T61 upgrade CPU t7100 to t7800

[zemlin]

I installed the Middleton BIOS before I upgraded to the SSD. I've had zero issues - I know that will prevent me from getting temp or fan warnings - whatever it is that pops up at POST with Penryn chips.

[zemlin]

Dropped in the T9300 this evening. Boot up time was no different than with the T7500, but a script in Photoshop that I did to open, adjust, and resize 360 large JPG ran noticeably quicker with the new chip and completed the job in about 13 minutes compared to over 17 for the T7500. For a $60 upgrade, I'm satisfied.

[rsb]

Hi All - I have a T61 with T7300 @ 2.0 Ghz running on XP and HDD . Am planning to put T9300 after reading this post with the expectation that it will improve the performance .

Would appreciate if you guys can share you opinion before i place the order for T9300 on ebay . Its there around $70.00 . Looks that is high but not sure if i can find one $50.00 .

Also , do i need to upgrade BIOS ? Am hoping that i don't have to since am running HDD .

Thnx

Regards
RSB

[Cigarguy]

I've upgraded two T61 from T7500 to T9300. I did not notice that much difference in speed. I've found the upgrade from T7100 to T7500 was very noticeable but from T7500 to T9300 not that much. However the heat and power saving was noticeable and worth it. Beside occasionally using Photoshop, I'm not a CPU intensive user. I've got a couple of desktops for intensive usage.

In hindsight I'd still upgrade to the T9300. Yes you will have to flash the Middleton Bios. It's very simple and a proven track record that it works very well with the T61. I don't know why people are so paranoid about doing so.

Personally, in your shoes. I'd take the money and buy a SSD instead of a T9300. The perceived system speed increase and overall improved user experience can better be had by going the SSD route than CPU route. Of course I upgrade both CPU and from HDD to SSD. All my systems and laptops have SSD, I'd never go back to HDD for OS and program drive. From my experience, the speed and snappiness of my T61 are such after these upgrades that I sold my Sandy Bridge laptop.

[TuuS]

@Cigarguy, you noticed the difference going from the T7100 because it only had 2mb of cache, and an upgrade to the T7500 would get you 4mb of cache which is about the "sweet spot" for these systems, and you can get the 4mb of cache with a T7300 chip that are dirt cheap. I just dumped 20 of them on ebay, ended up with about $8 each after fees... so it's about the most cost effective upgrade if you have a T7100 or lesser cpu. The T9300 is a different ballpark, it not only is faster (2.5ghz), but has 6mb of cache. You'll need to do some heavy multitasking to see the real benefit from that much cache, it's like ram, an 8gb machine won't be faster then a 4gb machine until you've consumed all that ram, so your and in heavy use that is when the T9300 will shine. As for the T9300 chips, I get them in the $70-75 range pulled from complete corporate laptops that I cherry pick to fill orders for system boards and they get extensively tested. Others here have disagreed with this, but in my opinion not all CPUs are the same. These chips have over 400million transistors and Intel makes a tough little chip that don't often fail, but that doesn't mean the chips don't develop problems. I believe these chips are reliable because they are designed to deal with failure well, a few fried transistors won't kill a chip, but it's a fact that some chips develop hot spots, if one is near a thermal sensor it can force the chip to throttle down, and I'm sure you can imagine how some fried transistors can effect the chips performance. I would personally value a chip with a known history of never being overheated/abused or suffered a bad power surge at over twice an unknown feebay chip, but again, that's my personal opinion and if someone feels they only come in two flavors (good and bad), then that's fine with me and we can just agree to disagree.

@ rsb, it's not a definite fact that you'll need to used a modified bios to install a T9300, if your T61 was built in 2008, especially later in the year, it may have a penryn board. If you find the FRU number of the board I can tell you which you have. If it's a merom only board then the bios will simple suppress a thermal error warning when it doesn't recognize the Penryn cpu more advanced digital sensors. The bios won't give you full penryn support, but you should get all the performance advantages of the penryn chip. I agree an ssd would give you more noticeable performance, and if you want a less costly cpu upgrade I have some T7500 and T7700 chips available. I probably can't beat some of the ebay prices, but I do try to compete with them. so if you want a good chip that's been well tested let me know.

Another fact that is ironic about cpu chips. As I mentioned I just dumped 20 T7300 chips @8 each after having them listed at $9 each in the forum for months with no interest, then I even tried selling a couple @ $5, but still no takers, yet a recent ebay sale of a T7400 chip of similar performance (slightly faster clock, slower bus) sold for $130 plus shipping... and it wasn't a fluke, it had two bidders at that price and the day before one sold at $128. The ironic part is there was a T7600 which is a faster chip listed much cheaper. Strange market indeed.

[RealBlackStuff]

Regards
RSB

Hi there new member, and welcome to the forum.

Allow me to have second thoughts about your username rsb.
My own username RealBlackStuff usually gets abbreviated to RBS, which is WAY too darn close to your chosen RSB.
I would very much appreciate it, if you could contact our Forum Owner BillMorrow via PM (private message) and ask him kindly to change your moniker into a different, less-conflicting username.
But hopefully this small matter will not deter you from becoming an enthusiast forum member!
Your cooperation will be much appreciated.

[RealBlackStuff]

Another fact that is ironic about cpu chips. As I mentioned I just dumped 20 T7300 chips @8 each after having them listed at $9 each in the forum for months with no interest, then I even tried selling a couple @ $5, but still no takers, yet a recent ebay sale of a T7400 chip of similar performance (slightly faster clock, slower bus) sold for $130 plus shipping... and it wasn't a fluke, it had two bidders at that price and the day before one sold at $128. The ironic part is there was a T7600 which is a faster chip listed much cheaper. Strange market indeed.

I think you are comparing apples and oranges here!
The T7100/T7300/T7500 chips are used in the T61/R61 series.
The T7100 is the most common there (comparable in common-ness to T2400 in T60), T7300 a bit less and the T7500 even less than that.
The T7200/T7400/T7600 chips are used in the T60/R60 series and are considered 'powerhouses' there, being Core 2 Duo.
Most T60/R60 came standard with a Core Duo T2300/T2400/T2500 etc., hence the better improvement in performance after installing one of these C2D chips.

[TuuS]

I think you are comparing apples and oranges here!

I'm aware of that, but the point was that it's ironic that two chips that are very similar in performance can vary so widely in value, obviously because in one line of computers the chip is considered on the lower end of performance, but in the other the chip is on the higher end. It's a shame there is no way to adapt them to fit in other systems, but in the case of a T60, before I spent $130 on a T7400 chip, I'd put a T61 board with a cheap cpu and get better performance.