My ThunkPad

My ThunkPad - Linux removes overthinking!

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The Creed

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This is my ThinkPad. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My ThinkPad is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my ThinkPad is useless. Without my ThinkPad, I am useless. My ThinkPad is as human, even as I [am human], because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against damage. I will keep my ThinkPad clean and ready. We will become part of each other.

Am I Right?

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It may seem silly altering the rifleman’s creed as an oath to a laptop, but if you stand back and think how war is shaped in the 2020’s, It’s no more as silly than a man paying fidelity to a gun. So without further ado, here is how have I added some much need lovin’ to my ThinkPad?

Grade A Battery

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Fixing Internal Wounds

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When I first got my ThinkPad T480, I performed a little “open-heart surgery” on my ‘brother’ to replace the internal battery. It was a surprisingly smooth operation—just a couple of screws and a tiny wiring loom standing between me and glory. The real highlight, though, was the kit: it came with its own precision screwdriver and pry tool, making me feel like a specialist installing legendary-tier weapon mods.

Extended Mag

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I added large capacity 6600mah external battery. The combination of 2 new battries keeps me running on juice all day. I only need to plug-in after a bit of image editing, or other intensive tasks. The majority of my work is in the command line.

More Intel

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I also upgraded the 8gig of ram to 16gig. Doubling my draw.. erm, I mean startup speed! I was lucky that I could find a cheap stick of DDR4 SODIMM 2133Mhz 260-pin memory to do this, because we all know the insane prices memory is fetching now.

Royaly Good Signals

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I also replaced the wifi card with the Intel AX210 (Wi-Fi 6E). It is widely considered the best Wi-Fi card upgrade for the Lenovo ThinkPad T480, offering Wi-Fi 6E support, Bluetooth 5.2+, and 6GHz band access. This improves the range of my barrel.. I mean connection..

Future Proof Concept

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Glass Cannon

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This is my version of a NGSW (Next Generation Squad Weapon), so as such I want to make a few upgrades to this well designed machine.
First is install the Glass Trackpad: Many T480 veterans swap the stock Mylar trackpad for the glass version from the ThinkPad X1 Extreme (Gen 1). It fits perfectly and transforms the “feel” from plastic to full metal jacket!

Smoking Gun

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Secondly is a dual Pipe Heatsink: If you find your “barrel” is running hot during intensive sessions, you can install the dual-pipe heatsink (originally meant for the dGPU models) to significantly lower temperatures on your integrated graphics setup, creating a battlefield ready low heat signature buddy, fit for the modern digital frontier.

No More Boot Camp

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Finally the Passing-Out Parade, I’ve installed my OS of choice: Kubuntu. Unlike many Linux users, I don’t like distro hopping. Just as a rifleman learns to assemble their weapon blindfolded, I want to learn my machine inside out!