Frankenpad

[twoface262]

Hello, I have a T60 that I just recently put a T60p 2008-CTO motherboard in. Unfortinately I've been unable to find a difference between the two since I put in my processor,heatsink, wifi card, and hard drive, plastics, covers, and screen. Both motherboards have the crappy ATI Radeon X1300 on them (I got the T60p's motherboard from someone on ebay who promissed the FireGL graphics chip -.-"). Anyways, can you guys please tell me if there are some kind of special features on the T60p's that the T60's cannot do? Or should I go ahead and spend another 4 hours tearing my pc apart to take out the T60p's motherboard and send it back for a refund?


Thanks!

Edit: I did notice that both graphics chips looked different. Is there a reason for this? or just because the motherboards are different?

[ajkula66]

Welcome to the forum!

Any T60p motherboard should have a V5200 or V5250 GPU.

That's the only relevant and visible difference.

Return the board...

[twoface262]

I'm not sure if I want to take my laptop apart again just to get $40 back lol
It was a HUGE pain to take apart in the first place. I kinda like the thought of even having a Frankenpad. Even thought it really is no difference then what it was. Just a $40 mod

[RealBlackStuff]

Yours is not a Frankenpad, just a laptop with another motherboard from the same series, which includes all of these GPU: integrated Intel, ATI X1300, ATI X1400 and ATI FireGL V5200 or V5250.
A 'real' Frankenpads consists of parts from different Thinkpad series, such as a T61 motherboard in a T60 chassis, or an R51 motherboard in a T40 chassis, etc.

[Neil]

Just curious...What made you decide it's not a T60p board? What is the board part number, or what are the first 7 characters of the system serial number now shown in the BIOS?

[Backslashnl1]

A T60p board contains a Ati FireGL V5200 /V5250 videocard.

[twoface262]

I don't understant. I ran Lenovo's auto detect for my motherboard and it came up as a T60p 2008-CTO, the bottom casing that I got the motherboard from has the same thing on it. I did have a modded Radeon driver installed for my previus video chip. Is it possible that the driver is mistaking the Firegl chip for the Radeon one?

[TuuS]

Look in device manager and see what is listed, if it says ati fireGL 5200 or 5250, then you got what you paid for.

[twoface262]

Well, Device manager goes off of what the driver is. And it says "ATI Radeon X1300". I'm starting to think that because it's a Configure To Order (CTO) Model. The person who customized it was cheap and put in the Radeon? Or could it be my modded driver? I've tried uninstalling the driver but seconds later it would reinstall through windows' thingy.

[RealBlackStuff]

Whomever sold you this as a T60p motherboard, ripped you off, it's the second-lowest mobo in the T60 chain.

[twoface262]

Whomever sold you this as a T60p motherboard, ripped you off, it's the second-lowest mobo in the T60 chain.

I second this, but I don't feel as if it's worth the extra 4 hours to get my money back.

[Backslashnl1]

Just curious...What made you decide it's not a T60p board? What is the board part number, or what are the first 7 characters of the system serial number now shown in the BIOS?

I agree, you should check this to be sure.

[TuuS]

If you have conclusive evidence that this is not as described, I'd write a very friendly and considerate letter to the seller. It's possible if you don't want to return it that he may offer you a partial refund to make up for the difference in the value of the parts, however if I understand you correctly this board only cost $40? if so, then it would be difficult to ask for much of a refund. That is a good price for ANY board that works.

Before this goes any further, I suggest you lookup the board itself to see what you have.

ps. As far as I know, device manager reads the version off the device firmware and installs the driver that matches. It may be possible to force the wrong driver to install, but I'd never do that so I can't really say. I can tell you that everytime I've changed boards the correct video chip is always displayed, or in some cases it will revert to standard vga driver which all cards support as a basic setting to get you up and running so you can install the correct drivers.

Another way to tell would be to boot up with a Linux liveCD.

[dozer]

I'm not sure that 'Device Manager' is actually telling about -hardware-. Not sure it's not either...

But, I -am- pretty darn sure that "System Information" IS looking at hardware, not driver-software.

Right-click MyComputer, then Manage, like you would for Device Manager; but instead click on System Info, then when that opens, click Components.

In the right-pane, look for the field named "PNP Device ID", and "Adaptor Type" or a similarly-named field as well.

To the best of my knowledge, this info is being read from the adaptor-chip itself. It's the way PCI works....each PCI device is required to store such info on the adaptor-board (or chip) itself, in order to meet the PCI standard.

If you want to be really sure, then do a web-search on what's listed in the "PNP Device ID" field, and see what hits you get. 10,000 hits on a 5250 fire-GL and you're stylin'....100,000 complaints about crappy Radeons and you're...not well pleased.

dozer

[RealBlackStuff]

How about giving us the motherboard P/N or FRU?
It can be found under the RAM modules (which are under the palmrest).

[TuuS]

I agree, why are you wasting so much time trying to guess what this software is telling you, just find the label and get your answer.