Thinkpads Forum

I have a T60 right now, upgraded from a t42.

Using with a ramdrive, surfing seems pretty fast.

Since I'm already close to best 4:3 laptop left to upgrade to, I'm wondering if it's really worth it.

My T60 has only 64mb Video ram, so an upgrade to the 5200 video 'chip' will be my last upgrade to the T60, but I'm wondering at that point, is there really much difference between a T60 and a T61.

Yes I understand that the T61 can accomodate and recognize more than 3gb of ram, but I don't think that I would really bother with upgrading to more than 3gb anyways for web surfing which is what I mostly do.

Is the ram speed any different between the two models? They're both 667mhz I think, and the only other difference is the FSB speed which is 667 vs 800.

Is there any noticeable difference in speed between the two? And is it something that will be noticed at all when I get an Intel X-25m SSD?

With a T61 you can get a higher-end CPU (up to 2.8GHz), and your SSD won't be limited to SATA-1 speeds, but rather SATA-2 (if you apply a special BIOS).

Once you are already upgrading your system board, you may as well consider upgrading the whole thing.

I forgot. I don't want the nvidia gpu.

Those 14.1" T61 4:3 boards also come with Intel graphics.
Intel GM965 :
42W7648 for Merom CPU
42W7872 same, but also Penryn capable

If you're just surfing, I say get the SSD and be done with it. I don't think SATA I or II matters much because it's the latency, not the throughput that makes the difference.

fefrie wrote:I forgot. I don't want the nvidia gpu.

The nVidia graphics is a very good system but the T61 models built before august 2008 could fail, which rules out the non-widescreen models, however there were some boards manufactured with the updated GPU that were used for service of leased equipment and warranty repairs, these were all exhausted from inventory years ago and now only refurbished boards can be purchased from ibm/lenovo, but there are a few of these rare boards available, brand new in sealed IBM boxes. I've listed them in the forum marketplace or you can PM me for details.

However, if you're just doing web surfing, the Intel graphic system on the T61 is a very good option too, the X3100 gpu offers 3d accelleration supported by some games too, and is much better then the T60 era integrated graphics in my opinion.

If you do prefer a T60 board, I have one with ATI fireGL 5250, it's a step up from the 5200 and was offered only on the 64bit core2 T60p systems.

Where do you get all this stuff, Tuus?

I use my laptop for web browsing, text and photoediting and som Matlab computing.

I needed a very quiet latop with a good keyboard and screen and after reading reviews on internet a bought a T400. An Intel SSD fixed the noise but the screen was compared to my old Sony WUXGA terrible so after some more reading on internet I sold the T400 and bought a T60p with an UXGA IPS screen. the screen was ok but the noise was terrible. After swaping the motherboard for an Intel graphics one (only about $10 on ebay), replacing the HDD with the Intel SSD, adding 2GB extra ram and, most inmportant, hacking the BIOS EC to set the fan to 1700rpm I now have an ultra quiet laptop with a good screen and enough computing power for my needs. For me the difference in speed to the T400 is not noticeable unless I do a bechmarktest.

Another benefit of the integrated graphics is that I now have a maximum battery life of almost seven hours with a new battery!

I also bought a couple of brand new Hydis UXGA LED screens when they were sold out on ebay for only $9 a piece so perhaps some time in the future I will also do this swap (my original screen still more than enough bright though).

lab wrote:After swaping the motherboard for an Intel graphics one (only about $10 on ebay), replacing the HDD with the Intel SSD, adding 2GB extra ram and, most inmportant, hacking the BIOS EC to set the fan to 1700rpm I now have an ultra quiet laptop with a good screen and enough computing power for my needs.

Ok That is very usefull. How did you hack the fan to run at 1700 rpm? I'm using tpfancontrol. I'll pm you too.

It is very simple to hack the EC part of a BIOS flash to set the rpm table at custom values. I have tried this both on the V5200 and the Intel integrated graphics motherboard and there has been no problem. 1700 rpm (2000 and 3000 rpm for setting 3-7 in tpfan) may be a bit low but for me this is about the limit when the fan becomes almost completely silent and the temperatures are still below 50 degrees Celsius under normal load.

How to apply the hack is described in the thread:

http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopi ... 9&t=101788

I do not garantee that it is completely safe or that it will work on your T60 but I have flashed with different values almost ten times now without any issues, I even tried the wrong checksum to see if it would flash but it wouldn't.