listened to thru their devices XD I should have 3 x 8gb of ram arriving today, so I'll replace the 2x4gb with 16gb of ram. Once the back display cover arrives, I'll full disassemble the display one last time, move everything including the hinges, wires, thinklight, antennas, and display panel over to the new assembly, clean the display edge to edge, and officially put everything back together! It's going to be a very nice machine! And I'll have a few extra X220 parts left over that I can use for a fun junk build in the future.

The T430 is going to be getting similar treatment, it'll be my first time Librebooting a T430, removal of webcam and microphones should be easier than an X220, and I'm really considering the classic keyboard mod for this guy because I really want to do it. It's a really clean laptop, the seller was selling it for cheap because it was "wonky" - the sata pins are "misaligned" so he wasn't able to get an SSD in there but he was able to get a mechanical drive in there. I looked this issue up and it looks like this is an easy fix. There's also an issue with the DVD drive opening and closing, I think because the sensor may be going bad, but that's an issue with the DVD drive I imagine, I can just remove that and replace it with something cooler, like another SSD or perhaps an extra battery. I might consider some other mods, like swapping out the display, upgrading the CPU, swapping out the speakers, and really making an awesome T430, but it depends on what a $180 budget allows for us.

In other news, I also found out that I can swap out the logic board in my late-2013 macbook pro for the logic board in the mid-2014 macbook pro. Fully compatible! And I found the highest specced one available for like $60 shipped on ebay. For $60, I can jump from a 2ghz i7 + 8gb ram to a 2.8ghz i7 + 16gb ram + nvidia 750gt. Considering this is in the laptop that I want to keep as long as possible, I'm really, really considering it. I always felt a little :< that I didn't get the 16gb version, but back then, that was hundreds and hundreds of dollars in difference. Now I can get the highest specced version for an extra $50?? Ugh please! Not that it really matters, even the 2020 M1 chips blow that out of the water, but this thing is a little sentimental to me xD I just can't help but want to cheer it on having seen it live for so long already.

-Onio