r50p

So I've just purchased a 15" r50p as a secondary computer which I will leave in my office.

Are there any known issues with the model? Though I did look around the interweb quickly to find such information, I had no luck. For $79 I don't really care either way, but there's seems to be no talk about it anywhere; I don't know to take this as good or bad.

Here's a link to the actual machine:

Lenovo ThinkPad R50p 1832 Pentium M 1.7 GHz,1GB RAM, P4 - eBay (item 130497228709 end time Mar-14-11 20:58:08 PDT)

Just in case someone feels obligated to comment on the lack of an HDD, I do I have a spare 2.5 PATA/IDE drive around which should work with it.

Thanks,
Ryan

 

A bargain, the R50p is one of the best Thinkpad laptop. There are some variants that were offered with the QXGA 15 inch flexview, which was the highest resolution ever used in a mass produced laptop.

Your R50p comes with the UXGA Flexview LCD, for 79 dollars you could not ask for anything more.

The R5x series laptop was fairly reliable there is no major hardware issues that i know of, as long the previous owner did not abuse it.

 

Thanks for your comments. Certainly part of the reason I went for it was the resolution of the screen. I also was quite happy to see a keyboard without the Windows key or the "Menu" key or whatever it may be called (the key in between Alt and Ctrl on the right of the space bar). Is the keyboard really that huge or does it look wider because the chassis is only accomodating a 4:3 screen and thus isn't as a wide as its modern counterparts? I ask because the r50p has nearly the same amount of space on the sides of the keyboard as my T410.

That aside, barring from any unexpected issues with the laptop, it seems like it will serve me well.

Thanks,
Ryan

 

The keyboard of the R50p is about the same size as that of the T410. It is a large machine since it is a R series with 15 inch LCD.

 

So I received the laptop and threw in my spare drive, and everything works quite well. The keyboard feels nicer than that of my T410 and of course the screen is quite a bit nicer. The only issue I am having is that the GPU is running quite hot. With the fan off and under absolutely no load, it is running around 66C while the CPU is at 46C. Do the "ATI Mobility FireGL T2"s run fairly hot? This would not surprise me as a 128MB video card in a laptop from 2004 or so must use quite a bit of power. Does anyone think it would be worth it to change the thermal grease? I've got a tube of AS5 with ample amounts of grease left in it.

All in all, I'm quite happy. At the time I bought my T410 I thought I'd really need the power of the I7 Arrandale chip for my math. It turns out that I have ended up just passing off the heavy duty computations to desktops/servers and in general my work has not really included too many calculations as of late. Honestly the r50p is enough computer for me. The interfaces on it with which I interact (screen and keyboard) are more pleasant than those of my T410, as I mentioned. If I can get this thing to cool down I am considering selling my T410 and using the r50p as my primary machine. For $79 (well plus an extra $4 for the hdd caddy), as lead_org said, you cannot beat this machine. Well maybe you can, but I am still quite impressed with it.

Thanks,
Ryan

 

That's an awesome deal for such a laptop, my T42p cost $300 when I bought it a few years ago on eBay.

You could also upgrade the screen to a QXGA 2048x1536 if you'd like the extra realstate and could deal with the increased pixel density and slightly lower brightness (you'd need two parts: 91P6837 for the cable and IAQX10N/IAQX10S for the display)

 

The high heat output of the GPU is something you should expect with all the p model variants, these were workstation machines. But all in all it is a fantastic machine and with both a fantastic keyboard/screen to boot.

No laptops of those era even came close to the Thinkpads in terms of overall features and usability, this is what makes lot of people attract to this brand of laptop. This is also why people are still using laptops that are 6 to 8 years old, even though they have newer laptops.

 

Yep, that's why "Fire" is part of the name

 

Ah yes it makes sense: they name the product after its worst quality!

Anyway, I for now have set thinkfan (a linux daemon which monitors the ibm thermal temperatures and sets the fan speed according to the temps) to basically ignore the GPU temp until it hits 72 (a somewhat arbitrary number which seemed like a still safe number which the GPU won't hit in normal use) and instead I have it mostly based on the CPU temperature, which is usually decent.

I still plan to change the thermal grease, I am just so lazy.

I should mention that in addition to a significantly better screen and a moderately better keyboard, the speakers on the r50p are much better than those on the T410. They're nearly three or four times louder with a better aesthetic to the sound (I am sure I could quantify this with some fourier analysis if I needed to!). It's quite an impressive machine. Even the battery still lasts around a couple hours! The previous owner took immaculate care of it, and the only physical flaws are some scratches on the top.

Thanks,
Ryan

 

If you don't like the heat you can toy with TPFanControl.