# My 2015 ThinkPad setup is still going strong, show me yours Source: https://forum.geekwithlaptop.com/thread/my-2015-thinkpad-setup-is-still-going-strong-show-me-yours/ Site: Geek With Laptop Forum, category Setups and show and tell Published: 2026-10-23. Updated: 2026-10-24. Replies: 7. ## Question by Owen P., 2026-10-23 Thought I would start a show and tell, since this forum is mostly people with problems, and I would like to hear about the machines that quietly refuse to die. Mine is a ThinkPad T450 from 2015 that I bought as a spare during a refurb run and never sold. It now has 16 GB of RAM, an SSD that replaced the original spinning drive, and a fresh install of Linux Mint. The keyboard is the old style with the red nub, and it is still the best typing surface I own. I replaced the internal battery once and I keep a second one that I swap in by hand, because that model still has a removable pack. That alone is why I keep it around. What it does: email, spreadsheets, a terminal, and a lot of PDF reading. What it does not do: video calls on a bad day, anything with a heavy browser tab count. The screen is a plain low resolution panel and I have stopped caring. Tell me about your oldest machine that is still in daily use, what you changed to keep it alive, and what finally pushes you toward replacing it. ## Reply 1 by Dmitri, 2026-10-23 Thinkpad T430 here, 2012. The only part that is original is the case. Everything else has been swapped at least once, and it runs a minimal Debian install that boots in less time than my phone takes to unlock. My complaint is Wi-Fi: the older card does not like newer routers, and I eventually swapped that for a modern card. The thing that will kill it is not the hardware, it is browsers asking for more memory every year. Check your tab count before blaming the machine. ## Reply 2 by Beth A., 2026-10-23 I am a retired teacher and my laptop is a 2014 Windows machine my son gave me. It does email, photos and a few video chats with the grandchildren. I have never done anything to it except accept the updates. It is slow to start in the morning, so I make a cup of tea while it wakes up. Is that a sign something is wrong, or is that just what old laptops do? ## Reply 3 by Raul M., 2026-10-23 Beth, a slow start on a 2014 machine usually means a mechanical hard drive, a lot of programs launching at startup, or both. It is a fixable thing, not a disaster. If you want, start a thread with the exact make and model and we can go through it. Owen, good setup. One tip for the removable battery: if you leave the laptop on mains for months at a time, check the spare is not sitting at full charge in a drawer. Store it around half full, and check it every few months. See the [plugged-in thread](/thread/is-it-bad-to-leave-a-laptop-plugged-in-all-the-time/) for the longer version. ## Reply 4 by Tyler B., 2026-10-23 Respectfully, a 2015 laptop is e-waste. No modern game will run on it and a Linux install is just a way to keep a corpse walking. Take the RAM and SSD out and put them in something that can use them. You are wasting a good SSD. ## Reply 5 by Kenji W., 2026-10-23 I use a hand-me-down laptop from 2016 because a student budget does not stretch to anything else, and honestly it does everything I need for classes. Writing, slides, library databases. Owen, how do you handle the Wi-Fi on that ThinkPad? Mine drops when more than a couple of devices share the router in the dorm. ## Reply 6 by Owen P., 2026-10-23 @Kenji W. on the T450 I just use the stock card with a current driver, and I put the laptop on the 5 GHz network when the signal is good. If yours drops with many devices on one router, test it with a phone hotspot first. If the hotspot is stable, the router is the problem, not your laptop. There is a longer troubleshooting list in the [Wi-Fi thread](/thread/why-does-my-laptop-keep-disconnecting-from-wi-fi/). ## Reply 7 by Dmitri, 2026-10-24 @Tyler B. the SSD is doing exactly what an SSD is for. A machine that boots fast and runs for a decade is not a corpse, it is cheap computing. Also, I have yet to see a game that needs a ThinkPad. --- Cite as: Geek With Laptop Forum, "My 2015 ThinkPad setup is still going strong, show me yours", https://forum.geekwithlaptop.com/thread/my-2015-thinkpad-setup-is-still-going-strong-show-me-yours/, accessed 2026-11-10.