Thinkpads Forum

After years of T4x thinkpads, my T43 SXGA+ screen developed a problem (screen goes blank - seems like a inverter/gpu/backlight problem, since it will sometimes come back on after repeated Fn/F7's or power off/on).

My regular ebay corporate laptop refurbishing guy has some T61s, so I ordered one, since I want to use an SSD with a Thinkpad (and I see all the threads here, coll). He had an WXSGA+ with Intel Graphics, which seemed like a good combination for my mostly web surfing use.

SO, my question - what out of my supply of T4x parts and accessories will work with the T61 ? Does the power adapter use a different jack/plug ? Or is it just a matter of watts (which I think is less for the integrated graphics units) ??

I assume that the 533mhz DDR2 for the T43 won't work in the 667mhz DDR2 memory slots of the T61 ? Or is memory like CPUs in that the specs are conservative (and so the 533 might "overclock" to 667 )?

Thanks !

Media drives are about the only thing that will work.

RAM will work, but will slow the machine down.

AC adapters are not interchangeable.

Trackpoint cap .

HDD can be used in the Ultrabay if you have the right tray.

kstuart wrote:After years of T4x thinkpads, my T43 SXGA+ screen developed a problem (screen goes blank - seems like a inverter/gpu/backlight problem, since it will sometimes come back on after repeated Fn/F7's or power off/on).

My regular ebay corporate laptop refurbishing guy has some T61s, so I ordered one, since I want to use an SSD with a Thinkpad (and I see all the threads here, coll). He had an WXSGA+ with Intel Graphics, which seemed like a good combination for my mostly web surfing use.

SO, my question - what out of my supply of T4x parts and accessories will work with the T61 ? Does the power adapter use a different jack/plug ? Or is it just a matter of watts (which I think is less for the integrated graphics units) ??

I assume that the 533mhz DDR2 for the T43 won't work in the 667mhz DDR2 memory slots of the T61 ? Or is memory like CPUs in that the specs are conservative (and so the 533 might "overclock" to 667 )?

Thanks !

Downloading the two different HMM's and comparing the FRU's either visually or annoyingly by list will answer this question.
Lenovo is typical in the sense of maintaining a development lifecycle and utilizing previous architectures with slight or zero modifications.

The great part is, you probably already knew, but your existing OS build and settings can be migrated after inserting your existing drive and letting PnP upgrade the drivers. Booting your old disk with your existing newer disk as slave is great for this purpose before ghosting(replicating your legacy install to a new HDD).

AGoodSolution wrote: Downloading the two different HMM's and comparing the FRU's either visually or annoyingly by list will answer this question.
Lenovo is typical in the sense of maintaining a development lifecycle and utilizing previous architectures with slight or zero modifications.

The great part is, you probably already knew, but your existing OS build and settings can be migrated after inserting your existing drive and letting PnP upgrade the drivers. Booting your old disk with your existing newer disk as slave is great for this purpose before ghosting(replicating your legacy install to a new HDD).

Those are interesting proposals, thanks.

In this particular case, the T61 is a "CTO", so there is no information yet other than what the seller provided, but the above comments make it clear that very little of the T4x will be usable - oh well.

I'm actually going to use the T43 - since everything other than the screen works - as a server on my LAN using realVNC instead of a monitor.

And since the T61 has Vista rather than XP, I will be doing a fresh install (the biggest time savings will be copying my Firefox profile from the T43 so I don't have to reinstall all the extensions and their settings).

The tricky part will be migrating the OEM Vista install (no disks) provided by the refurbisher on the T61 HDD to a SSD, but still have it aligned properly on the SSD - but I think there are probably enough details here and on other Forums to get that right when I do it.

kstuart wrote:The tricky part will be migrating the OEM Vista install (no disks)

Make your own disk for free, legally: http://en.community.dell.com/support-fo ... river.aspx

pianowizard wrote: Make your own disk for free, legally: http://en.community.dell.com/support-fo ... river.aspx

I have my own Vista Premium DVD that is installed on a PC.

Are they now allowing the Thinkpad COA key codes to activate non-OEM Windows installs ?

If so, that would make things a lot easier.

kstuart wrote:Are they now allowing the Thinkpad COA key codes to activate non-OEM Windows installs ?

Your Thinkpad's Vista code probably won't work with your Vista Premium disk, but it will work with the disk that you generate following the link I provided. Just follow the instructions on that web site.