Re-badging a ThinkPad A31p

3 years ago by Dr. Wesker to c/retrocomputing

I've been slowly restoring this IBM ThinkPad A31p to its former glory. I've also been doing a few upgrades along the way: (P4 2.4Ghz, mSATA to IDE adapter, Wireless-N card, etc.)

One of the few, final cosmetic touch ups left was to replace the worn out Pentium badge. I managed to source a reproduction badge that looks accurate, so I thought I'd share the before and after.

Before

After

I think it turned out pretty well!

EDIT: compressed the images a bit.

unix_joe 4 points 3 years ago

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wesker 3 points 3 years ago

This is my very first ThinkPad ever. I always drooled over these early 00s models at the local electronics shop, but I was just a poor highschooler then.

It's currently a very overpowered Win98 machine, while I get some late 90s gaming out of my system. Then I might blast to another part of my past, and install Linux-Mandrake on it for a while.

I got the badge from some Hong Kong seller on ebay, who has an excellent and spot on selection of old PC stickers.

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unix_joe 2 points 3 years ago

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wesker 2 points 3 years ago

So, I knew I wanted an A31. But it was ajkula66's forum posts that really convinced me to look for an A31p. It definitely took some time watching auctions like a hawk to find one, let alone one in decent condition.

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cfenollosa 3 points 3 years ago

What a beauty!

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gsdf 2 points 3 years ago

Nice work, that looks great!

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cognitivegears 2 points 3 years ago

Very nice work! Do you happen to have a link to where you found this? An archive of old stickers would be fantastic to hold onto.

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wesker 2 points 3 years ago

This is the eBay seller. Has a pretty great selection. Prices are ehh, but they are of surprisingly great quality. Shipping is from China, so it took a couple weeks to arrive.

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dekkzz76 1 point 3 years ago

@wesker

what screen res is the a31p?

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wesker 2 points 3 years ago

Surprisingly, it's an IPS screen with a 1600x1200 res.

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