Upgrade the T60

[sktn77a]

OK, so I decided that my T60 (1952-AS2) with intel graphics is going to stay. I'm going to put in a 7200rpm 360Gb HDD, 3Gb RAM, and upgrade the CPU. It currently has a 1.8GHz core duo (not a core 2 duo). What's the fastest CPU I can put in there (I'm guessing they would be pretty reasonable right now)?

Thanks

[Neil]

Not sure if it's the fastest, but I've read of others who have put a T7600 in their T60. Probably the T7200 would be a more reasonable upgrade though.

[sktn77a]

Thanks Neil. Yes, the T7600 (2.33GHz, 4Mb cache) is a possibility. They run about $100. Alternatives are the T7400 (2.16GHz, 4Mb cache) at about $60 or the T2600 (2.16GHz, 2Mb cache) for about $30.00. I currently have the T2400 (1.83GHz, 2Mb cache) and my experience in the past has been that you need a bigger increase in speed and/or abigger cache to make a noticeable difference.

I guess my question is: Has anybody switched out for a 2.16 GHz with or without the larger cache and seen a significant difference?

[underclocker]

The Core 2 Duos (T5500, T5600, T7200, T7400 & T7600) not only support 64-bit OS's, but were also considerably faster than Core Duos (T2300, T2400, T2500, T2600 & T2700) at the same clock speed. They also ran cooler.

I'd stick to the Core 2 Duos for upgrades. The T7200's are a very good value (sub-$40). The T7600's have been in the $100 range for a long time.

[ZaZ]

I would just mention for typical usage, the hard drive speed will be a more noticeable difference. Perhaps a small SSD in the main bay as a boot drive and a hard drive in the modular caddy for storage might be worth consideration. The SXGA+ LCD is worth considering too.

[ajkula66]

In my book, T7200 is the best value for the money right now. Once the time comes to upgrade my boys' R60F(rankenPad) from its current T2500, that's the CPU I'll be looking for...

[Backslashnl1]

You should only look for a T7200/T7400/T7600 CPU, not the T5500/T5600 series, they only have 2MB cache so it will be a very small upgrade.

I strongly advise you to consider a SSD instead of a harddrive, this will feel like a bigger performance increase than a T7600. It will feel like you upgraded to a 3Ghz CPU

[Johan]

OK, so I decided that my T60 (1952-AS2) with intel graphics is going to stay. I'm going to put in a 7200rpm 360Gb HDD, 3Gb RAM, and upgrade the CPU. It currently has a 1.8GHz core duo (not a core 2 duo). What's the fastest CPU I can put in there (I'm guessing they would be pretty reasonable right now)?

Keith: Your T60 T60 (1952-AS2) has the following (stock) configuration:

ThinkPad T60 (1952-AS2)
Based on 1952-43U: T2400(1.83GHz), 2GB RAM, 60GB 5400rpm HD, 14.1in 1024x768 LCD, Intel 950, CDRW/DVD, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, 6c Li-Ion batt, WinXP Pro

... and the CPU hence being the Core Duo T2400. I agree with the other posters in this thread that you will certainly benefit most from upgrading the (slow!) mechanical harddrive to a (fast!) SSD... any 2.5" SATA-I SSD will work (as T60's will not support SATA-II or SATA-III speeds, you won't benefit anything in speed from getting an e.g. SATA-III SSD, but newer SATA-II and SATA-III drives are of course prefereed over the old SATA-I SSD's because of improved reliability, lower price, longer warranty etc.).

If you also upgrade your OS from XP (which I assume you are using now?) to Windows 7 you will have even better performance (especially if using a SSD which support TRIM, such as e.g. the Intel 320-series, which comes with an impressive, industry-leading five-year warranty). In this relation, notice that Microsoft will terminate Win XP SP3 support on April 8, 2014. If, however, you need the vast space (360 GB), then a mechanical HDD is obviously far cheaper... but if you put a small SSD in the main HDD bay, holding the OS and your programs, and a huge mechanical HDD in the UltraBay, then you would end up with a fast laptop with vast storage (you would obviously in such case sacrifice the built-in CD/DVD-reader/writer capability).

I suggest you see the thread Need advice on CPU upgrade for T60 2623-D6U and in particular this post and the threads linked to therein for information about the actual benefit from upgrading a CPU. Faster CPU's will obviously consume more power which will make your fan run more often, and which will also drain your battery faster... Notice that (as far as I have read) a CPU upgrade wil require your motherboard to be Rev. 3 - use the free program CPU-Z to check this before buying parts.

The bottom question for me would me: What do you actually seek to accomplish by your planned upgrade; I mean what tasks is the laptop intended for, and when/where would you benefit from a faster CPU rather than a faster "harddrive"? How large built-in storage is needed... perhaps you have access to large, external storage at home, and need not carry around with a, say, 320 GB storage capacity?

Johan

[spuddog]

I have a t60, I believe it is the same model. I have done the following upgrades in this order.
1. switched fro t2400 to t7200
2. went from xp to win7 pro x64
2a. 4gb (2 x 2) ram from 1gb (512 x 2) Actually at the same time with the os.
4. switched to ssd drive

Of the changes I made the cpu was the least noticeable, but I needed to do it for the other changes. The biggest difference was from a standard hard drive to ssd.

Scott

[thorcik]

I've swapped my t2400 to a t7200 and installed win7 64-bit. Now I can't boot, safe mode freezes on drive.sys. tried boot repair from dvd but it didn't help. And I couldn't run "sfc /scannow" as I was prompted to reboot first.
Well, if reinstalling won't help I shall switch back to 32-bit.

edit: strange, it has just booted fine.

OK, I'm completely dumb - I reset BIOS to factory defaults after changing CPU and didn't think about security chip being turned on again. T60:me 1:0