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.
