Thinkpad E480 & E490: 32GB, nvme+SATA
E14 Gen 1: 16GB, nvme+SATA
E14 Gen 2: 32GB, nvme 2242+2280
E14 Gen 3: same as gen 2
Newer models actually get *worse* for the dual redundant disk LN node use case because 2242 nvme drives cost a lot more than common 2280 nvme or 2.5" SATA drives.
E580 is the same motherboard as E480, all the above applies to the 15 inch E series.
price ranges youve noticed?
these are ideas for running LN node or homeservers?
I’m becoming an old Thinkpad maxi. T440p with Coreboot and me_cleaner upgraded with i7 4700mq, 16gb ram, IPS screen, Synaptics 450 touchpad and US keyboard with backlight, 1TB SSD and 500GB nvme m.2. Put your Linux OS of choice on that and it runs fine for most daily daily tasks and the whole thing can be done for 500USD or so.
I have a T440p. How difficult is it to to flash to me_cleaner and coreboot?
Hardest thing was getting to the ROM chips really as it’s a challenge to open up the Thinkpad to get to the mother board (not to mention putting it back together again) Another challenge was getting a programmer. The CH341a devices on Amazon are all 5v even though they are advertised as configurable to 3.3v. So I ended up using a spare raspi 4B I had with a Pomona clip. (SOIC8 — a little pricey. You can get the CH341a on Alibaba with the correct 3.3v output if you can wait. You’ll still need a clip wit it but you can get a set for 20usd or less. It’s the green one you need not the black/yellow one on Amazon. Or you can risk 5v with your board but I have heard that can cause problems. There is a trick you can do with soldering to “fix” it to 3.3v but would recommend just buying the right kit from the start)
Once you’ve got the clip/programmer and opened up to bios chips the rest is fairly straight forward by following this guide:
T440p unofficial installation guide
https://blog.0xcb.dev/lenovo-t440p-coreboot/
Also nobody tells you how to set up the pins for the Pi but I managed to work it out referencing the below guide:
(not for Coreboot but it works)
Pin guide for Pi programmer
https://www.miito.dev/posts/T440p-Wifi-Whitelist-Removal
It’s definitely been worth it. This guide neutralizes the ME by setting some disabling bit but it does not remove it and reclaim the ROM space. It still shows up in lspci but I confirmed errors related to ME in dmesg output so pretty confident it’s neutralized.
More than anything it’s great running Coreboot which is fast as hell.
This is literally the first and only thing I look at when buying a laptop: appropriate dual NVME.
