bought a t61

[gazeddy]

bought a t61 what nvidia gpu does it have from what i can gather the build date is july 08.
gpuz and cpuz are showing revision a2
but astra 32 shows a1h

after reading all the horror stories of these dieing im now a bit worried that my new laptop may last less than my old hp 6110

[RealBlackStuff]

Welcome to the forum.
What is the 7-character TYPE of your laptop (on a label on the bottom).
Looks like:
TYPE 7689-CTO S/N L3-12345 08/08
PRODUCTID 76894WU
We don't need the S/N (bold in above example) but please give us the rest.

[gazeddy]

its a 7665-12g and i know its the quadro 140 gpu i was wondering if it was a "safe" one or rubbish one

[RealBlackStuff]

What is your date code?
That's the 08/08 after the S/N in my previous post.

[gazeddy]

07/11

[RealBlackStuff]

That's very much a Danger-Zone machine.
Return it if you can.

[gazeddy]

not possible second hand sale and there is nothing wrong atm so nowhere to stand on unfit for purpose. is there anything i can do to extend its life. i dont do any graphics intensive work. will be replacing thermal grease with as5 and over volting fan if poss

[RealBlackStuff]

Best you can do is leave it on 24/7 and don't move it around.
It's the heat cycles from On/Off that kill the GPU.
Instead of overvolting the fan, you should undervolt the CPU and possibly the GPU, so that the machine runs as cool as possible.
AS5 is the least you can do, incl. cleaning the fan from dust and debris.
If you clean the fan with compressed air, put a toothpick or similar through the fan blades to prevent it from over-revving.

[gazeddy]

sadly on and off are gonna be its killer then im a mobile diagnostic technician and on and off and on the move are a fact of life

[gazeddy]

is there any way of telling if its had a new mobo

[RealBlackStuff]

Only if you know the truthful, complete history of that machine.
People falsify GPU chips with 'new' engravings and sell them as new, while they have only been 'baked' in the oven or treated with a heatgun to get them going for a few days or weeks.

Depending on what you are diagnosing, you'd be better off with a Panasonic Toughbook.
Ask your employer for a proper machine!

[gazeddy]

my employer is a right tight [censored] (its me). all i know is its from an office environment originally

[miro_gt]

and here's what I think of this:

- the laptop is still working after ~5 years of life;
- I dont think nVidia fixed any chips from this series, so IMO all are affected despite of the date;
- the 140m overclocks as crazy, feel free to try it. Mine does 50% on both core and memory without any problems (with Rivatuner). Been like that for ~5 years as well;
- you should use TPFanControl and set level of 64 when temps reach 65 deg C. This will spin the fan to the max ~4600rpm, otherwise not achievable by the BIOS. So overall your CPU/GPU temps will not surpass the 75-ish deg C.
- not on/off cycles will kill your gpu, but rather the range of temps within a cycle (i.e. 100 cycles of 25 to 75 deg C may be fine but one from 25 to 100 will finish it);
- you should undervolt your CPU using ThrottleStop and flash the middletons BIOS. This will also enable you to: overclock the CPU by one multiplier (i.e. 200MHz more); use wireless card of your choice; use Penryn CPU without having to press ESC at srartup due to the thermal error popping up; use SATA2 speeds on the primary slot (highly recommended if you're going to use SSD instead of HDD).

note this is my opinion only, as many would disagree. However I enjoy gaming on my nVidia T61 on daily basis, and haven't had any problems with it.

good luck.

P.S. you can also get a docking station with external video card in it for more graphics performance, or in case something happens with the laptops GPU.

[gazeddy]

right ive as5d it and lubed the fan it was grumbling but now im getting fan error on boot so the fan is toast it works but slowly

middleton bios will be applied later on when i get rid of kids

edit:fan error gone now and cant do middleton bios till friday.

can i continue after 1802 error or will the system not boot

[ajkula66]

"1802 error" will prevent the machine from booting.

[RealBlackStuff]

@miro_gt:
you must have realized by now that you are the ONLY person on this forum who has ever defended an nVidia chip from before 08/08.
And the way it's looking so far, you will remain the ONLY one!
Count yourself lucky that you are the owner of the exception to the rule!

[gazeddy]

right well will definitely be using middleton bios got the ag card not agn. fan is virtually silent now too set at 7 on tpfancontrol

[cadillacmike68]

gazeddy, If your machine dies (and we hope it does not) and you get another, please insist on getting the type & model, e.g. 8898-AGN AND the date, so you can look it up on Lenovo support. You should also insist on a screen photo of the BIOS showing the System Serial Number (the first 7 positions are the type & model and should match they type / model on the bottom for it to be an original board).

If in doubt, post a question here. Everyone's here to help. Again best of luck with it.

[gazeddy]

next question is a normal screen motherboard a swap for widescreen.

and is 8898 6dg an intel machine

ive also got a sick acer aspire 7730. which also seems to have a socket 478 processor all of which are higher numbered than the t7300. can i use a chip higher than a t9300 in my t61 as chances are its a t9500 i know its donating its ram of which it has 4gb

[Neil]

No...but there are wide screen models with Intel GPU, so a board from one of them would fit.

[gazeddy]

ive also got a sick acer aspire 7730. which also seems to have a socket 478 processor all of which are higher numbered than the t7300. can i use a chip higher than a t9300 in my t61 as chances are its a t9500 i know its donating its ram of which it has 4gb and its n class wifi card

as for my gpu im gonna baby it and be prepared for the worst

[miro_gt]

yes you can use T9500. You can also use X9000 but that one heats quite a lot and is not widely recommended, especially with nVidia laptops.

@miro_gt:
you must have realized by now that you are the ONLY person on this forum who has ever defended an nVidia chip from before 08/08.
And the way it's looking so far, you will remain the ONLY one!
Count yourself lucky that you are the owner of the exception to the rule!

I'm not defending anything, just saying how to deal with those chips knowing what may happen, that's all.

It's not hard to figure out that not letting too much temperature change will lead to not too much expansion/contraction difference of the material in question inside the chip, thus hopefully prolong its life. It's been working fine for me for years.

Had I left it as it was from the beginning (i.e. reaching 87 deg C and up), I bet the laptop would have been gone by now.

I still LOL at people using their GPUs at 95 deg C, no matter the make or model...

I'd like to see how a T61p would do when properly setup (undervolted penryn CPU, tpfancontrol at max, ... while overclocked GPU), as those heat up much more than the 140m.

[gazeddy]

another thing ive heard the middleton bios means id lose my trusted chip use is this true and what effect will it actually have

[miro_gt]

^ no you wont.

consider middletons bios as "improved lenovo bios".

[gazeddy]

right well it seems i gotta wait for new battery to come for middleton upgrade

[gazeddy]

new battery is here

only getting wifi memory and hdd upgrage processor in acer is a t5800 and unless the t5800 is better than the t7300 im not touching it

middleton bios is in
got a bit worried when it hung on backup file creation but i left it alone and it finished offering a reboot at the end of the job

[RealBlackStuff]

The T7300 has 4MB L2-cache, the T5800 has only 2MB. Both run at the same speed (2.0GHz).
Stick with your T7300.