Thinkpads Forum

So I am about to replace the bottom plastic of my T61 because its pritty scratched up!
I found this great deal (compared to the others) for a new bottom base on ebay!
Will it fit my T61 14.1" Widescreen T61 with nvidia GPU?
I couldnt find anything online!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-IBM-T61-Thi ... 589335d351

Thanks for helping me out!

Based on the image, and it claims it is actual item of photo,

It looks like it has a slot for SD_Card opening in the front. So most likely it is for a 15.4" inch base, and might not work for 14.1" widescreen.

Looks like a 14" wide screen base to me.

Guess I can't quite make out the SD slot in the front myself, but I have seen plenty of T61 wide screens with a SD card slot over on the left side in the PCMCIA slot, so not sure why they would also have a slot in the front.....

Looks like a 14.1 wide to me too. See the "bubble" area in the upper right corner? I have only seen that on 14.1 wide T61 and T400's. Also look at the screw hole for the HDD cover. In the other models, the threads are not in the bottom cover. I can only say it is either a t61 14.1 wide or a t400. I'm sure someone else has a sharper eye for the differences between these two models.

its a pain in the butt.....to me the 3 things in the front look like the firewire, - Wireless switch and Audio port plastic pices.

In the image, the right side

First one is fire wire
Second on left of it is flat , that is for the wireless switch

The third one , also is flat. In my 14.1" wide T61, the width of this is same is a wireless switch protrusion / slot , but it has two curves to accommodate the shape of the red and green ( mic and ear phone plug in socket ). Which I see as flat in the image here, I will take my palmrest out and see if this flat on the base plastic and let you know.

Checked it, unfortunately the black piece is part of the base. The part of sockets + motherboard is a different blank color and inside the roll cage.

If the 3rd slot is flat then it is definitely not 14.1" widescreen. Perhaps TuuS who has rebuilt T61 systems can verify, if he has any open machines.

Tried to zoom in on the image, may be it has the curves for audio ports. Hard to tell from that image, can the seller talk to you on phone / give you a better image.

42X3856 is for Type 7663 ( which is 14.1" wide screen ) per this http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail. ... MIGR-67911

According to this " http://www.sparepartswarehouse.com/IBM- ... N4040.aspx ", they both seem to be compatible/ substitute parts.

So you may be ok !

Keep in mind that even if you successfully transfer your 08/08 label, the fact that the base was changed will look suspicious if you were to sell it. Re-attached serial numbers on rare machines detract from the value more then scratches in most cases. Besides, anyone who gets stressed out over scratches on the bottom of a laptop (meaning buyers, not owners) needs to get a life in my opinion, but if making it as perfect as possible pleases you, then by all means proceed.


ps. That's definitely a 14.1wide, not a 15.4.

and on that note, does anyone know what the repair depot does about those stickers if you were to send in a unit under warranty and you get a new bottom panel? I'm thinking they just reprint a new serial # sticker, but what do they do about the COA sticker for the new bottom panel? How do they transfer that over? Because that sticker was not meant to be peeled off and re-stuck somewhere....Anyone?

The depot peeled and stuck on the new base in my case. They didnot print any new serial number. The COA was also hanging, they tried to stick a tape.

TuuS wrote:Keep in mind that even if you successfully transfer your 08/08 label, the fact that the base was changed will look suspicious if you were to sell it. Re-attached serial numbers on rare machines detract from the value more then scratches in most cases. Besides, anyone who gets stressed out over scratches on the bottom of a laptop (meaning buyers, not owners) needs to get a life in my opinion, but if making it as perfect as possible pleases you, then by all means proceed.

One should never go by a base and sticker number on it !. What if a perfect 08/08 base has a motherboard inside which was rebuilt?. It is not difficult to change the serial number to match the base and show up in bios. The only clean way of doing it is, actually removing the fan and seeing the numbers of the nvidia chip. A suspicious changed base is not a fool proof method.

rssb wrote:

One should never go by a base and sticker number on it !. What if a perfect 08/08 base has a motherboard inside which was rebuilt?. It is not difficult to change the serial number to match the base and show up in bios. The only clean way of doing it is, actually removing the fan and seeing the numbers of the nvidia chip. A suspicious changed base is not a fool proof method.

The numbers on the chip aren't conclusive either. Ideally you want the original lable and matching number board. Checking the chip can confirm the board was or wasn't warrantied.

According to the HMM, there is a logfile kept in the bios recording any changes to serial numbers. I'm not sure how to check it, but it should be possible.


ps. another thing you have to be careful about is lenovo refurbished units. A unit refurbished in august 2008 will carry that date, but no telling when it was originally manufactured. It could have been sold and return months before, or could have been pulled off the line and repaired the same day. A couple I saw that were refurbs had a 6 digit date code instead of 4. The model was also changed form CTO to CTR (Configure To order Refurb).

Thanks for all the replys!!!
I also found this one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-IBM-Lenovo- ... 3f14ad24b4
Does anybody know what that sticker and those 2 plastic pices are???

If you are referring to the red and white sticker at the bottom center of the photo, then that's the factory tape which is used to seal the box. As far as the two plastic pieces, I would guess that they are the docking port covers.

Those 2 plastic (looking) pieces are what comprise of the pcmcia/card reader door, or cover rather. I believe if you have a 4-in-1 (or 7-in-1) card reader are when these are needed, but I may be wrong on that. Only one of these would be used though.

If you need to use these, they go down first and attach to the bottom panel and actually go under that white stripe (of tape) that you see. That white strip you see in the picture is backing to tape, so you would need to remove that when you put these parts into place. Then your actual PCMCIA cover/door goes on, or attaches, next.

Whatever these are though, you would just use what is on your existing bottom panel I would think as those for sure would be the parts you would need.

They are not part of the docking station ports.

Easy Wind wrote:Those 2 plastic (looking) pieces are what comprise of the pcmcia/card reader door, or cover rather. I believe if you have a 4-in-1 (or 7-in-1) card reader are when these are needed, but I may be wrong on that. Only one of these would be used though.

If you need to use these, they go down first and attach to the bottom panel and actually go under that white stripe (of tape) that you see. That white strip you see in the picture is backing to tape, so you would need to remove that when you put these parts into place. Then your actual PCMCIA cover/door goes on, or attaches, next.

Whatever these are though, you would just use what is on your existing bottom panel I would think as those for sure would be the parts you would need.

They are not part of the docking station ports.

I see!
Is there a picture where you could highlight that for me please?

you are in luck (if you still need this info) - pictures (if you can make out what you are looking at)

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/713/imag0085d.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/29/imag0086nj.jpg/

So those 2 smaller pieces in that picture you linked to are for the door cover. They (Lenovo) typically send out 2 of them because they don't know which one you'll need. Again, this same part would be on your existing bottom panel and should be able to be re-used