Hello. Many of the older thinkpads were regarded as being peak for the ability to repair and easily see into them at both the hardware and software levels.
I was wondering, what PC, if any, is similar in this regard? Aside from building your own PC ofc. Any opinions are welcome. Thank you.
I don’t have a recommendation but I can point you to Gamers Nexus YouTube channel / website and filter on prebuilts to see reviews.
Big names like Dell HP and Lenovo are bad for ability to repair/upgrade. Although I do love buying their old servers because there are so many cheap ones on eBay.
have you ever tried using an vintage Tinkpad ?
I’ve used them but not personally owned one going back 30 years since before they were sold to Lenovo.
Thinkpad owner here, it’s kinda easy to upgrade and fix them, the motherboard is not welded to the case
The OP asked about desktops, not laptops. Why are you bringing up laptops?
He wants a Desktop that’s durable and as easy to repair as a Thinkpad.
Lenovo desktops are filled proprietary parts just like Dell and HP. (Power supply, custom atx motherboard, non standard motherboard mounting)
Nowhere did OP say anything about a desktop. I thought they meant “what’s the current laptop equivalent to a Thinkpad back in the day?” If they meant a desktop, they should have used the word desktop. “PC” is not exactly specific.
He is very clear from the context that he means desktop PC.
"I was wondering, what PC, if any, is similar in this regard? Aside from building your own PC ofc. "
You don’t “build your own” laptop.
All respect to Steve, but in this regard he’s wrong - the parts might be proprietary in a lot of regards, but these machines are repairable af, they’re just not aimed at the average consumer. Local site support will rock up to your desk and stick a new display adapter in for some extra monitors or take them away and swap out broken parts and have the same PC on your desk next day. Big enterprises buy these machines precisely because they’re repairable and upgradable and getting stock typically isn’t an issue.
That only applies to a large corporation with contracts.
If it’s not something that can go in a slot for Dell HP and Lenovo there is no upgrade. They aren’t going to swap an upgraded CPU because Dell doesn’t do official bios patches to upgrade old PC’s to cpus that come out later. Nor can you get a new motherboard dropped in an old Dell/HP/Lenovo chassis because of the power supply requirements/changes.
Edit: I couldn’t even put a modern GPU in my old Dell Xeon because the power supply didn’t put out the watts. I had to find a weird Dell to ATX converter cable off of eBay and Dremel the Dell case a little so the regular ATX would fit.
The name is Gamers Nexus, not Corporate IT Nexus.