Restoring laptop for 2022 > Buying new laptop

Intro

Been a while since I’ve had this thing, bought it all the way back in 2017 when I was getting ready to go to uni in Melbourne. Was gonna take computer science, so was thinking a thinkpad would be fitting for that role. Here are some of the things I want to do to it:

• Hardware
  • New battery
  • New SSD
  • Replace thermal paste
• Software
  • Dualboot Linux
  • GNU GRUB Themes
  • Custom boot logo
  • Ubuntu issues
    • Trackpad gestures
    • Fingerprint scanner
    • Re-making macros (arrow keys layer, CTRL CAPS swap, etc.)
    • Japanese IME with ANSI keyboard

Hardware

New Battery

After about 5 years of use, the battery went down from its original capacity of 57MwH –> ~21MwH. This meant that the battery life went from about 7+ hours to barely 2 hours! Surprised I didn’t even realize how bad it was, I suppose the change was too gradual for me to notice until I ran a

powercfg /batteryreport

After some time searching for a replacement (and after dodging a shady site in Japan), my battery arrived from Amazon in about 3 days time.

Replacement was fairly straight forward, really makes me glad I own a thinkpad where I can do things like this without a heat gun. After replacement the battery now registers back to 57MwH and lasts up to 8+ hours again!

To make sure it lasts longer however, I followed this guide to set up Throttlestop on my laptop. Hopefully this makes it last longer, though I don’t know for sure since the increase I got from replacing the battery eclipses any gains Throttlestop might have given.

New SSD

This was probably the catalyst as to why I wanted to start upgrading my laptop in the first place. During a meeting that I had with an important representative in my univeristy, my chrome suddenly froze and I wasn’t able to show them the thing I wanted to present and we ended up having to continue it by email later on in the day. “Ok I’ve had enough” I said to myself, and started to compare SSD prices in Japan.

(工事中)

New Thermal Paste

(工事中)