I didn’t create this website by myself, it’s just reworded content. Most of these websites pertains to ThinkPads but there will be some that aren’t. I’m sure some of these links readers here have already been here, but perhaps some of you don’t. I’m not going to drop everything here, so if there’s something I’m missing, comment about it & maybe I’ll add it in.
Originally I was going to make this full of discord invites. Then the idea of only discord invites seemed redundant, so I added sites where I basically learned everything about ThinkPad & computers from.
Forums
ThinkPad Forums – forum.thinkpads.com (TPF)
The holy grail of ThinkPad Support, this is pillars of the ThinkPad legacy, the online community support forum! This site has been active since 2003, there is a plethora of information there. Very helpful members there, & I post there a few times a month.
German ThinkPad Forum – thinkpad-forum.de
The German counterpart of the american site. ThinkPad communities are around the world, there are quite active members here who sometimes cross post to the American site as well.
51nb – forum.51nb.com
This Chinese forum is part of a Technology, Business & News site. Forum member HOPE & a few others are the ones who built custom motherboards for a few ThinkPad models. ThinkPads are not the only computers discussed here.
Lenovo Forums – forums.lenovo.com
This is the official support forum for Lenovo & ThinkPads. You can get responses from Lenovo technicians, so it wouldn’t hurt to register if you have a active warranty from them. Take it as you will, but there is some benefits here, as there are members from the above mentioned that sometimes post here. This is also where the Middleton bios was born. Since this is the official forum, some topics should not be discussed here, due to it damaging their brand or sales.
NBR – forum.notebookreview.com
This forum doesn’t have specific forums for each model series, just by manufacturer or by hardware/software support. That said, this forum helped me immensely when it came to panel reviewing and GPU modding/upgrading.
Discords
https://discord.gg/mGWNsaN
r/ThinkPad (Unofficial r/ThinkPad subreddit discord server) by @jpsulisz
This is the ‘main’ reddit thinkpad discord, a lot of members & rules in there. Very active.
https://discord.gg/SnMqrjE
/TPG/ (Unofficial /TPG/ 4chan discord server) by @saucey (me)
A discord I created for the hell of it, had links from my youtube videos & posted on 4chan. Seldom active because people got mad over bans. š
https://discord.gg/AFCbcyn
r/ThinkPadsForSale (Official r/ThinkPadsForSale subreddit discord server) by @Mad Ice Tea
Good information if you’re looking to buy laptops online & see how well others are. Consider if you are new member, you start at 0 reputation.
https://discord.gg/8qR8ppv
IBM/ThinkPad (independent discord server) by @Shu Seijin
This was just a server created as secondary r/thinkpad discord. I don’t know the backstory & don’t really care finding it out.
https://discord.gg/hFqTC83
r/ThonkPads (Official r/ThonkPads subreddit discord server) by @The Forgotten King
Small community here, not very active. Made for the hell of it. ;(
https://discordapp.com/invite/NWuBUxC
Rossman Group (Official Lois Rossman discord server)
Just putting it here for the hell of it. Many computer techs here willing to help with board repair questions. Rossman is famously known for fixing Macbooks that Apple wanted to boardswap for $600+.
Wiki & Databases
ThinkWiki –
This is a wikipedia for ThinkPads, & running Linux on a ThinkPad. Some information about modifications here as well. The wiki hasn’t really been active since 2014 and there is no real way to get involved to create wiki’s. However still a good spot to go.
T61 Wikia
A great resource for all information pertaining to the T61 back when it was regularly repaired. This originally was from wikispaces but that site was getting shut down due to funding & the rise or competition from other wiki sites. The info here is a bit dated, perhaps since 2016 as no information about core 2 quads mods are posted here.
Thinkwiki.DeĀ – German ThinkPad Wiki
This wiki is still active, & I have found some more information that the ThinkWiki is slacking on. This is obviously in german but google translate seems to work well if you’re into chrome. IMO good place to get info for newer ThinkPads, & they have some info about pre-thinkpads that I’ll have to read now…
EveryMac
Just as the name implies, this has information with every mac made. I’ve found this site to assess the value of iMacs before powering them on with the search by serial feature. I like their website layout a lot, the information they give on Apple products is superb.
Tony x86 Hackintosh Guide
Macs?! First off I loved the big ass aluminum Mac Pro & PowerMac G5 case. This website has a nice sized forum for Mac modding & possibly one of the better places to go if you’re thinking of hackintoshing your ThinkPad.
ThinkBa.se
This site is under development. As the ThinkWiki isn’t in development and TPF not really taking the reins, this might be the ‘next’ wiki. It is a project by Yttrium and I don’t know when it will be released.
libthinkpad.github.io/fru/
This looks to be a database project for getting FRU numbers of ThinkPads. So far it looks to only have models ranging from Sandy Bridge to Kaby Lake R. Additionally the last update was in April 2018… time for me to get a data scraper.
Non-Wiki & Single User sites
Per the owner: “Admiral Shark’s Keyboards is r/ModelM moderator u/sharktastica’s passion project to research, review and preserve information on IBM, Lexmark, Unicomp, Toshiba Retail and Lenovo keyboards for desktop PCs, ThinkPads, point of sale machines, mainframes and terminals. The main features are the queryable keyboard part number database, wiki, research and review articles, guides, and technical and factual resource collections for those interested in IBM and family keyboards and machines.” A lot of info on IBM keyboards, write ups and photos.
theforgottenkin.ng
This is an online buddy of mine, much more younger than me & a Thinkpad collector. They got a lil bit of write ups and does all of their website coding themselves.
Xiphmont’s LED LCD Upgrades
Xiphmont is a well respected user on TPF and has quite a popular following thanks to working on upgrading the CCFL backlight on a few older ThinkPads into LED ones. I’ve yet to get one of their upgrade kits or upgraded displays, but I’ve heard and seen work very well and are better than the previous modifications that were out there. It might be a must need if you’re going the X62 or T70 route.
Basterfield
There is a lot of information posted here about the beloved IBM PC110. This is an old site, I’m sure it should be archived but not knowing how to do so. Some of the external links from here do not work, yet the site is still up.Ā
Etyru
This one page has a tables style webpage of old ThinkPad specs, pre T43. Not a complete list, but its all in one page vs having to click to load em. Due to the ones its missing, I’m thinking of filling in the dots and posting here, it hasn’t been updated since 2013 š
Galleries & Collectors
Laptop Pics
I found this from tumblr when doing research on slate tablet ThinkPads. Site owner has a pretty nice collection and has been running this site for a few years. A lot of good photos here and some write ups.
Ayase’s Site
Another japanese website, this has some neat information and photos of ThinkPads. Feel free to give them a look, but it hasn’t been updated since 2002, I wonder where all the ThinkPads they collected have gone to.
Aichi.to
This is a Japanese website that has some very interesting information. I wonder what that PowerPC non-ThinkPad laptop is. The page linked is from old ThinkPad ads in japan, they have other stuff too but I’m bad at navigating in Japanese, even if its translated.
Old Computers
As the name suggests, this is a site for old computers. They have some pretty nice info and photos, this is an older style website with comments. Often I see people comment ‘I found this in my storage, message me an offer’, to which I assume they take the highest offer & the collector gets garbage in return… Anyways, I’ve used this in my hunt to find out about the first tablet computers.
Price Tracking
CamelCamelCamel
Price history for Amazon, you can create a free account. Mostly for US prices, but it looks like they added UK and going to add other countries.
WorthPoint
Disclaimer, I have been given a demo by the founder to join. WorthPoint is datamining all things ebay, I’m not sure how well it is for laptops, but it does save items by title & has a lot of photos. You can search items but you will need a paid subscription in order to see sold prices & history. From the demo it looks like its great if you sell antiques, music & clothes, I’m skeptical about it for laptops.
Terapeak
I’ve stumbled across this site thanks due to a previous job to sell electronic items. I believe they are affiliated with eBay, but it does cost money to use their services. Sometimes you can find some page information, it was quite comical as our ebay listing was used in their photos & probably helped overprice some items.
ktgee unofficial successors
ThinkPad Price suggestions? I don’t know what to really call this, but since the ktgee.net buyers guide is gone since Winter 2017, there were a few people who have taken the task to help out others. I had done this task sometime around 2015(?) with dankpads, which was to have updated prices of ThinkPads. As others have done, these sites listed have the same purpose, to be like ktgee’s buyers guide for new comers.
If there are other pages out there, let me know. š
yttrium’s github
This person is doing big things but they seem to be busy with their work and life. They have a simple page for ThinkPads which (to me) has a better layout than the ktgee tumblr.
trufla.me
This is a forked version of ktgee’s site sometime after it went away. This site is maintained by truefire_, funny thing was that I never knew about it and made this dankpads website and uhh wasted my time I guess. Anyways looks like they are continuing ktgee guide and it does have other sort of stuff there. The pages look pretty nice, & they do have different content than I do, so if you’re skeptical about dankpad’s prices, check trufla!
BIOS Stuff
LibreBoot
This is a BIOS you can flash to your older ThinkPads. iirc this was the first variant of BIOS bootloaders or whatever the heck its called and it was popularly worked with X60 and X200 laptops. LibreBoot might be infamously known due to the creator Leah slowing down development for personal goals. This plus the trisquel operating system will make your ThinkPad some of the free-ist running machines. You’ll be much safe from the NSA if you’re smart š
Coreboot
Coreboot is a secure BIOS you can flash which will have less backdoors than what Intel have been fucking up in the past. I personally have yet to try it because I’m afraid & dumb on doing this sort of stuff, but there is some documentation on installing. š
Middleton Bios
This helped make the T61, X61, & R61 some of the greatest ThinkPads ever. It unlocked SATA II speeds which does make a difference than SATA I crap. There has been other bios images for T61 systems, but thats for you to decide if you want to go past that. The coder who wrote the BIOS images never needed to use a ThinkPad to create it.
Bios Splash Images
Thinking of changing your bios splash image? You know the one where it says “ThinkPad” when you first boot. First off you’ll need the program from Lenovo or from here & need to use Windows 7 or Winblows 10. If you’re having bad luck, or wanting to browse other people’s contributions, this site has a nice gallery of popular Linux distros, IBM & Lenovo images, as well as a few anime ones for you to see during that quick second your ThinkPad boots up. Over 80 compatible pictures & counting!
Dell Bios password reset
God I needed this site back then when flipping E6xxx laptops was my weekly task. There are other laptops this supposedly supports, but I haven’t ever used because I never needed to. This is not the place for ThinkPad bios resets, you’ll need a special tool for that or some luck shorting out the BIOS chip.
ThinkPad SVP reset tool
I have bought & used a KMX2 tool to reset a few T430’s. The person on this site also has EEPROM BIOS chip locations for ThinkPads. Sadly Lenovo started to store SVP info other than the EEPROM chip, good ThinkPads til the Ivy Bridge can be reset, anything after that can’t. š
Reviews & News
NoteBookCheck.net
This is a translated site from the German .com entity. There are a plethora of tests NBC does, however the tester and the writer are not the same. Additionally some say that the reviews are biased for ThinkPad products, and despite some benchmarking, build scores & other things, the overall score won’t always add up consistently.
ThinkScopes.com
This site I believe was made by ThinkPad Enthusiast, Lead.Org from TPF and Lenovo forums. This website isn’t Wired tech journalist garbage.