Thanks for the replies. I had a time constraint, so I did end up ordering one from Ebay a few days ago.

Need not be new, but should hold 50% of its original charge. Does need to be a real Lenovo battery though - I had a bad experience with a knockoff.

Found one

Title says it all - there are a few of these on eBay, but I think people here are more likely to understand what they're selling.

One of the cells got uncomfortably hot to the touch the second time I charged it. If anything like that happened inside the battery, it seems reasonable that a protection circuit would conclude the cell is no longer safe.

I tested all of the cells. The worst of them got to 4.1 volts when fully charged. All read right around 3.6 after 90 minutes in the flashlight. A known-good ~3000 mAh protected 18650 read a little over 3.6 volts after 115 minutes, so this seems pretty much in line with 2400-2600 mAh from the Thinkpa...

I suppose I could stick every cell in my flashlight and see if one of them fails to last at least 90 minutes. If they all pass, I might try to jump start the protection circuit, though I have no idea whether that works on batteries other than the T4x battery shown in the video.

The battery in my girlfriend's T400 diminished in capacity over time and eventually went completely dead. It provided zero runtime, and I could not measure any voltage with my multimeter. It's my understanding that the non-resettable protection circuit trips in the event one or more cells over-disch...

If this happens, I think it's a good idea to buy it even if it's not perfect. It seems like a test of whether listening to what loud, angry Thinkpad fans say they want is actually good for business. If we buy it, they might listen to us more. If we don't, they almost certainly will not.

It's about the same height as the screen. You'd have to make a cutout for the inverter and cover that with something.

This is my W500 base and lid (the hinges are broken) with the UXGA Flexview from my T61/T60p: http://i.imgur.com/EWy4fdR.jpg It's fully functional - boots Linux and runs fine. The inverter is behind rather than below the screen, and even so, the cable is a bit short. I think the only sane way to use...

The big problem lately with the T61/T60 is RAM. Newegg wants $170 for their cheapest pair of 4gb DDR2 SODIMMs. There was a time when it would have been $40. A 4:3 build using DDR3 would cut the memory cost in half, but it doesn't look like there's going to be a cheap/easy solution.

I had hoped a W700 cable would be an option, but the connectors for everything but LVDS are different.

This is pretty awesome. One problem I've noticed trying to do something related is that the W500's display cable seems a little short. Can you close the lid without putting tension on it?

I bought this for an experiment involving a W500 and have no other use for it. Not tested. Full refund if DOA.

After months of the only W700 video cables on ebay being in Australia and very expensive, one showed up close to home and reasonably priced. The W700 44C5388 video cable has different connectors for the motherboard, inverter, camera and bluetooth card than the W/T500 44C2011. The 30pin LVDS connecto...

Getting the thinnest, lightest, strongest results from composites requires careful analysis and heat-cured resins. Getting something that will work for a laptop frame and shell is entirely doable at home with no specialized tools.

One of the points of open source is to be able to use the hardware in situations where the manufacturer's proprietary drivers do not work. Achieving better performance than the manufacturer's drivers is not usually a major reason people write open source drivers.

Is it possible to determine the actual date of manufacture without taking the machine apart? There might be some way to look it up by serial number, but I don't know that. To make matters worse, I've read rumors of counterfeit post-8/08 Nvidia chips - older, possibly discarded parts with later date...

I'm making something awesome I don't want to reveal just yet. It requires connecting a longer display cable to a W500 motherboard. Does the W700's cable have the same connectors?

Both the T61p and W500 have an issue where the BIOS will not run the fan at its true maximum speed (around 5000 RPM) unless specifically directed to by software. See the Thinkwiki article on controlling fan speed for some suitable tools. Perhaps counterintuitively, the level called "disengaged" by t...

After looking at pictures of the correct motherboard (some wrong things come up in google image search), it seems there's a bit of an issue with making a chassis for this anybody would actually want to lug around. The motherboard is as wide as a W520. The T420 might be more appropriate, though the G...

I've had a growing interest in making stuff out of carbon fiber and related composites for a while now. I think a laptop chassis would be a great project. I don't have the funds to start on it right now, but soon. I'll probably drop the ultrabay to keep the dimensions reasonable. In keeping with cla...

I remember there being an LED-backlit version of the Hydis UXGA AFFS panel that someone here put in a T60/T61 hybrid. That actually seems like the best option. I suppose the remaining questions are: Assuming I make a connector that sends the right outputs to the right inputs, is LVDS standardized en...

I'm pretty sure screen blanking on lid close will both turn off the backlight and blank the image. If you run Linux or want to check that using a Linux boot disk, cat /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID/state to see whether the machine thinks the lid is open. There's probably also some way to tell on Windows,...

Aside from the fact that it would require a custom chassis, are there any barriers to this combination? I'm trying to figure out the highest spec motherboard that will work with everyone's favorite screen.

I didn't know about the Nook. Good to know.

I was just listing devices I'm aware of that are bigger than smartphones and currently in production. I figured it might be a good starting point for anyone wanting to source newly manufactured panels.

Current fullscreen LCDs I know about:

• 13.1" 4:3 1024x768 - Panasonic Toughbook 31
• 10" 4:3 2048x1536 - Apple iPad
• 7.9" 4:3 1024x768 - Apple iPad mini
• 12.85" 3:2 2650x1700 - Google Pixel
• 7.5" 4:3 1200x900 - OLPC XO

It's my impression that the Z61t is the thin/light 14" model. I had a 15" Z61m with the titanium lid.

I've had the thought of building my own in the back of my head for a while. I don't think I'll be content with anything commercially available when my current T61/T60p frankenpad can't keep up anymore. It's not terribly difficult to make things out of composites like carbon fiber or carbon/kevlar. I...

I don't think it's that anybody has trouble understanding or accepting the advice that frequently heat-cycling computer components reduces their longevity. The trouble is that people who own folding, battery-powered personal computers usually want to take them places, and it's impractical to do that...