upgrade time from T60

[richyboypalm]

Hi,

I'm looking for some advice, I have a very nice clean IBM T60, T7600 2.3GHz Processor, 3GB RAM, 128GB SSD, x1400 Graphics, 1400x1050 Screen, Bluetooth, Intel N wireless, Finger print reader, DVD-RW, WWLAN (3G) ... ect ect,

I wish to get a bit more out of the system without spending loads in one go, the last upgrades I done was changing the motherboard from a x1300 to the x1400 and the CPU from a T7200 to the T7600 and it gave me a bit more, so I went for the SSD drive and got alot more speed.

I am also looking for adding a Bluray Drive.

SO just for now ... Now my question is, can I swap the motherboard for a IBM T61? as I believe that I am at my maximum processor speed and maximum usable RAM.

If not, what are my other options for a solid system like the IBM T60?

I also wish to get more battery life, so another question is any chance someone has changed the screen for a LED back lit one?

Thanks

[Neil]

Is this a 14" or 15" T60 you're working with?

[richyboypalm]

Its a 15" non wide screen, thanks

[Neil]

Yeah, it looks like you've taken the T60 about as far as it will go. Search the forum for Frankenpad topics. Lots of folks have put 14" T61 motherboards in 15" T60 chassis to get what they feel is the ultimate ThinkPad. Here are a couple of examples (but there are plenty more):

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=101626
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=104502

[richyboypalm]

I'll take a good look, as its sounds like the next step,
What about the Blu-Ray option?
Thanks

[Neil]

I have no experience with Blu-ray, but there is a Serial Ultrabay Slim Blu-ray drive that was available on the T400/500 series, but I don't think they will work in a T60 chassis. Someone else will have to confirm or deny that.

[richyboypalm]

Hi, I've had a good look at the Frankenpad option, it really looks the part but its alot of messing about, So I want to upgrade to a new laptop, do I go with the T61 or the T400?

I'm looking for a longer battery life, so that pushes me to the T400 as I'm sure it had the LED screen (please correct me if I'm wrong) also I think I can get a Blu-Ray drive for it.

But I know my T60 and it's a great machine so I'm guessing the T61 has the same build quality, So I'm looking for some advice on the T400 and T61, ->
1. What graphics options do I have on them both ?
2. What FSB do they run or what processors can I put in them ?
3. Do I have a RAM limit ?
4. Screen type LCD, LED ?
5. Optic drive options ?
6, Other things I should know ?
Thanks

[RealBlackStuff]

Going the Frankenpad way, apart from having to take 2 machines completely apart, the modification of the T60 chassis takes no more than 30 minutes if you don't need a modem in your new 'Frankie'.
You can hardly call that messing.
"In and out" you could easily do the lot in less than an afternoon or an evening.

[ZaZ]

I am also looking for adding a Bluray Drive.

There were no 9.5mm PATA Blu-ray drives offered. The only possible way it might work would be buy a 4:3 R61, which were never offered in the US, swap in the IPS and add the Blu-ray drive from the R61. I don't think anyone around here has done it. If you did, you'd have a very unique ThinkPad. Blu-ray playback probably wouldn't be that great anyway. None of the GPUs offered on the T60 can help offload decoding HD video. All the decoding would fall the the CPU. I did have a R60 with a Blu-ray/T7400 and during playback the CPU ran between 95-100%. It worked better in XP than Vista. The 140m offered in the R61 could help decode the video, but I believe the board offered on the 4:3 R61 used the Intel GPU.

[pianowizard]

I did have a R60 with a Blu-ray/T7400 and during playback the CPU ran between 95-100%. It worked better in XP than Vista.

What Blu-ray playing software did you use? I am having a hard time finding a free program that plays Blu-ray discs. The best I have found so far is DAPlayer but it can play only a few of my discs.

[ZaZ]

I was using PowerDVD. As far as I know there's no free Blu-ray software.

[richyboypalm]

Hi, Back again, I have been looking at a few T61's, I now got to thinking, am I going to get much more power out of a T61?

What's the maximum processor the T61 can take?
What is the maximum RAM the T61 can take?
What are my graphics options for the T61?
Has my current T60 have SATA II and if not will I notice the SATA II on the T61?

Thanks

[RealBlackStuff]

Instead of ASKing all these questions, why don't you READ for a change?
All this has been answered many times over in this forum...

[richyboypalm]

I have just been doing that, only question I cant answer is about the SATA on the T60

[ScottyBoy]

Hi, Back again, I have been looking at a few T61's, I now got to thinking, am I going to get much more power out of a T61?

What's the maximum processor the T61 can take?
What is the maximum RAM the T61 can take?
What are my graphics options for the T61?
Has my current T60 have SATA II and if not will I notice the SATA II on the T61?

Thanks

(1) I tend to stick to T9300 or T9500 CPUs as the max for installing into my T61 and R61 TPs but there are higher capacity CPUs you can install but the trade off would be the additional power draw for them along with heat support.
(2) 8GB of RAM via 2x4GB DDR2 DIMMs, PC2-5300 or PC2-6400.
(3) Intel X3100 GPU or nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M - The Intel X3100 is the best one to consider due to the known faults with the nVIDIA GPU, as it's tricky to track down a T61 4:3 motherboard that doesn't have the nVIDIA GPU fault.
(4) Your T60 has SATA I (SATA-150) and the T61 has SATA II (SATA-300) via the installation of the Middleton 3rd Party BIOS; TBH I've only really noticed the difference in terms of performance, via SSDs, when running virtual guests on my systems.

I hope that's some help and that other members will post comments as well.

[richyboypalm]

Hi, Thanks for all your help,

I was looking at a T61 with the nVidia FX570m but should I stay clear of it?

Do you have any idea on the gain I would get from the X3100 from my current X1400?
Also would I notice the differences from a T7600 to the T9600?
I am currently running a 128GB SSD Drive, so I hope i would notice the differences from the SATA to SATA II.
And the extra RAM would be great, as I would look at turning my swap file off.

My other option is to wait a little longer and save for a T500 with a T9600 and the ATI 3650. Or is that another graphics chip to stay away from?

[ScottyBoy]

Hi, Thanks for all your help,

I was looking at a T61 with the nVidia FX570m but should I stay clear of it?

Do you have any idea on the gain I would get from the X3100 from my current X1400?
Also would I notice the differences from a T7600 to the T9600?
I am currently running a 128GB SSD Drive, so I hope i would notice the differences from the SATA to SATA II.
And the extra RAM would be great, as I would look at turning my swap file off.

My other option is to wait a little longer and save for a T500 with a T9600 and the ATI 3650. Or is that another graphics chip to stay away from?

(1) T61 with nVidia FX570m: I would get the seller to confirm the date of manufacturing for the TP via the labels on the bottom of the case (the date is just after the end of the serial number) as accordingly the 'safe' working NVIDIA GPUs were from 08/08 from what I can remember (I personally stick with motherboards with X3100 GPUs, as they are easier to source).
(2) X3100 vs X1400: I've never truly compared the two of them together but if you check online you should find review guides out there to give yourself an idea on the performance of them.
(3) T7600 vs T9600: The T9600 would run cooler, has larger cache (helps greatly for background processes) and has a high performance in comparison to the T7600 IMHO but again you can see the differences online via CPU stats/comparison websites.
(4) SATA-150 vs SATA-300: As previously mentioned from an SSD POV you will see a bump in performance, as the I/O speed will increase due to the SATA-300 speeds.
(5) Virtual Memory: I personally wouldn't switch it off altogether but consider hard setting a small amount on your SSD, to ensure that any apps that need it have access to it.
(6) T500: I've not used that specific model of TP combination before, so it would be something you would have to look into further yourself - at the end of the day it really comes down to what you need BUT also what you can actually afford as well.

If I were you I'd sit down, do the maths first and then start to look at the options out there - bear in mind that if you go down the Frankenpad/T61 route that DDR2 memory is quite expensive in comparison to the DDR3 memory (used by the T500) which is quite cheap.

[Backslashnl1]

(3) Intel X3100 GPU or nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M - The Intel X3100 is the best one to consider due to the known faults with the nVIDIA GPU, as it's tricky to track down a T61 4:3 motherboard that doesn't have the nVIDIA GPU fault.

Currently I have a T61 board with Intel X3100 for sale in the marketplace. It's a perfect board for a FrankenPad build. PM me if you're interested.

[TuuS]

as it's tricky to track down a T61 4:3 motherboard that doesn't have the nVIDIA GPU fault.

There were actually NO 4:3 aspect T61 models made with the updated nVidia GPU, or more accurately after searching for well over a year including databases of over 100,000 corporate units, and hundreds of liquidation companies, there has been not a single one found build after July 2008, or have I even found anyone who has claimed to have ever seen one. I'd love to be proved wrong, but I'm pretty sure the last were built in april and may, with a few special orders in june, and so far I've found only one single july 2008 unit, however I can get an EXTREMELY rare genuine Lenovo warranty board that has a brand new nVidia GPU installed on it. This is the Holy Grail of frankNpadding. You can buy these boards from Lenovo for about $700, but most don't have a new GPU, which makes this board pretty much priceless. This specific board is the best documented warranty board I've ever seen, it was installed by lenovo in June 2012, used only long enough to test it and removed. I have photos of the board, the gpu, the laptop, the warranty box and papers, as well as the email conversations back n forth with Lenovo support both before and after the installation. I'm still "on the fence" about selling it. I have a similar board in my main frankNpad already, so I don't really need it, but I was thinking of swapping it into my backup frankNpad that currently has Intel graphics.

I also have a good well tested nVidia board that I'd let go much cheaper. The issues with the nVidia gpu are something you should seriously consider when building one of these, if you want a board with a new GPU, then you can't really concern yourself with the bottom line, if you knew how much money I've invested into mine, between buying a mint T60p, a NOS t61p board, 8gb ram, X9000 cpu, SSD, etc... I could have had a couple very nice brand new thinkpads, but the older boards with nVidia don't fail as often as the rumors suggest, as long as you don't buy form many of the ebay sellers that reflow/bake failed boards and sell them, fully knowing they won't last for more then a few weeks, perhaps months if they are lucky, but a good original board that has never failed may never fail. After over 5 years of use, the vast majority, well over 99% (according to what I've been able to determine) haven't failed.

Also a word of caution to anyone searching for a T61 board with an "new" gpu installed. There are factories in China and southeast asia that are selling such boards that have fake GPU chips installed. These chips are sourced from old slavaged laptops and the chips are removed, the date codes and logos are polished off and new ones etched on. I've even seen some that had the numbers painted on instead of etched. I even had one laptop send to me to figure out why the "brand new" board the owner installed failed after less then six months. When I removed the heatsink and cleaned off the thermal paste, I could see the heat melted the paint and transferred it to the heatsink... lol I had to get a photograph of this, not to mention that he was scammed into believing it was a brand new board, there haven't been any "new" boards for these since 2009, so it's highly unlikely anyone would have one for sale, and the fact that this fake chip was dated 2011 was proof the board wasn't "new" as claimed. This poor buyer was out of luck as it was far beyond the time limit to open a dispute, plus the seller was no longer active on ebay or responding to messages. Despite ebays claims of buyer protection, it really is Caveat Emptor, unless you're buying something you can easily confirm is legit by visual examination. If anyone does buy an nVidia board from ebay, my recommendation is to use this test procedure that I use on all nVidia boards I get. I use Arctic Silver #5 thermal paste with a good heatsink/fan assembly and run the board 24/7 for a full 7 days while temps are monitored. Included in this are a minimum of 4 hours of GPU stress testing with temps carefully monitored. Any alarming temps during testing need to be investigated imediately, as a good GPU with a good cooling system should be steady when stressed with only a small gradual fluctuation in temps. I've found that most of the reflowed or baked boards will either start to show graphic artifacts, temp spikes, or complete failure within the first 15mins of stress test. Running the test for a full 4hours isn't really necessary, but I like to be 100% certain a chip is good so some going overboard with the testing never hurts. I'd also recommend isntalling thinkpad fan control and running the fan on manual mode, highest speed during the test, this way you won't can any variation due to the fan speed changes, and your test results will be more standardized.

One interesting story I like to warn others about is one specific ebay seller that sells a lot of salvaged thinkpads. I had purchased a few damaged units from him in the past, and despite his "broken english", I was always happy with what I purchased, so when he listed two 4:3 nVidia units that had physical damage, which seemed a credible reason for them to be pulled from service other then failed gpu. During testing both failed in the first 15mins, one failed before I could get the test to load. I bought them very cheap and "as-is" so I wasn't going to make a big stink about it, but I did try to write to him and tell him that neither was usable and ask if he had any more he could send me, even if I had to pay for them, but I found that I was blocked from contacting him for no apparent reason. Obviously he well knew they were bad and didn't want to deal with anyone who bought them. This seller continues to change IDs and open new accounts, but I have a list of some of his current/past accounts somewhere... if I can find them.

As for Intel graphics, there are two different Intel boards, one with support for Merom CPU only, and one (very rare) board with Merom and Penryn support (42w7872), that my good friend Backslashnl1 is selling. The former are readily available and can indeed run a Penryn cpu if using a modified bios, but I'd recommend the board with native Penryn support if one is available and you plan on using a Penryn CPU. The modified bios will suppress a thermal sensor warning during boot when the Merom board doesn't recognize the Penryn's digital thermal sensor. The bios won't give you full Penryn support, but it will allow you to use it without full benefit of the redundant thermal sensors. It's unclear exactly what the drawbacks of this are, but it's safe to assume there are some, but it's also safe to assume that this combination is safe and at least as thermally efficient as a merom chip on a merom board, but personal observation suggests there is little if any downside to this combination.

Bottom line is, if you can get a penryn board, cough up the extra $$$ and get it, if not, don't fret over it just install the middleton bios and happy frankNpadding.

ps. sorry for being "long-winded", but it's hard to comment on this subject with less then a few thousand words, and i did try to be brief and succinct.

[ScottyBoy]

@ TuuS - Apologies for the delay in replying but bl00dy 'ell, blown away with the information you've provided...of course the devil's in the details, so very handy information to have out there for members to refer to.

[richyboypalm]

Hi, Thanks for all the advice people, I found a buyer selling a new, old stock never used T400 for £160, So I jumped at it.
It has the 160GB HDD, 2GB RAM, P8700 Processor, the Intel 4500MHD Graphics (not great), webcam, intel 5100 Wireless, Bluetooth, 4 cell battery (no charge cycles), no finger print reader, but I must be able to upgrade this. I think it has the LCD screen not the LED I wanted (I'm not sure if I can upgrade this), not optical drive.

First thing I done was the upgrade the RAM from 2GB to 8GB costing only £30 from Crucial, next was to add a DVD burner, that was found on eBay for only £15.00 inc postage, and to tell the truth I want a BluRay burner, but having trouble finding one.
I have just ordered a Intel WiMAX/WiFi Link 5350 and a Ericsson F3507g Mobile Broadband Module with GPS. I use to the the 3G on my T60 alot, and the WIFI keeps stalling on this T400 when watching a film. I dropped in my SSD drive too. It is showing me a windows rating of :

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8700 @ 2.53GHz : 6.2
Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB : 6.2
Graphics Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family : 4.1
Gaming graphics 1695 MB Total available graphics memory : 3.4
Primary hard disk 76GB Free (119GB Total) : 7.8

I would also like to upgrade the processor to the T9900 but trying to find one cheaper then that laptop is not easy!