Thinkpads Forum

Hey guys, long time lurker here, and I'm finally about to hack up my T60 and make it more interesting. I've already got a T61 FX570M motherboard and 2x4GB RAM kit in the mail, now it's time to get a processor for it. The specific SKUs I'm interested in are:

X9100
X9000

P9700
P9600

T9500
T9300

I've done my homework here, and I understand the hardware and firmware mods required to use the Montevina chips. If you have one of these that you're willing to sell, please PM me with your asking price and S-SPEC and we can work something out.

If you have any money left after buying the CPU, I highly recommend updating the T60 with an IPS UXGA LCD with LED-backlight!

I assume you already bought an SSD, since that will offer the biggest performance boost (over CPU or RAM).

RealBlackStuff wrote:If you have any money left after buying the CPU, I highly recommend updating the T60 with an IPS UXGA LCD with LED-backlight!

I've been debating the LED UXGA vs the QXGA panel. I don't suppose it's possible to have an LED-backlit QXGA display?

Radioguy wrote:I assume you already bought an SSD, since that will offer the biggest performance boost (over CPU or RAM).

Yeah, I've got my old X25-E in it. It's unfortunately hamstrung by the SATA-I bus at the moment.

It is possible to equip QXGA (or any) LCD with LED backlighting but this is not a trivial task by any means.

You should flash Middleton BIOS asap which removes the SATA1 cap and enables other features.

My UXGA panels have LED-backlight ex factory!

Raceboy wrote:It is possible to equip QXGA (or any) LCD with LED backlighting but this is not a trivial task by any means.

You should flash Middleton BIOS asap which removes the SATA1 cap and enables other features.

What's involved in an LED conversion of a CCFL-backlit LCD? Is it something I could do with a soldering iron and a steady hand or does it require specialized tools? I can't find any useful resources on the subject online.

I'll be flashing Middleton's BIOS on my T61 motherboard when it arrives, but my T60 motherboard lacks hardware support.

RealBlackStuff wrote:My UXGA panels have LED-backlight ex factory!

I've been strongly considering getting one of them, but my concern is that I would be better off getting a newer laptop with a similar display for the money I'm spending on this. I wanted to make something notable with this build, and so far I believe I have (I may well be the only T60/1 Frankenpad owner with a 256MB FX570M, not to mention the SLC SSD and Qualcomm Killer-N WiFi card), but in comparison to modern laptops, it's all fairly run-of-the-mill. The QXGA panel is the part that's really intriguing; so far ahead of it's time that it's still unmatched in the mobile market.

Unfortunately, it's so hard to find a source for the QXGA panel apart from the Ebay listing at $400, I'll probably give in and go with your LED-backlit UXGA panel.

This company has some LED conversion kits, but has a BIG BUT: their stuff can NOT adjust brightness, it's only one level!
http://www.lcdparts.net/XB_Laptop.aspx

lcdparts website wrote:Note: Dimming control, the XB LED converter is using an analog control, so if your original inverter is using a PWM control, you may not able to adjust brightness. For example, Dell & Lenovov/IBM are using a PWM control and Sony is using an analog control.

(My mod works over the full brightness range!)

Failure wrote: I've been strongly considering getting one of them, but my concern is that I would be better off getting a newer laptop with a similar display for the money I'm spending on this.

Newer laptop with a similar display? Good luck with that one...unless you're ready to shell out $2K for a top-shelf EliteBook, used.

I wanted to make something notable with this build, and so far I believe I have (I may well be the only T60/1 Frankenpad owner with a 256MB FX570M, not to mention the SLC SSD and Qualcomm Killer-N WiFi card), but in comparison to modern laptops, it's all fairly run-of-the-mill.

I believe that Raceboy is building a FrankenPad with FX570M...do bear in mind that the version used in 4:3 units was 128MB, and not 256MB.

What SSD do you have in there? My T601FL has the same wireless card as yours, BTW...

The QXGA panel is the part that's really intriguing; so far ahead of it's time that it's still unmatched in the mobile market.

I don't know. Having owned a T601F with a QXGA panel, I'll say that the LED-lit UXGA is much more usable as a daily driver. To each his/hers own, obviously.

The 15.4" T61p motherboard can technically fit in a 15" T60p body with a few frame modifications, I tried it for the hell of it. That would allow 256MB graphics.

But I didn't know 1066MHz FSB P9700 and P9600 CPUs can work in a 800MHz FSB T61 motherboard? Am I missing something here, what's required?

mr.motoring wrote:
But I didn't know 1066MHz FSB P9700 and P9600 CPUs can work in a 800MHz FSB T61 motherboard? Am I missing something here, what's required?

From what I recall, a pinmod.

RealBlackStuff wrote:This company has some LED conversion kits, but has a BIG BUT: their stuff can NOT adjust brightness, it's only one level!
http://www.lcdparts.net/XB_Laptop.aspx
(My mod works over the full brightness range!)

Interesting. I'll look more into this, but once again, I'm probably going to go with your UXGA panel. For all that I want something interesting, $300+ price difference is massive.

ajkula66 wrote: Newer laptop with a similar display? Good luck with that one...unless you're ready to shell out $2K for a top-shelf EliteBook, used.

I just ordered some Dells for work for $1200 apiece with 15" FHD IPS panels, and that's with a quad core CPU that uses less power than pretty much any of my C2D options.

I believe that Raceboy is building a FrankenPad with FX570M...do bear in mind that the version used in 4:3 units was 128MB, and not 256MB.

I'll be using a 16:10 15.4" motherboard, and mounting the SSD sideways in the Ultrabay.

What SSD do you have in there? My T601FL has the same wireless card as yours, BTW...

I've got my old X-25E 64GB in it. It's slow by today's standards, but it's enough to saturate SATA-II, and it continues to be one of the most consistent SSDs ever created, especially on writes. If you don't have access to SATA-III, it's pretty much the fastest there is. Small, though.

I don't know. Having owned a T601F with a QXGA panel, I'll say that the LED-lit UXGA is much more usable as a daily driver. To each his/hers own, obviously.

What did you dislike about it? The brightness? Poor DPI scaling? Or something about the panel itself, like contrast and color accuracy?

mr.motoring wrote: But I didn't know 1066MHz FSB P9700 and P9600 CPUs can work in a 800MHz FSB T61 motherboard? Am I missing something here, what's required?

Pinmod to make the CPU request the 800 MHz FSB (gives you the proper multiplier), and then a PLL hardmod to make the chipset provide the 1066 MHz FSB anyway (gives you the proper BCLK).

So can one use any 1066MHz Core 2 Duo CPU, including the T9900, in a T61 motherboard with these hardware mods?

mr.motoring wrote:So can one use any 1066MHz Core 2 Duo CPU, including the T9900, in a T61 motherboard with these hardware mods?

Yes, but no quad cores. I remember reading somewhere that they didn't work even after adding their microcode, so I'm not sure what the problem is or whether it can be worked around.

Failure wrote:
I just ordered some Dells for work for $1200 apiece with 15" FHD IPS panels, and that's with a quad core CPU that uses less power than pretty much any of my C2D options.

4700 or something along those lines I guess. I've seen them and they're OK but no more than that. The reason why I said HP is that DreamColor is the only LCD on the market that I'd consider better than this Hydis one.

I'll be using a 16:10 15.4" motherboard, and mounting the SSD sideways in the Ultrabay.

Didn't see that one coming. Got me there.

What did you dislike about it? The brightness? Poor DPI scaling? Or something about the panel itself, like contrast and color accuracy?

Colour accuracy is fine, as is the contrast. Its brightness leaves something to be desired even on the best-kept pieces and is probably my biggest complaint overall. But my eyes just can't get used to QXGA, my eyesight is way too damaged for that. That's why I said "to each his/hers own" although I'm generally more high-resolution-tolerant than most people I've met.

Failure wrote:What's involved in an LED conversion of a CCFL-backlit LCD? Is it something I could do with a soldering iron and a steady hand or does it require specialized tools?

This Chinese guy makes, sells and installs LED-conversion kits. His kit is presumably better than the one quoted above, in that it does not take up extra space (the LED driver board replaces the transformer coils on the existing inverter), and have adjustable brightness.
However, modding LCD panels is never a trivial task. Extreme care is required to disassemble the panel and replace the CCFL with an LED strip without breaking anything.

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=0.0 ... 7416220716
http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_6d7abe3d0100n0vt.html

Obviously you are one of only a handful of forum members that can read Chinese, thus having access to all these goodies.
My sister-in-law is Chinese, but she got a baby only a few weeks ago, so she has no interest (nor time) to translate any obscure websites for me.
And Google-translate either makes me puke or causes pain in my belly from laughing at their stupid mistakes.
It's a loose-loose situation...

Interesting thread, sounds like a nice system you have planned, but I'm not sure I like the idea of the 15.4" board, but if you got one with the updated gpu then I can understand why you'd want to go this route as trying to find a board that has a new (real) fx570m gpu installed on it is next to impossible. I was fortunate to get an NOS board (new, not a refurb) for my frankenpad, but it cost me more then most people would pay for a whole laptop... and of course it is 128mb not 256mb, but I don't think I'd be willing to give up my ultrabay to get some extra video ram.

One thing you might consider is if you use a 1.8" SSD drive with half an adapter (cut the back part off and some careful use of epoxy) it should be able to fit in the drive bay without the need to give up your ultrabay. Naturally the use of your ultrabay would be abnormal since the devices wouldn't fit properly, but you might be able to do something similar by cutting up an ultrabay hdd adapter so you can mount a non-removeable HDD in the ultrabay. This would require a good bit of cutting and fabrication, and some measurements would be needed to determine if it was even possible at all, but if so, you may get both an SSD and HDD installed, and without much more work then trying to fit a sideways ssd in the ultrabay.

As for the CPU mods, is it really worth the work/risk? A faster fsb speed isn't going to make a huge difference in performance and the T61 already supports some pretty good processors.

Thanks for the input, TuuS. I didn't really have a choice with the motherboard, I found working pull 8/08 board for $150. That's not the kind of deal one just turns down. For the Ultrabay, I don't really mind losing the optical drive, and if I need more capacity I'll just toss in another drive. I've got plenty of SSDs lying around, this one just happens to be the fastest in SATA-II mode.

And I don't really think the PLL mod is worth it (I'm much more comfortable soldering on a cheap breadboard than a motherboard worth hundreds of dollars), but there's no risk to the pinmod. It's as hard to find a pin combination with bad effects as it is to find one with good ones, and I'll have pretty pictures to guide me. If I manage to mess up the pin combination, chances are incredibly high that it just won't boot until I fix it.

So that's why I'm not really interested in the T9900. A P9600 or P9700 running at an 800 MHz FSB would be around 2 GHz, which I don't really have a problem with. They're low-voltage processors that I just made even more low voltage. A T9900 with an 800 MHz FSB, though, is just an expensive T8300.

That said, I'd still consider one if someone made a good offer.

The 1.8" SSD by itself would fit perfectly (barely), but that connection adapter makes it stick out, even if you cut off the back part. I already checked.

What would fit without the need for an adapter are these new half-height SSDs:
http://www.amazon.com/32Gb-Sata-2-5In-6 ... B0068QR5NA

$60 for a 32GB MLC SSD with an unspecified controller? I'd rather not.

Hey, I didn't say they were cheap , just that the half-height SSD form-factor would be a perfect fit for a widescreen mobo frankenpad.

Last chance before I get an X9100 off Ebay.