Trying to FIX : IBM ThinkPad T42 Laptop

Hi, in this video I attempt to fix a faulty IBM ThinkPad T42 Type 2373 that was purchased from eBay in a job lot of faulty items.
Remember that this is just for entertainment and I am not an expert in these repairs. The processes in the video may not be the best way, the correct way or the safest way to fix these things. I do love fault finding and trying to fix broken things, so I hope that comes across in this 'Trying to FIX' series. Many thanks, Vince.

[@DR_X69]

The certificate approval normally relates to the time and date being in the past. Usually happens when the internal battery for the clock is either low or is dead. You can usually fix this by setting up the date and time.

[@jonathongraves2976]

Not necessarily, the internal battery is different than time, and date, because the internal battery is the battery for the actual system. For the time, and date, it's a chip on the motherboard, lot of the chips would say Dallas on them. When that chip goes out, setting the time, and date ain't going to work. The time, and date won't keep it's time, doesn't matter if you set it or not, if the chip is dead. it doesn't work like that.

[@soulmourne2698]

Well it can also appear when its not updated the opera and in chrome it will always appear cause xp does not receive updates for chrome since 2014

[@josedasilva8924]

@@jonathongraves2976 your thinking of desktop motherboards. These laptops use a button cell battery.

[@jonathongraves2976]

​@@josedasilva8924 No I'm not just thinking of a desktop, if it's a type of computer, it has a motherboard. I know what that battery is. The point is, it's not just that coin battery, that does the time, the main function of the CMOS battery is to save the bios settings, and there is a process to do by taking out the battery if you want to reset the bios. Like yes it's the battery, but that's not the main unit, it's the chip, and that specific chip's main function is to save the time, and date, not just the CMOS battery. The CMOS battery is really just known as a backup battery for the bios. So you see, the battery, and that timer chip eventually goes out after a period of time, and when the battery, and chip is weak, resetting the time would keep that time for a bit but eventually go out again, and if they are completely dead, and just resetting the time, and date isn't going to help anything, there ain't much you can do but replace it. Believe me, I know, I ran computers for quite a few years, and I self taught myself from experience.

[@jonathongraves2976]

​@@realvivifromloona No I'm not just thinking of a desktop, if it's a type of computer, it has a motherboard. I know what that battery is. The point is, it's not just that coin battery, that does the time, the main function of the CMOS battery is to save the bios settings, and there is a process to do by taking out the battery if you want to reset the bios. Like yes it's the battery, but that's not the main unit, it's the chip, and that specific chip's main function is to save the time, and date, not just the CMOS battery. The CMOS battery is really just known as a backup battery for the bios. So you see, the battery, and that timer chip eventually goes out after a period of time, and when the battery, and chip is weak, resetting the time would keep that time for a bit but eventually go out again, and if they are completely dead, and just resetting the time, and date isn't going to help anything, there ain't much you can do but replace it. Believe me, I know, I ran computers for quite a few years, and I self taught myself from experience.

[@gregdunlap7538]

I had a T42 maxxed out at 2GB of RAM and I installed Windows 7 on it and it ran great! Your CCFL backlight tube is dying - that's why the screen starts out looking purple/orange. I had to replace mine. After years of faithful service, I eventually sold mine to a Thinkpad enthusiast who is a city contractor and was going to use it for his work - it may still be on the job!

[@gazvlogs7459]

Did the same to an R51 I got from a banking firm years ago when they where recycling machines. Went far enough to uprage CPU on it too. The thing runs linux now and is used as a music player on a stereo system these things are rugged as can be!

[@GodOfGamingBG]

I found a cheap deal on a great condition T42p that was already pretty maxed by default, with pentium M 765 (2.1ghz), 2gb ram, and ati firegl card equivalent of radeon 9600, and 1600x1200 IPS, sweet machine for win98/win2000 dualboot retro gaming on the go, but it feels like its running rather hot, I wonder if theres anything I can do to improve the cooling on this thing? Plenty of info on how to improve the cooling on a T60, but nothing that I can find on the T42?

[@pimpdaddypablo4581]

29:55 we got your message Vince we're coming to save you

[@DjahmarSchoonheim]

lol

[@5leepsWIth5cI55or5]

Wubba Lubba Dub-Dub!

[@mikiethebikie]

I had one of these when I worked for IBM in the late ‘90s. Built like a tank, and so reliable.

[@StezStixFix]

I've used car bumper "Back to Black" on plastics like that before. Comes up a treat!

[@AcornElectron]

Stay safe and well fella. Hope you and yours are being sensible. Keep up the good work! Always interesting and always worth the full watch time!

[@pcwizard7Tech]

you need to replace the cr2032 battery inside it, the date and time are out of sync. that's what causes the security cert warnings

[@zaidali9073]

You not helping

[@pcwizard7Tech]

@@zaidali9073 ok told him why the security warnings are coming up, i wouldn;t use XP on the internet today but he knows this

[@CTCTraining1]

Vince can you check the system date and time ... if this has been lost then browsers may well complain about certificates. That.said I wouldn’t recommend going on the internet with XP

[@GadgetUK164]

That's a good point, time and date needs to be correct too! But on XP a lot of the certs no longer work because the root certs were renewed a few years ago (probably more than a few years ago lol) - supporting stronger ciphers and hashes etc.

[@sethrd999]

@@GadgetUK164 Exactly right not sure is XP supports sha256 most defintely not sha512 / AES or Serpent or many of the new varients.

[@utzufideli9769]

I would suggest to install retrozilla for the modern protocols. But for heavens sake, only go on sites you know with that XP daanger. Every thing else should be done inside a VM or on a live CD.

[@WalnutSpice]

@@utzufideli9769 Wow people are way to scared of going online with XP, my school used XP until 2017, no issue. I use Windows XP online everyday, no issue. Ya'll don't have a gun to your head forcing you to enter banking info into Internet Explorer 6. Use common sense and XP online is as dangerous as Windows 10 online.

[@NO_obs]

@@utzufideli9769 theres a couple of palemoon forks which still have xp support, basilisk and mypal and can handle the modern web fine and are relatively secure. Also xp with all the posready updates didn't lose support until mid 2019 so it's probably not too bad to have the machine online.

[@TheCod3r]

Great content as always Vince. Keep up the good work 👌 by the way thank you for recommending my channel to GadgetUK 😋

[@swordkorn]

Generally older systems running XP will have out of date security certificates for web browsers and XP isn’t designed to work with HTML5 and up protocols for most modern browsers. As it’s built on x32 bit architecture most modern programs will suffer as more up to date hardware tends to run on x64 bit architecture. You could try say a live USB running x32 Debian and seeing if that will inject some usability into the older hardware but honestly it’s a nostalgic trip to see one of these things running in such good condition! It was a treat watching this video and fantastic work as always!

[@GadgetUK164]

I worked from a T42 for several years! Really nice robust machines! Great job getting this working - the crazy thing, I think I have a PSU for one of those here!!! To get it working properly - just get a Windows 10 Pro license off eBay for £5 and install Windows 10. I suspect Win 10 will run fine on it. You may need to add some RAM first (not sure it will go beyond 2GB) if you wanted to do that. The problem in general with certificates - Windows update used to update all the root certificates periodcally. They have been renewed over the years and not updated in Win XP. The net result is you get that cert error with most websites. You could probably manually install the various certificates and get around some of the issues. IE likely wont support some of the latest ciphers though, so you would need to go with the last version of Firefox / Opera supported by XP.

[@joeatron3222]

I don't think 10 will run fine as it is not very good on low end hardware unless you are in to OPTIMIZATION.

[@TheRailroad99]

@@joeatron3222 Windows 10 HATES classic HDDs. It really needs an SSD, at least 2 threads and 2GB ram. This has none if that. (And is also not really upgradable to SSDs - IDE SSDs are very rare) However with enough RAM windows vista and 7 run fine on those Pentium M era laptops. I personally would stick with XP or a light Linux. Just feels much snappier than that win 7. Edit: I think W10 would not even run on this. The T42 probably still has the older "banias" pentium M core which doesn't advertise PAE support to the OS. "Dothan" is needed for booting W8/10.

[@andybrooks7228]

The T42's are a very nice retro laptop and still usable today with the right OS plus they have one of the nicest keyboards going an innovative drainage system to stop the keyboard and main laptop getting water damage and if you press the fn and top right keys the keyboard light illuminates, on the whole a very tough and usable lapyop. Keep safe and keep up the great content.

[@BulletBait197031]

Great to see the old IBM Thinkpad (Now known as Lenovo Thinkpad) is still going strong. Just goes to show how well made they are made..

[@thewallduck2022]

I have a Lenovo ideapad with a celeron. Its light and decent, that's it.

[@tiporari]

Used these for years. Decent machines. Very well made.

[@abzhuofficial]

IBM ThinkPads are so robust that Aerith Gainsborough would use them to smack a Don Corneo lackey to death with it.

[@m.a.jarrar4103]

Vince, for the texture of the A cover, you can use hand cream, it comes out good as new; except for deep scratches. It sounds crazy but it works!

[@MrMelville100]

They are good laptops. I’ve got one very similar from early 2000’s that is still going strong. I use it as a second screen to VNC to my Raspberry Pi in my observatory. There’s a really useful little light in the lid that can illuminate the keyboard! Fn + PgUp! Good one Vince!

[@jpluera]

New > Text Document by simply right clicking on the desktop Vince ;)... Great vid was fun to watch ! Keep em comin!!

[@idc4813]

I had that exact laptop or possibly 2 models different. But IBM Think Pads were great.

[@rickymartinez28]

that is an awesome video your my favorite youtuber and you make amazing content. its always cool that you are able to fix a lot electronics with almost no issue. :)

[@Tim_3100]

I restored a thinkpad really nicely built and easy to repair as so many parts easily to get hold of and thinkpad's in good condition can fetch well over £100 in alot of cases

[@kirbster1977]

Used to use one of these laptops many moons ago, well built solid item. Little life hack for you, to get rid of sticky label residue off any surface quickly you can simply use regular household furniture polish like pledge or Mr sheen. Comes off is seconds!

[@UltimatelyEverything]

You did a really good job with this one Vince

[@lexatwo]

Hey Vince, great video, thanks for entertaining us viewers in such a delicious way! Offtop question: had you been filming your work on Switch sent to you by GadgetUK? If that's the case - any hint on when you expect to render and upload it?

[@dodgydruid]

On IDE's there is a "key" which you should be able to see with a torch in there and also match up the slight gap between power pins array and IDE data array of pins. Laptop ones did have a slightly canted connector to prevent jarring a connection out of its socket and keep it locked with a good cohesive connection between pins. Those pins can bend extremely easily which is why the caddy is designed to "egg box" the drive, the caddy transmits the jarring forces to the chassis.

[@DanielMosey]

29:54 For the love of God, someone call the police! Tell them My Mate Vince is being held hostage and forced to make KZbin videos.

[@comicsanz97]

Like Marina Joyce

[@Alphosphate]

I was about to say that

[@aditiartandcraftandgamer4852]

I 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[@OgJskillzYT]

loving your videos and channel bud, keep the vids coming, i also love to fix things..... well try to lol

[@ev_oo]

The error you've got was about PXE which is an thing that lets you boot from networks and things, Go in the BIOS and change the boot up order from 'Network' being the highest to lowest, and 'Hard drive' to the highest EDIT: yeah I know he got it to a working state, but this is just my tips

[@DivorcedSingleMomsHustles]

Mine just won’t turn on. Help?

[@danilko1]

aitch, haitch, erbs, herbs - I watch a number of UK, AUS, youtubers, and this all of a sudden came to my attention recently. And now you bring it up. I thought about it, and I wasn't going to say anything, but you let the cat out of the bag then, didn't you. There's this, and then also resources, rezources... Even Canadians are looped into that one too. Colourful English language, various pronunciations and spellings.

[@simonupton-millard]

I used to work for an it rental company, once I had to change the keys round to the UK layout on 15 x T40s as they all had the French keyboard layout, it took ages

[@MentleGan]

Yes, a laptop! That was a really nice restoration. And the H thing lol xD

[@Zephyrian1st]

this was very interesting to watch, i work a laptops, and computers alot, "screaming at my screen" hyperbole, alot, but it was great to see someone learn and figure stuff out, just like i do from your content! Awesome stuff!

[@666lordofdestruction]

14:08 Lol, the age old Haitch vs Aitch. Regardless of your pronunciation Vince, you are still a scholar and a gentleman.

[@SPEXWISE]

@Grimmy Grim Grim Yep I'm from as far south as you can get in the UK and we all pronounce it the same way as Vince.

[@catcam]

Collectors ? We are cult ! Thanks for saving great old machine ... and i suggest to keep this one for yourself . You never know when you will need win xp, and serial/paralell port for some projects ... and you can make this t42 dulal boot with some light linux like Lubuntu or similar. Thanks for great content, and stay safe.

[@ende_ohne]

If you want to use it on the Internet, you can download Firefox 37.02 from the Mozilla FTP repository (ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/). After you installed it, click on the question mark in the three bars menu and go to about Firefox and open it so often until there are no updates available any more (This should be at 52.9.0 ESR). There will also appear a tab in Firefox that tells, that no more updates are developed for Windows XP.

[@TheCod3r]

I'm not sure if someone else said this but to stop the security certificate errors you need to make sure the date amd time are correct

[@borisdg]

My father had same in the past. Great machine

[@curtiswebster8095]

Still occasionally use one of these for work. Win2000/98 dual boot. Get a solid 20 minutes out of the battery.

[@BartechTV]

Magic eraser worked good on my Thinkpad lid. Mine is a Lenovo one, though, perhaps the coating is different.

[@aleksandersats9577]

The battery is really worn and you can fix that too, you would have to replace the 18650 cells inside which make up the battery itself. That specific battery has 6 cells, 2 in parallel and 3 in series to get a nominal 12.6 volts.

[@Ruslan.88266]

I had one running on Linux, worked great. I think they still support a 32 bit system.

[@BCProgramming]

I have a T41 I use as an XP machine. Works for most video files as long as the bitrate isn't too high. It's air-gapped mostly because the Wireless is finicky but also because there isn't really much reason to use the Internet on it. Wireless-G means downloading right on it is slower than sneakernetting a downloaded file from another system via a thumb drive. If you are getting certificate errors verify the time and date are correct, I don't recall that being covered in the video.

[@JDStone20]

Nice work!

[@RynoDBones]

Win7 will definitely work, and it is just about as quick as XP. I used this same laptop up until about two years ago. All the drivers with Win7 worked, too.

[@SparkyMAWy]

I had one of these for work. They are good machines for there time. I rescued another one from the bin. The screen changing colour wasn't normal. It is fairly easy to change the keyboard on these. They don't have washers in the hard disk. The facia does just clip over the screws of the drive then just secures at the bottom. The one I had at work had 1.5Gb in it as I upgraded it at the time.

[@SparkyMAWy]

... I would try and replace the keyboard as a unit, though. Not just the individual keys.

[@SparkyMAWy]

... But, I guess it works.

[@SparkyMAWy]

Final pester. I was going to try Windows 98 to for retro games and DOS games on mine. It may run a light weight Linux distribution?

[@StuartZiane]

I got given an old Dell desktop a few years ago and it wasn’t til I got it that I realised it was old, like 11 years old or so, but it’s a Dell Precision workstation. I fixed a couple of issues it had put Windows 10 on it and it’s the best Windows PC I’ve ever had. It’s got dual quad-core Xeon processors, 20GB RAM and two HDDs in RAID0. It’s my main machine in my home office and it runs everything I need it to perfectly. Had it not have been through sheer luck and my soldering skills (being a design and development engineer), the machine would be in a million pieces in India or somewhere, being recycled.

[@retractingblinds]

I love the T42. I have one myself, I use it to run Windows 98 on it, as it's got extremely good specs for a Win98 machine and runs everything win98 you can throw at it thanks to having native drivers. Looks like you're missing the mouse clit. Lots of people have trouble finding it :(

[@89ludeawakening1]

That T42 model is a little tank and is still a pretty good laptop, especially if you run Linux on it. If you throw in an SSD like I did playing with one it's actually really fast. I used an mSATA to IDE adapter with a 128GB SSD and set a 2048MB swap partition for virtual memory to go along with it's 2GB of RAM. I didn't think it would be that good but I had everything except for the $5 adapter and figured "Why not?" Haha

[@danilko1]

At a maximum 133MBs data transfer rate, you will not get a lot of performance out of an SSD. I have had HDDs reach 150MBs, and 80MBs over USB. Technically USB 2.0 could be faster, but in reality its not. This is a difficult recommendation - though I am putting a 64GB SSD on a iMac G4 (snow globe), which is IDE - total expense? $11 for the adaptor.

[@erayrafet5571]

@@danilko1 Running operating systems requires rather fast random read/write speeds, at which SSDs vastly excel over HDDs.

[@jonathongraves2976]

That's what's really good about Linux. Linux is able to put a lot of old systems back to life. The thing is 32 bit processors systems aren't getting much support anymore, because 32 bit is just too old, and not many people are running them anymore, so there's just not many software, and operating systems supporting them anymore.

[@89ludeawakening1]

@@danilko1 that 133MB/s cap of the ATA100 bus means nothing really when it comes to running the system. The SSD is helping with low latency, simply navigating the system and with the read/write speeds of small files. The SSD is ready to pretty much instantly open folders and programs whereas a HDD can't possibly do it as fast. I guarantee that if you set up a T42 exactly as I did except with the fastest HDD you could possibly put in it, the real world use of that laptop would pale in performance next to the one with the SSD. Edit: I forgot another huge benefit of the SSD over the HDD. The SSD can access the swap partition/virtual memory much MUCH faster!

[@89ludeawakening1]

@@danilko1 a good analogy would be take a rotary engine and a standard engine that both have the same exact HP. Let's see which one revs quicker. Haha

[@ionghebaru8159]

You can try Lubuntu for a light OS for that laptop, also the time and date should be set when you browse on the internet. Thanks for your video.

[@hogie9631]

Hey Vince hope your keeping well during covid 19 keep uploading these longer videos to keep me entertained hope all is well at home

[@lifeofvanity]

I had a t43 I installed Windows 98 on once it works excellent for playing 90's pc games and maybe even some DOS games if the drivers support SoundBlaster emulation.

[@Adam-ge7wx]

funny thing is that i have an exact model of this right next to me. it works great!

[@leoalex50]

It was a great laptop and my first pc I ever owned even if mine is a T43

[@stevemartyn203]

So funny, keep them coming lol.

[@AnonymousRepair]

Time and date is not set, that is the warning you are getting on the browser , Linux mint would be a good option , great video 👍

[@typicalpctech6674]

If you got an extra harddrive, you could clone the current drive to it, and upgrade the extra drive to windows 7 to rid of your wonder :D and yes an SSD would be insane, but I think that has an IDE interface, so an expensive Media Card CF and converter (if that is even needed). Microsoft is geared toward the Microsoft Store, much like Android older phones can't do Google Play. I had one of these, so it was a nice walk in history for me. :D Good job fixing it, and neat trick with the headlight restore idea.

[@TorontoPopulistConservative]

Hi Vince, I have a T42 laying around and I recall the screen would have a very red tint, especially when it first comes on. If it wasn't for having to ship it, I would pass it on to you for parts.

[@troyvanheer3827]

@My Mate VINCE Hi Vince, love your videos. They're very entertaining, thorough and well produced. One of these days YOU WILL BE A PROFESSIONAL and you won't need that disclaimer at the start of your videos, trust me! Are your time and date correct? Double-click on the time, set the date correctly and then go to the 'Internet time' tab and click on 'update now' to synchronise the time with the internet. It does do it correctly the majority of the time, even if it does come up with an error. You can set the time manually if this fails, but I seem to recall that Windows XP gets a bit fussy if the time isn't EXACTLY right! It would also be a good idea to update to Service Pack 3 if you're not running it already which will allow you to install the latest supported version of Google Chrome and give you a much better experience when you're surfing the web. It won't be perfect, but it will be a lot better! Right-click on 'My Computer' and left-click on 'Properties' to see what service pack you're running. Those are the main things that would be causing the problem in the browser with the out of date/invalid website certificate. Can you please make a quick revisit video on this when you can? I'd really appreciate it. Keep up the good wok! Regards, Troy PS; Windows XP Service Pack 3 can be downloaded from here, it's the first download on the list. www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=Windows%20XP%20SP3 And Chrome from here; www.filepuma.com/download/google_chrome_32bit_49.0.2623.112-11045/ *MAKE SURE YOU CLICK ON THE GREEN 'Download Now' button just below the information about the software and NOT whatever ad happens to be on the website at the time! You'll have to use another computer to download both these pieces of software as what's on the laptop at the moment is too outdated to accomplish this! :-)

[@tonebonebgky2]

People complaining how you pronounce "H" actually I love how you pronounce it of course I may be biased as I like and watch all your videos and have seen most of the modern ones

[@ctopedja]

Its so good quality i have mine still to this day, payed for it around 1800eur in 2005 :D

[@TheRailroad99]

For anyone wondering: The red screen backlight means that the backlight CCFL tubes are worn out. The screen is also very dim. A new tube would restore it to its original brightness which is MUCH MUCH brighter. Also... Ewww, a blue trackpoint cap on a thinkpad... blasphemy :D But otherwise nice job, I really enjoy the channel :)

[@DXcool223]

Damn I really wanted that Windows XP’s code 🤣😂

[@stevanderpeer]

Windows xp pro is free now because of its age and no more support from Microsoft get it by google search "Windows xp pro ISO"

[@madkvideo]

Same

[@Drew-Dastardly]

@@stevanderpeer The ultimate XP needs the unofficial SP4 upgrade and also the POSReady. Some freaks don't like the .NET stuff I have no idea why because I was programming C#.NET on XP 20 years ago and it was never a problem and perfectly normal XP.

[@NO_obs]

you cant even activate xp anymore without piracy tools

[@bitelaserkhalif]

Why not crack it? XP is unsupported

[@jamiepaget9466]

Your pronunciation of "H" is absolutely right Vince. No problem with that.

[@38911bytefree]

Thinkpad from the T30 and above were pretty solid machines, I thinl the got it right after the 600 series, hinges were not so good before. But many laptops suffered from it. People sure will pick the T60 or T61. I prefeer the T400, it is almost a T61 but on early DDR3. Heating issues ? .... not really, but needs some care evey couple of years. FANs go wrong wiithout the BIOS alarming ... by go wrong I mean, slower than commanded. This machines rely heavily on fan efficiency. They dont get airborne as Pavillions did, but they definetely use it.

[@MrKillswitch88]

T60P with the IPS and the W500 are two of my favorites, T61 has its share of problems because of bump gate.

[@wasdofficial368]

Ok this is just amazing

[@christoskokkolis5110]

Hello Vince, great video! Can I ask what is the small netbook you are using that is running Windows 10? Thank you!

[@MrBrainFear]

The “Orange” tinge is the backlight of the screen taking its time to fire up. Usually a sign of age of ccfl backlights. Probably not cost effective to replace the screen, however a very tricky repair is the replacement of the bulb itself. Theoretically possible but an absolute nightmare. 🤣

[@maytizevb]

Put LEDs instead

[@TheRailroad99]

@@maytizevb the screen looks like the standard cheap xga 1024*768 screen. Not worth for that. However LED modding is absolutely worth it for the great Flexview screens and the high-res TN panels

[@MultiGraham1982]

Hi Vince: Not sure if you have done this yet but I would put some heatsink compound on the CPU, the fan sounds a little noisy on startup and given the age of this I reckon it hasn't been changed.

[@televisionandcheese]

Thinkpads are awesome laptops! Not as indestructible as a toughbook, but still really strong The laptop's time and date settings in the bios have likely gone, from it being powered off for so long, which is making all the sites show that certificate error

[@FlashFireSix]

The reason there is an orange tinge when it first powers on is it's probably using a CFL backlight (small fluorescent tubes) which aren't instantly at full power. Modern displays use LED's which mitigates this.

[@alexberezin3513]

Vince, the K-meleon browser works around certificate issues in XP. Just make sure you've got the latest version.

[@Asriazh]

hi! ^^/ Did You set the time and date on the laptop correctly? Cause certificates act up like that if time and date aren't set properly.

[@WalnutSpice]

My daily driver right there for the moment. Slightly different t42 but my first thinkpad. Fell in love with it, will only use Thinkpads now. Laptop from 2004 won me over, Good on ya'll IBM. Thinking about getting a t61 and using that as my main laptop with some upgrades. Have a nice desktop I've built so for an on the go computer, I need reliability much more than I need speed. Edit: Mine does need a new CPU Fan, the HDD cover is missing and the guy who tossed it took all the ram but the 512MB stick on the other side. If any of you guys know a good place to find Think parts other than ebay, please let me know

[@clearsmashdrop5829]

It's funny the things we forgot about laptops and Operating systems we haven't used in years. I'm working on fixing up my old T21 but for the life of me couldn't remember where the HDD was.

[@simtitan1]

I don't think I've ever clicked on a video so quickly. I love your repair videos, and I love Thinkpads.

[@brutlern]

I actually surprised how fast it boots from and old mechanical IDE drive. Nowadays, if it's not an SSD, we wouldn't even bother with it. And also the fact that the battery still holds it's charge give it's age (though possibly the battery might have been replaced). Yes, it doesnt hold the charge long, but i've seen newer batteries die in minutes after a full charge. Also, what is the song that starts at the 26:00 minute mark? Seems lovely and chill.

[@StuartZiane]

Haha! You HOPE that’s super glue... 🤣

[@UpInSmoke54]

🤣

[@bluewolf5912]

Lmao

[@MyRegardsToTheDodo]

Check the internet history...

[@chrysconnor]

hahaha

[@greygoose3936]

I love my T42. I think I payed $30 on OfferUp and it works great for windows 98/XP gaming. It's wonderful.

[@misshobbity]

I say 'H' exactly the same :) Ignore the haters who have nothing better to do. Your videos are always enjoyable and friendly and relaxing to watch

[@thomasvlaskampiii6850]

We still use IBM thinkpads at work. They've got 7 on them and they run just fine. I don't know how well the battery works in them because they are never unplugged

[@ParticleSWE]

The guy who sold you the laptop purposely sabotaged the H-key to make you say it and feel the need to clarify your pronunciation 😜 And as always, love the vid Vince! Keep it up ❤️

[@ethun69]

Im loving the new intros, it kinda shows how his editing skills are getting better :)

[@rbuschy]

Watching you fight with that HDD was rough to watch. But I was impressed with the key switch. Most people would just replace the entire keyboard. The Nub - re/blue dot do come with different sized Squares on the bottom btw. Also, you prolly could get away running win 7. Just install the XP or 2k drivers if you have them. - I have worked with many Thinkpads in my day. They were business machines and therefore great for number crunching applications. These things outperformed my PC of the day, even tho my PC had way better stats

[@MrKillswitch88]

The T42 really isn't suited for 7 due to the age of the machine and xp runs just right, used to collect Thinkpads before moving on to higher end Dells that are more favorable for gaming and are more serviceable.

[@Maxetto]

To fix the certificates for XP make sure you have the correct date & time and if it doesn't fix, you have to update the root certificates with a tool called "rootsupd.exe", after a reboot every website loads fine. Also you can download Chrome fine from Internet Explorer. I would rather install Lubuntu on that laptop, sure better than Windows 7 which is still outdated but it's way more hungry on that old computer. EDIT: Another useful thing if you plan to keep it with XP is changing the Update repository to PosReady 2009, which has been updated until April 2019.

[@dodgydruid]

Did not Mrs Vince have any nail varnish remover? That is acetone and dissolves superglue a treat but... it will also eat plastics quite quickly too if allowed to settle.

[@saulns7159]

Certs can be fixed by updating time and date, and replacing cmos battey. So the change sticks. There are browsers made specially for this problem. They spoof the browser so the we site doesn’t reject. I’m sure a quick search will bring right up. Good day!

[@macaquinho6391]

Oh well, -36 minutes and -58 seconds of sleep ahead

[@abesmith8642]

they are nice laptops i have two of the x230 lenovo laptops and they are very easy to work on and built to last

[@countzero1136]

The pink/orange tint on the screen is indicative that the CCFL backlight tube)s) are failing. Eventually they will die altogether but if the tint disappears after a few minutes and the backlight stays on, then it'll probably be OK for a bit. Replacing the tubes IS possible but a lot of work and that's assuming you could even get hold of the spares. Replacing the whole screen is the usual fix for this but it'll probably be ok for now as it is.

[@martincoufalik9101]

I want to buy one and try to fit more "modern" hw to it. I have one spare MB with i5 430m, 4gig of ram and radeon 5650m. It will be pain but also best laptop ever...even with that old HW.

[@mattscomp]

They really don't build them like they used to! These are a classic machine..hopefully someone will appreciate this one.

[@markg3506]

The orange glow of the display is because of wear of the CCFL (which is used for the backlight). When old and nearly worn, they turn redish.

[@kasumi1245]

That bioshock metal case 😍😍

[@reggiedixon2]

It is so easy to get sucked into the "if I upgraded this bit then it will run OK" , the snag being that the software and hardware people only exist by making sure that old hardware is unusable.

[@danilko1]

Sometime in the late Aughts, I came across a number of IBM ThinkPad T42s, in eWaste. Not one for letting a working laptop go, I snagged some and refurbished them for a private language school my kids were going to. I would say these are not all that remarkable, but build pretty robustly. Lenovo had already purchased the brand by that time. They are long gone by now. For Windows XP, there are is an open sourced Mozilla base browser which has updated TLS and root certs that allow for browsing but is are build on an older version of Firefox. Security wise, like you said, this laptop and Windows XP should remain only for historic sake. It is at high risk of being exploited out in the wild. Any gaming should be non-web based, however I doubt it would be a good gaming machine - even in it's production years. It's a business machine, so it's focus would be Microsoft Office XP/2003/2007, Adobe CS2/3. I bet, instead of Windows, you might try Linux - Ubuntu/Fedora. As a spare machine there's plenty of interesting Linux discoveries out there for you, and you would have access to newer web browser technology. Also now that Microsoft has been embracing open source, I doubt you would miss all of that anyway. You can get .Net Core, and PowerShell for Linux even MS Office will run, with Outlook, and MS Edge Chromium. You would feel like you are working with more of today's software, just not gaming.

[@auqustfire]

It's funny you say it's not a good gaming PC, bc the most used keys looked to be WASD, E, R, C, and Shift, lmaoooo. They must have been playing Elder Scrolls Arena or something.

[@joeatron3222]

In my experience Linux does not run well on old Pentium 4 base computers so if you have an OS that works better than windows xp or 7 than please tell me as I have some without an OS yet and so I can try it out.

[@danilko1]

@@auqustfire That is an interesting observation. I am sure it could play flash games. There are games, and then there are games. I suppose it could play Doom, Castle Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem - options are limited. It's a betweener, not quite a retro gaming system, and not quite a gaming system of its own time. Maybe it would work with WoW Classic, or Star Craft. I did like those games. Okay I take my words back, but it's what you make out of it.

[@TorontoPopulistConservative]

I'm thinking the black screws go into the bottom of the hard drive through the caddy and the two silver ones hold the black plastic piece by screwing into the side. Btw acetone is good at melting super glue

[@d.d.m2208]

That pxe boot rom screen thing is also called network boot so the laptop in the earlier was trying to boot using files that it could have found in the network. And it also requires an ethernet cable. Also connecting a windows xp computer to the modern internet isnt a good idea as xp hasn't had an update since 2014.

[@gregpeterson1529]

Well done, install a Linux os and you'll have a usable machine. Thanks for the video.

[@memeboi8472]

I recently installed Ubuntu and themed it like macOS and it’s beautiful. Dual booting it and windows 10

[@aditiartandcraftandgamer4852]

😭😭😭😭

[@sleora]

Cool, I have a T42 too. Now if I have a problem, I know how to fix it. 🤣

[@Amadaeo]

You could also try going into the internet options in Internet explorer and resetting everything to default.

[@justinuptmor8532]

I love your videos I love your videos I love your

[@jumeme378]

You love his?

[@austinhartley3158]

Movies? Films? Screenplays?